i think you should definitely check out Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand! Written around the same time as the Secret History (so not a case of influence more of simultaneous invention), it's about university life and cthonic greek cults and it's absolutely excellent!
omg i got given a copy of this for christmas and it’s looking at me from my shelf right now! seems like i need to read right away. it’s interesting that this, the secret history and possession (my darling) were released within a couple of years of each other. i wonder what was in the water just then
I would love to hear what you think about it! Elizabeth Hand is one of my favourite authors (working on another one of her novels for my PhD) and Waking the Moon was the first thing I ever read of hers so it's got a special place in my heart
If you’re looking for a dark academia feeling in a non-academic setting, I really recommend A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock (2024)! It has a very Frankenstein-y mad scientist plotline, is very queer, and takes place in a secluded Victorian greenhouse!
“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier should absolutely be on the YA list.
“A Question of Upbringing” by Anthony Powell, by I’d suggest the whole of “A Dance To The Music of Time” since it’s sort of all about how the shit that happens in school plays out through life.
John LeCarre knew some dark academia- “A Murder of Quality” is exactly in there, but there are dark academia elements aplenty in “The Honourable Schoolboy” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”.
I haven’t read any of these and I’m so excited to add them to the tbr. I love how this comment thread has met all of my expectations and made me so excited to read so many things
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman is another you could add to your list. I don’t remember much about it but it’s a thriller set in a girls’ school and the narrator is a female Latin teacher. I adore Possession (could be time for another re-read) and The Children’s Book. I also enjoyed Babel very much - as you might expect from someone who studied modern languages at Oxford and became a translator as their second career - even though it is very (too?) obvious that the four main characters were constructed to embody traits that allowed Kuang to set up the core conflicts. I encouraged all the translators I knew to read it too , in the hope that it would generate some really interesting discussion of our profession, but somehow that never happened. Perhaps other people were not as comfortable with the fantasy aspect of the novel as I was.
I’m adding so many cool books to my tbr because of the comments of this post and I feel like I’m in for a very long and busy few weeks, this is so exciting. It’s annoying to me that while so many people really liked Babel, it didn’t go quite as stratospheric as I hoped it would. I’ve got no objection to the characters being archetypes in some ways - I think that’s a fair thing to say about a lot of beloved books and I’ll take an archetype written well over a poorly written character any day. If there’s a book I’d love to read a well-written heartbreaking 100k word fanfiction of it’s Babel
Putting a vote in for Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Villette’: very dark, very gothic, very upsetting, terrified of/fascinated by Catholicism, set largely in a girls’ school, and mad with grief.
I loved this list! Thank you 🙂 and also, curses for adding to my tbr pile 😂 my addition is Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. I think you would really enjoy it. It's based on the folk/fairy tale, and it made me extremely nostalgic for being in college in the time before email and texting, and the intensity of reading Marlowe and debating how to stage him, and having a huge crush on all the lecturers because of the world of secret knowledge they seem to inhabit
omg i’m not meant to be spending money on books at all at the moment but this sounds perfect i’m obsessed with tam lin. my dad’s a big fairport convention fan so i knew the song so well when i was so little, i’ve loved it forever
Let me know if you do read it! I read it in my 30s and loved it, but I know if I'd come across it as a teenager I would have been absolutely obsessed, and desperate for my college experience to be as glamorous and emotionally febrile
Have you read Delphi by Clare Pollard? I think an argument could be made for it to be on this list (Classics professor relating her life to various forms of prophecy as she tries to write about the Oracle of Delphi during 2020 lockdowns and everything starts falling apart around her).
I just briefly lamented my mostly negative experience with dark academia in a reading round-up post, but Pollard’s Delphi came up in another post I’m writing and I had a brain blast!!
Great list! In the young adult section the Drowned Gods series by Pascal Lacelle is another great example of dark academia. There are two in the series. Curious Tides and Stranger Skies.
I didnt read the book but i think Umberto Eco’s Foucoult Pendulum would be an great dark academia recomendation and i never see it. Its about 3 friends that work for a publishers house and are tired of reading pseudo teories and codes (like the da vinci code) and pseudo secret societies, so they decided for fun to create a really elaborate conspiracy for fun. The thing is everyone starts beliving in it. Its not in an academic setting but the comversations are around codycology and history and philosophy, and the author is an renoun historian. Its up in my tbr
Odd that you should write that as I cam here to suggest The Name Of The Rose for the proto-Dark-Academia catgory. Perhaps it's more "Dark Ecclesia", if that's a thing?
This was a great article! I found a lot of books I want to read now. When it comes to dark academia one book I feel fits the mark perfectly but is never mentioned is Hesse’s Demian. Not only is it incredible (it fundamentally changed my life when I read it in middle school) but it has everything, the dark aesthetic, the academic setting, the whole book is centred around Sinclair’s pursuit of philosophy and religion. I definitely think more people should give it a chance.
I also agree that The Latinist should have got more hype, it was a really engrossing read. I would also add O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker onto this (Scottish boarding school in 1940s). Muriel Sparks The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is another good Scottish boarding school book. And it might be a reach but I feel like Sallly Rooney’s Normal People has maybe not dark but at least a sad academia vibe.
Thanks for this list! I added so many good ones to my TBR :)
ooh i 100% agree with you about the prime of miss jean brodie, and i should try rereading normal people through this lens - i hadn’t had that thought at all before but it’s such an interesting prompt to think about
i think you should definitely check out Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand! Written around the same time as the Secret History (so not a case of influence more of simultaneous invention), it's about university life and cthonic greek cults and it's absolutely excellent!
omg i got given a copy of this for christmas and it’s looking at me from my shelf right now! seems like i need to read right away. it’s interesting that this, the secret history and possession (my darling) were released within a couple of years of each other. i wonder what was in the water just then
I would love to hear what you think about it! Elizabeth Hand is one of my favourite authors (working on another one of her novels for my PhD) and Waking the Moon was the first thing I ever read of hers so it's got a special place in my heart
If you’re looking for a dark academia feeling in a non-academic setting, I really recommend A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock (2024)! It has a very Frankenstein-y mad scientist plotline, is very queer, and takes place in a secluded Victorian greenhouse!
That sounds like exactly what I’m after! I’ve been feeling really botanical the last few weeks
in this comments section saving the book recs ✍🏻✍🏻✍🏻✍🏻
you and me both my friend
“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier should absolutely be on the YA list.
“A Question of Upbringing” by Anthony Powell, by I’d suggest the whole of “A Dance To The Music of Time” since it’s sort of all about how the shit that happens in school plays out through life.
John LeCarre knew some dark academia- “A Murder of Quality” is exactly in there, but there are dark academia elements aplenty in “The Honourable Schoolboy” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”.
The Chocolate War was what made me want to go to private school as a teenager.
I haven’t read any of these and I’m so excited to add them to the tbr. I love how this comment thread has met all of my expectations and made me so excited to read so many things
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman is another you could add to your list. I don’t remember much about it but it’s a thriller set in a girls’ school and the narrator is a female Latin teacher. I adore Possession (could be time for another re-read) and The Children’s Book. I also enjoyed Babel very much - as you might expect from someone who studied modern languages at Oxford and became a translator as their second career - even though it is very (too?) obvious that the four main characters were constructed to embody traits that allowed Kuang to set up the core conflicts. I encouraged all the translators I knew to read it too , in the hope that it would generate some really interesting discussion of our profession, but somehow that never happened. Perhaps other people were not as comfortable with the fantasy aspect of the novel as I was.
I’m adding so many cool books to my tbr because of the comments of this post and I feel like I’m in for a very long and busy few weeks, this is so exciting. It’s annoying to me that while so many people really liked Babel, it didn’t go quite as stratospheric as I hoped it would. I’ve got no objection to the characters being archetypes in some ways - I think that’s a fair thing to say about a lot of beloved books and I’ll take an archetype written well over a poorly written character any day. If there’s a book I’d love to read a well-written heartbreaking 100k word fanfiction of it’s Babel
Ohh, there’s an idea …
Putting a vote in for Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Villette’: very dark, very gothic, very upsetting, terrified of/fascinated by Catholicism, set largely in a girls’ school, and mad with grief.
ooooooh i haven’t read that in years and I’m really feeling a reread through this lens now
Thank you for the list Emily Spinach 🙏🏻 I’m gonna add some to my read list :)
I would add -
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108520184-the-last-tale-of-the-flower-bride
oooh i’ve never heard of that one but it’s going on the tbr, it looks so lush and gorgeous
It really is a sumptuous novel!
I loved this list! Thank you 🙂 and also, curses for adding to my tbr pile 😂 my addition is Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. I think you would really enjoy it. It's based on the folk/fairy tale, and it made me extremely nostalgic for being in college in the time before email and texting, and the intensity of reading Marlowe and debating how to stage him, and having a huge crush on all the lecturers because of the world of secret knowledge they seem to inhabit
omg i’m not meant to be spending money on books at all at the moment but this sounds perfect i’m obsessed with tam lin. my dad’s a big fairport convention fan so i knew the song so well when i was so little, i’ve loved it forever
Let me know if you do read it! I read it in my 30s and loved it, but I know if I'd come across it as a teenager I would have been absolutely obsessed, and desperate for my college experience to be as glamorous and emotionally febrile
Have you read Delphi by Clare Pollard? I think an argument could be made for it to be on this list (Classics professor relating her life to various forms of prophecy as she tries to write about the Oracle of Delphi during 2020 lockdowns and everything starts falling apart around her).
I just briefly lamented my mostly negative experience with dark academia in a reading round-up post, but Pollard’s Delphi came up in another post I’m writing and I had a brain blast!!
I’ve never heard of that but it sounds fascinating!
Yesssss love this list! You might be interested in The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova! It’s dark academia with Dracula
omg i LOVED that book but i haven’t read or thought about it in years
The only justice possible is for the Great Sufferer to have all his children around his hearth once again.
Great list! In the young adult section the Drowned Gods series by Pascal Lacelle is another great example of dark academia. There are two in the series. Curious Tides and Stranger Skies.
I didnt read the book but i think Umberto Eco’s Foucoult Pendulum would be an great dark academia recomendation and i never see it. Its about 3 friends that work for a publishers house and are tired of reading pseudo teories and codes (like the da vinci code) and pseudo secret societies, so they decided for fun to create a really elaborate conspiracy for fun. The thing is everyone starts beliving in it. Its not in an academic setting but the comversations are around codycology and history and philosophy, and the author is an renoun historian. Its up in my tbr
Odd that you should write that as I cam here to suggest The Name Of The Rose for the proto-Dark-Academia catgory. Perhaps it's more "Dark Ecclesia", if that's a thing?
Would definitely add Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” to either speculative or YA dark academia, particularly the first book of the trilogy.
This was a great article! I found a lot of books I want to read now. When it comes to dark academia one book I feel fits the mark perfectly but is never mentioned is Hesse’s Demian. Not only is it incredible (it fundamentally changed my life when I read it in middle school) but it has everything, the dark aesthetic, the academic setting, the whole book is centred around Sinclair’s pursuit of philosophy and religion. I definitely think more people should give it a chance.
thank you so much for the recommendation, i’ve heard of that book but never known what it’s about! it sounds like something i should absolutely read
I also agree that The Latinist should have got more hype, it was a really engrossing read. I would also add O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker onto this (Scottish boarding school in 1940s). Muriel Sparks The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is another good Scottish boarding school book. And it might be a reach but I feel like Sallly Rooney’s Normal People has maybe not dark but at least a sad academia vibe.
Thanks for this list! I added so many good ones to my TBR :)
ooh i 100% agree with you about the prime of miss jean brodie, and i should try rereading normal people through this lens - i hadn’t had that thought at all before but it’s such an interesting prompt to think about