She gleams with fire encircled, but within

Bluer than lapis show a maiden’s eye

And dainty brow, a visage manifest.

- Moralia, Plutarch of Chaeronea

Eyes throughout history have gazed up at the moon and found a face staring back at them in the shadows. Some see a man, some a woman, and others a white rabbit. We now understand this phenomenon as lunar pareidolia: a face created by the interaction of light and shadow across the moon’s surface, shaped by volcanic plains and impact craters formed over millennia.

The pareidolic experience can be traced back to the Babylonians, who developed a rich tradition based on intricate systems of astrology and celestial observation. A fragment of a tablet known as VAT 7851 depicts a man armed with a curved blade, engaged in combat with a lion-like figure on the face of the moon. Based on his distinctive weapon, Beaulieu (1999) identifies the figure to be Marduk, the patron deity of Babylon, creator of the celestial bodies and slayer of dragons. The Babylonians associated lions with chaos. Due to their sophisticated astrological systems and their belief in the moon as an omen, this image may have been considered an ill omen by those who beheld it. It may have signified chaos through the cosmic struggle between Marduk and the lion, mirrored on earth.

The question of the moon’s face later reached the Greek scholars. Plutarch of Chaeronea, in his essay On the Face in the Moon (De facie in orbe lunae), blends early science and philosophy to examine not only the origins of the moon’s face but also its purpose as a celestial body and potential site of habitation. Plutarch rejects the Stoic view that the moon is a smouldering mass of fire and dust, an ethereal body composed of the four earthly elements, whose markings are nothing more than smoke. He instead proposes that the moon is a world much like the earth, with mountains, valleys, and vast oceans visible from a great distance. He notes that the face many percieve on the moon is evidence of these structures, and should not be dismissed as a flaw visible only to those with poor eyesight.

Coones (1983) summarises his argument:

“The moon’s surface is interrupted by gulfs and chasms, which do not have to be so very large in order to cast long shadows and send a discontinuous reflection on the earth; it is clear that most of the sunlight which the moon receives is scattered, and its light and heat lost”

Without access to modern scientific instruments Plutarch arrived at a theory that is shockingly close to the contemporary understanding of the moon. It would take nearly two millennia for his ideas to be confirmed, and they were rarely revisited in the intervening centuries.

While philosophers debated the nature of the moon, others looked up in awe and created their own stories to understand the shadows on its surface. Norse mythology has an interesting explanation for these shadows, in this tradition the moon god Máni steals two children, Bil and Hjúki, from their parents and they gather water from a well. These children then follow Mani in the heavens. Bil and Hjúki may also represent the waxing and waning phases of the moon. This is suggested in their names, Hjúki which is derived from the norse word jakka, meaning to increase or assemble, would represent the waxing phase. The waning moon would be represented by Bil, whose name is derived from the word Bila meaning to break up or dissolve (Cassidy, 1951). This myth is also believed to be the basis of the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill.

The introduction of Christianity to Europe reshaped these myths as ancient local traditions and biblical punishment were blended together to create new stories. Throughout Germany and Holland, the figure on the moon was believed to be a man who had been exiled as punishment for gathering sticks on the sabbath. Local variations of this myth change the man to a woman who was punished for making butter on the sabbath. Evidence of this myth reaching 14th-Century England is present as a poem would describe a man who was sent to he moon as punishment for stealing thorns to stop his livestock from escaping (Lazikhani, 2025).

In East Asian traditions the interpetation of these shadows changes again. In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folklore, the shadows on the moon are often interpreted as a rabbit pounding a mortar and pestle. The contents of the mortar and pestle vary depending on the origin of the myth, in Japan and Korea the rabbit is pounding mochi and in China it is creating the elixir of immortality. Unlike in Western interpretations, the rabbit is not punished but placed on the moon as a reward for its selflessness. In other Chinese interpretations of the shadows on the moon they see a man, much like the Babylonians. This man is called Wu Gong, the woodcutter, and he was tasked with cutting down a self-healing tree on the moon. Some versions of this myth argue that it is punishment for his laziness and others for his arrogance and obsession with immortality. Regardless of the reason, the moon becomes a place of isolation and eternal labour.

Across time and tradition it is intriguing to observe the patterns in our cultural imagination and myths about the moon. The similarities between these myths are striking. Across cultures, the moon appears over and over as a place of exile and transformation. Lunar pareidolia and our desire to understand the natural world connects humanity across centuries and civilisations. Although we have a scientific answer for the shadows on the moon we still look up and see a face gazing back at us, just as our ancestors did.

Art:

The Risen Moon (1926) Frederick Judd Waugh

References

Beaulieu, P.-A. (1999). The Babylonian Man in the Moon. Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 51, 91–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/1359732

Coones, P. (1983). The Geographical Significance of Plutarch’s Dialogue, concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 8(3), 361–372. https://doi.org/10.2307/622050

Cassidy, V. (1951). Jack and Jill. Modern Language Notes, 66(1), 38–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/2909939

Lazikani, A. (2025) Man in the Moon: A European Folktale. https://yalebooks.co.uk/man-in-the-moon-a-european-folktale/#:~:text=In%20various%20medieval%20stories%20inspired,made%20butter%20on%20a%20Sunday.

https://www.waiyeehong.com/oriental-culture/jade-rabbit-yutu/

Plutarch, Moralia (set of essays) https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/The_Face_in_the_Moon*/A.html#note7

Chaste, pure, and the object of desire the Gothic Daughter is integral to many key works of gothic fiction. For as long as we have been telling stories there has been a dutiful daughter who becomes deceitful. They are at the centre of the story and their decisions have a grave influence on their community, but especially their Fathers. Gothic literature explores the impact of a dutiful daughter fighting for her agency and the ripples that are cast when she rejects the expectations of her Father and follows her own desires. The daughters are transformed in their fight for agency, for better or for worse.

Property and Sacrifice

The daughter in gothic literature is an extension of the Mother and the Father, she is their shadow but she is also their property. She is not a person but a pawn to be moved as they see fit, to be married off advantageously or banished to a convent or even better - forgotten about completely. The life of the gothic daughter holds the key to their families salvation or their downfall. Despite the power these daughters hold they are all vulnerable, either through womanhood, bad luck, or neglect. It is in this vulnerability that they are a threat to their patriarch and the patriarchy as a whole.

In the stories of Matilda (The Castle of Otranto), Mary Yellan (Jamaica Inn) and Agnes (The Monk) loss and sacrifice are central to their experiences. Matilda promises herself to the church but after falling in love and deciding to marry Theodore she is rewarded with death. She is killed by her Father who has mistaken her for Isabella, her brother’s betrothed. Matilda loses her life and agency as punishment for choosing her own destiny and saving her family.

Agnes in The Monk was promised to a convent before her birth, offered to the Church as a sacrificial lamb to ensure her family’s ongoing prosperity. When she attempts to flee with Raymond she is thwarted by her Aunt and forced into the Convent. Breaking her vows she becomes pregnant and is imprisoned by the Prioress in a subterranean crypt to wait for her death.

Matilda, from The Castle of Otranto exists as a mirror to her Father. Where Manfred is paranoid and tyrannical she is chaste and pure of heart. Her chastity is one of her defining characteristics and positions her as Manfred’s moral antithesis. Despite her role as her family’s saviour, Matilda was forgotten and unwanted by her father with Manfred shouting “Begone! I do not want a daughter.” Notably, her death comes only after she renounces her vows to the church and follows her heart. Her fate reinforces the idea that the daughter is the moral centre of the family and the one who cannot decide her own fate.

The Gothic Daughter, like many daughters throughout history is property and has no claim to property of her own. Mary Yellan from Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn is a classic example. After the death of her mother, Mary is left orphaned and without a home. Left with no other options she seeks out her Aunt and her mysterious husband at Jamaica Inn. She is forced to work at the Inn and turn a blind eye to her Uncle’s shipwrecking endeavours and long-term abuse of her Aunt. Mary finds strength in her vulnerability, but not before mistakenly placing her trust in other people.Mary Yellan is a continuation of the tradition started by Ann Radcliffe where gothic heroines are placed in horrific circumstances but navigate their struggles with grace and resilience. They are ultimately successful in their endeavours but they are irrevocably changed by their experiences. For Mary Yellan this change came from her loss of innocence and her decision to follow her heart and the uncertain path ahead with her lover, Jem.

Duty and Desire

At the heart of gothic fiction is the tension between duty and desire, a tension that falls squarely on the shoulders of the Gothic Daughter. This duty is seen as moral, good, and a source of safety, without this duty they would be vulnerable and slaves to their desires and the desires of others (namely, men). Desire is seen as something destabilising and transgressive and yet throughout gothic fiction this is shown to be false. The duty of the Gothic Daughter is constricting and in many cases, the cause of her suffering. Desire, though costly and terrifying, is liberating and becomes the mechanism by which they free themselves.

Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho exists in this tension between duty and desire and is an enduring influence on the gothic genre. Its’ protagonist, Emily St Aubert, is sent to Italy as her Father’s dying wish. Ever the dutiful daughter she complies with his wishes and lives with her Aunt and her husband, Montoni. The fight between her duty to her Father, her Uncle as his surrogate patriarch, and her own happiness is integral to Emily’s character development. Initially, burdened with grief and her Father’s expectations she complies with her Aunt and Montoni’s wishes, only to be isolated and imprisoned in the Castle Udolpho. Her circumstances become increasingly dire as she continues to repress her own desires and submit to the will of her Uncle. Throughout Emily’s journey there is an underlying theme, submission is dangerous and cannot save you. It is only when Emily begins to question and think for herself that she is at her safest. She can free herself from her dangerous circumstances by grasping her autonomy and bravely following her desires. When Emily treats herself as a full person she is reunited with her lover, Valancourt.

In submitting to their roles as a dutiful daughter, the Gothic Daughter unwittingly submits to surveillance. This surveillance is both familial and institutional. Agnes (The Monk) is surveilled by her Aunt, the jealous Baroness and then in the Convent by religion and the Prioress. Agnes is punished by her duty and has her personhood erased in the Convent.The promise of her family’s prosperity does not apply to her and her desire for Raymond and subsequent guilt for their relationship further reinforces the inhumanity of the structures that control her body and her mind. Through Agnes’ storyline duty is revealed to be a mechanism of control designed to subjugate and discipline rather than protect.

Emily (Mysteries of Udolpho) is surveilled psychologically through the belief that the Castle Udolpho is haunted and also by the architecture of the castle. In her imprisonment Emily wanders the long halls of the Castle Udolpho that end in locked doors and dark, hidden corners. She is punished for her duty but also her desire. Emily’s desire for Valancourt is based on love and virtue and yet it is a transgression of her duty to her patriarch. Despite her virtuous love she is punished with psychological anguish and imprisonment.

Duty and desire are seen as moral choices for daughters to make, if the daughter recognises her desire it is a destabilising force that threatens the power of her patriarch. Gothic fiction frames desire as a force that exposes the corruption of patriarchal authority. Despite this exposition both paths are costly, duty leads to the isolation of the daughter whereas desire leads to punishment and the threat of death. It is an impossible choice.

Purity and Submission

Whilst Emily St Aubert is often criticised for her passivity, the Gothic Daughter is often portrayed as pure and submissive. The purity and submission of the heroines both allows the villainy of their patriarchs to flourish but also exposes their inhumanity.

Matilda in The Castle of Otranto is described as being demure and submissive.She is saintly in her selflessness and despite her Father’s cruelty she is devoted to him and her family. Her character was so pure and saintly that even in her dying breaths she forgave her Father and pleaded with her Mother to forgive him too. In contrast, her sister-in-law Isabella is a political pawn, moved from one engagement to another to satisfy her Father and Manfred’s desires. Whilst she actively tries to defeat Manfred she is unsuccessful as she lacks Matilda’s purity and role as her family’s moral compass.

Antonia in The Monk scarcely speaks during her introductory scenes, she is meek until she hears Ambriosio’s sermon. His words animate her out of her statuesque state and push her to speak to Lorenzo. Throughout her story she is exclusively described as if she was a work of art. “Her features were hidden by a thick veil; But struggling through the crowd had deranged it sufficiently to discover a neck which for symmetry and beauty might have vied with the Medicean Venus.” The veil is a motif often present in gothic literature to show purity but also preserve it. Antonia’s veil is described as a barrier to deny onlookers “satisfaction”, as if her beauty were not her own, but a thing to satisfy others.

Emily is briefly veiled during her time at the Castle Udolpho, she is draped in a black veil that the Marchioness died in. The Marchioness exists with two roles: she haunts Emily and represents the fate of a fallen woman - death and eternal suffering. As such her veil represents the suppression of female sexuality and the link between her desire and her death. By donning the Marchioness’s veil Emily’s own struggles between purity and desire are brought to the forefront. Her maid notes the striking similarity between Emily and the Marchioness claiming that she has “contour of a madona and the sensability of a magdalen”. The dichotomy of the madonna and the whore is rife in gothic literature with heroines fighting their role as pure madonna’s. Radcliffe staunchly opposes this dichotomy in her works and argues through Emily’s removal of the veil, that it is an ordinary piece of fabric with no threat to her wellbeing or influence on her worth.

This veil is a pure and blank slate that shields its wearer from the world and allows others to project the ideals of femininity upon them. By preventing the world from seeing its wearer it presents them to us in fragments to be dissected and consumed. The veil that protects their purity erases their personhood and with it, their humanity. But the protection of the veil has no tangible influence on its wearers life, it does not stop the machinations of men or the violent acts that follow. They are pure and saintly and then they are dead. The purest woman in Gothic Literature is a dead woman.

Beauty and Corruption

The Gothic Daughter straddles the line between victim and corruptor, they are the objects of obsession but also the corrupting force. The Monk is an excellent example of this, Ambrosio is corrupted by the beauty of women. His first slip into sin begins with a portrait of Matilda styled as Mary. Matilda haunts his dreams until she disguises herself as a man to join his Monastery and confess her love for him. Unable to resist her beauty he indulges in sins of the flesh. She is beautiful but her beauty hides her corrupt soul. In following her desires Matilda unravels Ambrosio’s morality and guides him away from his virtuous life and into debauchery, sorcery, and murder. She is presented as the mastermind of his destruction.

Where Matilda is the agent of a more direct corruption, Antonia’s corruption is subtle. She corrupts Ambrosio through her overwhelming beauty and innocence. Moved by his sermons and godliness Antonia sought out Ambrosio; she did not seek to corrupt him, she wanted a friend and confessor. Her sensual desires were firmly directed at Lorenzo. Her Mother, Elvira, who had become her surrogate patriarch and head of her family in her Father’s absence, was firmly against Antonia and Ambrosio’s friendship when she saw Ambrosio’s desire for Antonia. In following her desire for friendship and guidance from Ambrosio she went against her Mothers wishes and was punished. Her desires are pure and yet she is both the corruptor and the punished. She is drugged, assaulted, and killed by Ambrosio (and Matilda) in the crypts of the Convent. The narrative supports this argument with the Monk himself lamenting “What seduced me into crimes, whose bare remembrance makes me shudder? Fatal Witch! was it not thy beauty? Have you not plunged my soul into infamy? Have you not made me a perjured Hypocrite, a Ravisher, an Assassin! Nay, at this moment, does not that angel look bid me despair of God’s forgiveness? Oh! when I stand before his judgment-throne, that look will suffice to damn me!”

Enduring Daughters - Modern Examples

The Eternal Daughter - Claudia de Pointe du Lac (Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice)

These themes are continued in Anne Rice’s interview with a vampire with the creation of Claudia. Like the Gothic heroines that came before her Claudia is a deeply tragic character. Stuck in an endless immortal youth whilst her mind grows, she is in a body that grows foreign to her. She develops a fixation on the womanly form that she would never possess and kills several women during her time in New Orleans. Despite Claudia’s role as a daughter she remains an outsider to her life and outsider to her family. She is an afterthought to Lestat and Louis’ tumultuous relationship. Claudia was both the victim of her own desires and Louis’ desire to save Claudia from a painful death and the desire for his own companionship. Louis could not save her from the fire, she is turned to ash by Armand and the Paris coven. Though she dies she haunts both Louis and Lestat throughout their long lives.

The Daughter Consumed - Elspeth Spindle (Shepherd King Duology by Rachel Gillig)

Elspeth continues a tradition where the role of the daughter has a longing and desire that is matched by hatred and fear. After contracting a strange illness she is sent to live with her Uncle and despite enduring countless hardships the fate of her realm rests solely upon her shoulders. She dutifully accepts this role but after she indulges in her desire for Ravyn her personhood is removed by the Nightmare that lives inside her head. Continuing the age old story that a woman’s desire is her downfall. Her personhood is returned to her and it is through her strength of character and vulnerability that the realm is saved.

Daughters in gothic literature are vulnerable but in they are also the means of change a threat to their patriarchs. They remind us that blindly submitting to a mans idea of purity will not save us, even if that man is our own Father. Our lives are ours to do with as we wish and our agency is a threat to those who wish to consume us piece by piece.

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this far! A quick note from me to let you know that my works on here will always be free. However if you wish to support my writing I have a Ko-Fi you can find here. Alternatively, if you wish to support me in other ways you can find me on TikTok (@/cathollingsworthtok) where I talk about Gothic Literature and occasionally my own writing.

Art:

Penitent Magdalene, Jacopo Tintoretto (1596-1602)

Books Referenced:

Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe

The Monk, Matthew Lewis

Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole

Shepherd King Duology, Rachel Gillig

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

I have embarked on my own journey of rediscovery, of re-meeting my younger self and her loves. It was purely out of desperation. The little girl who loved to create and draw and play had somehow become an adult who felt so removed from her creativity she no longer acknowledged it as her own. I met her again in the small moments. A choice in movie. A song I hadn’t heard in years. A book that reminded me of a simpler time. It was bittersweet, she was afraid and alone and I was plagued with a melancholy that seemed to have seeped into my bones. Jumping back in time to meet her was too overwhelming so I took a longer route back. I wound my way back through my history, stopping to read the book series that defined by high school years, watching the films that primary school me yearned to watch but was never allowed to, playing an old video game I had poured hours into. I revisited them all with fresh eyes and loved them as much as I did the first time around. Somewhere along the way I met these younger versions of myself and I realised we were not so different. I saw them and their pain and brought it with me.

On my journey I remembered old hobbies I had longed to try again, I found my old flute and began learning to read music again. I booked a dance class and remembered how much I loved being in a dance studio and the joy of dancing. I felt happier and surer of myself and less fragmented. The burdens of adult life had not left but they were lighter and easier to carry. I no longer wanted to disappear from my life, I finally felt ready to look it in the eyes.

There was an unexpected catharsis in my emotional timetravel. The old wounds of my past were exorcised and I recognised pieces of every version of myself that still remained within me. I came to the painful realisation that in being harsh and cruel to myself, I was being harsh and cruel to them. They are my daughters to love and protect but they are also me. I nurture them with every choice I make and every decision to treat myself with kindess. We have grown together and come further than any of us ever thought we could.

My journey will never end, Our journey will never end. We will continue to grow and evolve until we die, but isn’t that the point? To try new things and become. Always becoming. You can return to places you once visited but you are not the same person who saw it. Your cells have changed, your mind has changed. You have seen and felt and experienced. But there is a beauty to it. Discovery. Discovering the world, discovering yourself, discovering your past, present and future. We explore and change and become. Always moving always changing, even when life feels stilted and stagnant.

So I leave you with this my dear reader - return to the things you once loved, you may find you have come further than you initally thought.

Cover: Anemones by Renoir (1912)

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this far! A quick note from me to let you know that my works on here will always be free. However if you wish to support my writing I have a Ko-Fi you can find here. Alternatively, if you wish to support me in other ways you can find me on TikTok (@/cathollingsworthtok) where I talk about Gothic Literature and occasionally my own writing.

Do you know what happens every year, my dear reader? Absolutely nothing goes to plan. None of the resolutions on my list are checked off and my life implodes bringing new unforseen issues. All of this leaves me with a list that creates a gnawing feeling of guilt in my stomach and vision boards that stare at me mockingly from across the room.

It turns out that life is not something that can be forced into submission with lists and timeframes. You cannot wrestle it into your desired shape through sheer willpower. It’s unpredictible and messy but it demands to be experienced. In my humble opinon this is what is missing is so much of the “New Year New You” rhetoric.

In this same vein, I have found that so much of the New Years rhetoric is based on thinly veiled self hatred and shame. New Year New You!! How can YOU lose that pesky 10kg ? Have you considered fixing all.. THAT?

Honestly I am SICK of it. For the first time in my 2-[redacted]-years on this earth I am meeting myself where I am, just as I am. No more, no less.

I introduce to you - the Anti-New Years Resolution - instead of making a list of things I want to change about myself or have achieved by a certain date, I’m making a list of things I want to try and experiences I want to have in the big 2-6. Of course I’m still adding things I want to achieve (A Capricorn stellium is gonna do what she’s gonna do) but I’m trying to make it more about the journey than the result. Which for someone who has had her eyes planed squarely on the finish line for what feels like forever, is harder than it sounds. But I’m tired of feeling like I’m watching life pass me by like a stalker outside a window. I want to experience it.

The List

Where to begin - The List or rather the Lists. Take a look at your life right now. How do you feel about it? Is there anything you’ve been wanting to try but have felt too afraid to do? Are there hobbies you want to try or a path you want to walk? Write it all down. They are supposed to be a little challenging but easily achievable. I’m planning to revisit mine halfway through the year to adapt it to what my life is looking like. I encourage you to do this as well!

My list will be set out into a couple of sections with subsections under each. Your life is different to mine which means that your list will be different. There is no one size fits all for the Anti-Resolution. Make it fit your life as it is right now, as you are right now.

The Anti-Resolution is not about forgetting your huge aspirations, keep them in mind when you make your list. These are the stepping stones to getting there from wherever here is.

Now the second list, this one is a little harder and requires some introspection. Your Second List is about what you are rejecting, what you no longer want to carry with you emotionally and physically. Think about what is dragging you down, the things that are keeping you stuck and put them on the page. This is not to be critical, it’s about accepting where you are and lovingly moving forward. These habits have likely been developed for years and will be hard to break, but we can do it. The key is to approach it from a place of love and treat yourself like you are someone who matters - because you are. Slowly but surely those old responses and habits will fall away and be nothing more than a memory.

Making the lists

(you can check them twice if you want to get jolly with it).

Here is a rough outline of what mine looks like

What I want to do

Professional

• Things I want to learn

• A vibe for where I want to be this time next year that I can work towards.

Hobbies

• To try

• Ones I already do and want to improve on

Writing

• Book

• Substack

Health

• How I want to feel in my body

• Fitness

Life

• Friendships

• Travel

• How I want to feel in my life

• Education

What I’m Rejecting

• Accepting “almosts” in ANYTHING

• Hyperfocusing on what/who did not chose me and measuring my worth against it

• Ingoring my intuition to keep the peace

• Romanticising being lowkey miserable. Melancholy is not cute

• Treating life like an audition

• Getting lost in my head or in the monotony of the doomscroll

• Chasing closure from those who will never give it

Things I am adding to my list

• Start pottery classes and not hyperfixate on making it perfect

• Find a new/better way to learn languages. (I went from an A1 to A2 in French this past year and want to get better at it)

• Be able to watch a movie in French and understand at least half of it

• Travel outside of my state at least once

• Finish the first draft of my book

• Write more on Substack

• Join a Yoga studio

• Be gentler to myself

• Do something I’ve been afraid to do

• Read 12 new books a year

• Enter a writing contest every 6 months

• Go to an art gallery

• Improve my soft oil pastel art

• Try a sport I’ve never done - I’m thinking tennis?

• Return to something I once loved with new eyes

• Collect mementos from somewhere I’ve been

• Go to the cinema - one of the cool ones near me that does indie films

• Go to the theatre - see a ballet or a play, literally anything

• Post on tiktok more

• Say no without explaining but also say yes to more things

• Apply for something that I would assume I wouldn’t get

• Learn Palmistry

• Join a social dance class (maybe with a friend but it’s also cool to go on your own)

• Get my drivers license

• Get better at reading natal charts

• Get better at reading tarot cards

• Improve my pastry making - tarts are the focus of 2026

• Find a way to stand firm in my boundaries without breaking

• Follow my curiousity more

One thing you will notice (or at least I hope you have noticed) is the lack of focus on my physical body and changing it to fit some image in my mind. My lists are about things to do and experience and ways I want to interact with the world.

I hope these lists at the very least inspire you to start your 2026 with a gentler view of yourself and your life. You do not have to listen to the unending cacophony of self improvement that swarms your for you page and TV screens all December and January. I give you permission to be kinder to yourself and I promise you that you will get where you want to go and achieve everything you want out of your life. You do not need to torture yourself on the way there, the journey can be enjoyed just as much as the destination.

Happy New Year <3

Cover: Reading by Alberto Pisa

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this far! A quick note from me to let you know that my works on here will always be free. However if you wish to support my writing I have a Ko-Fi you can find here. Alternatively, if you wish to support me in other ways you can find me on TikTok (@/cathollingsworthtok) where I talk about Gothic Literature and occasionally my own writing.

Share

Leave a comment

As an avid and voracious reader my TBR is never ending. I have genuinely considered the merits of immortality purely for the opportunity to read every book that has ever been and will ever be written.

I am a firm believer in reading widely and outside of your realm of experience. I truly believe that challenging yourself with the books that you read helps you grow intellectually but also as a person. In a society that’s leaning firmly towards the anti-intellectual, I see this as a small act of resistance against the rising brainrot epidemic.

The following list has more than 12 entries and that is on purpose - I will pick which ones to read based purely off of vibes. There are themes and genres that surface again and again. Stories with gothic themes or vampires lure me in like a pie on a windowsill.

Classics

• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LeRoux (Gothic Horror/Romance/Mystery) 1910

• Mathilda by Mary Shelley (Gothic Horror/Short Story) Written 1819, Published in 19591

• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (Gothic/ Mystery) 1951

• A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe (Gothic Horror / Romance) 1790

• Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin (Gothic Horror) 1820

• Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat (Gothic Horror / Vampires) 1897

• Notes from a Dead House by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian Literature) 1861
  

Literary

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Mystery/Fantasy) 2020

• Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (Hungarian / Nobel Prize Winner) 1985

• Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Mystery / Thriller/ Nobel Prize Winner) 2009

Sci-Fi / Fantasy

• The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland (Fantasy/Vampires) 2023

• Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Dystopian/Sci-Fi) 2014

• Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff (Fantasy/Vampire) 2021

• The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (High Fantasy) 1990

• Bunny by Mona Awad (Horror/Fantasy) 2019

Recent Releases (2024-2025)

• Watermoon by Samantha Sotto Yambao (Magical Realism/Fantasy)

• The Ladie Upstairs by Jessie Elland (Gothic Horror)

• Bury our Bones in The Midnight Soil by V.E Schwab (Fantasy/Vampires)

• Death of The Author by Nnedi Okarafor (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)

• The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch (Horror/Mystery)

• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Horror/Fantasy/Gothic)

• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (Horror/Vampires)

• The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling (Gothic Horror)

Non-Fiction

• Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of it by Janina Ramírez, 2022

• Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire by Bettany Hughes 2019

• Bread of Angels: A Memoir by Patti Smith 2025

I plan to read all of these books at some point, it is unlikely that I will read them all in 2026. My TBR is a beast with a life it’s own, if I see a new release that I absolutely need to read - then i will. It’s all about following what interests me and my curiosity.

Please let me know what books you’re planning to read in 2026!

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this far! A quick note from me to let you know that my works on here will always be free. However if you wish to support my writing I have a Ko-Fi you can find here. Alternatively, if you wish to support me in other ways you can find me on TikTok (@/cathollingsworthtok) where I talk about Gothic Literature and occasionally my own writing.

Share

Leave a comment

The Scottish Witch Trials began with the passing of the Witchcraft Act of 1563 and continued intermittently until its repeal in 1736. Although King James VI of Scotland did not instigate the creation of the 1563 Act, he would become one of the most influential advocates for witch hunts in the 1590’s with the publication of his book Daemonologie which legitimised the persecution of witches through theological authority (Historic Environment Scotland, 2022). He also attended a number of trials, which further solidified his support and the legitimacy of the trials. During this time 3,837 people were accused of witchcraft with a staggering 85% of the accused being women (Goodare et al., 2003).

As the seventeenth century gave way to the eighteenth, the executions declined but the fear remained. Over 170 years of fear, suspicion and theological certainty created a memory that would endure long after the trials’ end: evil is among us. It is intimate and omnipresent, and it is hiding in the women you love and that strange man who lives down the road. Cultural transformation takes time and the fear left by the witch trials could not be erased overnight, what was left in its wake was an ideological vacuum. It was in this vacuum that the Scottish Enlightenment emerged, a movement that advocated for reason, science and most of all the ideals of individual liberty and justice (Schmidt, 2014; Hunter, 2012). Thinkers such as Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith and Thomas Reid championed reason, empiricism, and moral philosophy, while earlier figures such as John Locke and Lord Shaftesbury acted as influential English precursors to the movement.

The Enlightenment emphasised rational inquiry and the perfectibility of humanity, promoting the idea that fear and superstition were uncivilised and belonged firmly in the past (Schmidt, 2014). Yet, in the shadow of scientific progress and philosophical reform, literature took a darker turn. The witch trials though formally concluded lingered ominously in the cultural imagination. Its shadow surfaced once again in a new literary style that would come to be known as Gothic Fiction.

In 1764, Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto, the novel was initially presented as a translation of an old Italian manuscript written by “Onuphrio Muralto” that had been discovered within the library of an English Catholic family. This was intentionally deceptive as Walpole was both a Member of Parliament and the son of Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. Walpole admitted to its authorship in later editions, simplifying the title to The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story. At this time “Gothic” simply meant from a medieval or “less civilised” time (Longueil, 1923). This meaning changed as a result of its use to describe The Castle of Otranto. While modern readers may find the novel melodramatic or camp, its influence on the genre is undeniable. The Castle of Otranto introduced themes that echoed through centuries of literature: ancestral curses, cryptic prophecies, tyrannical patriarchs, and the oppressive weight of the past.

Gothic literature encompasses both the unease and the spectacle of the grotesque. Though popular imagination associates the genre with vampire, ghosts, and reanimated corpses; there is a more subtle terror, an instability and fear that seeps into the very core of your being (Novak, 1979). A threat looming just around the corner that you cannot see - the fear is in the anticipation and the unknown.

Ann Radcliffe exemplifies this idea in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and her other works, where the looming supernatural threats are rarely as they appear. They are human and terrifying but well within her heroine’s comprehension. Her heroines endure imprisonment, emotional turmoil and other untold horrors, yet ultimately, they survive by confronting their fears instead of surrendering to them. In highlighting the agency of her heroines Radcliffe pioneered the Gothic genre and became one of the highest paid authors of the eighteenth century, earning her the name “The Mighty Enchantress”.

The Castle of Otranto and Mysteries of Udolpho inspired a new class of literature, much to the chagrin of the critics. In a stark contrast to the previous Gothic works, Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk (1796) was published, it quickly became the most controversial book of the century. Written when Lewis was only twenty, the novel horrified readers and critics alike with its graphic violence, sexual corruption, and religious cruelty. It follows multiple storylines but at its centre is Ambrosio, a revered priest whose spiritual arrogance becomes his undoing. He is tested when a Monk close to him is revealed to be a woman who is desperately in love with him. He cannot resist this temptation and his damnation and descent into sin clearly begins with a woman. Ambrosio renounces his vows and descends into rape and murder and ultimately sells his soul to the Devil.

The contrast between Radcliffe and Lewis’s works is intriguing. Radcliffe wrote stories that from a modern perspective appear to include the beginnings of feminist thought; her heroines navigate terror with strength and overcome it with little cost to their wellbeing. The Monk frames women as the tool of the Devil and slaves to emotion and baser instincts. Lewis’s heroines are consumed by the terror that surrounds them and wrestle with their bodily autonomy and agency at the cost of their lives and sanity (Fitzgerald, 1993). The differences in their portrayals of women mirror the ideas associated with the witch hunts, where women were framed as morally weak, susceptible to corruption, and vulnerable to temptation. Lewis’s women are temptresses and victims; they are the corruptors and the corrupted. A clear example here is in the backstory of the Bleeding Nun - Beatrice de las Cisternas. Lewis explains that Beatrice was promised to a convent from birth but “no sooner did her warm and voluptious character begin to be developed than she abandoned herself freely to the impulse of her passions, and seized the first opportunity to procure their gratification”. This story is echoed in Agnes’s storyline - she is a young woman promised to a convent from birth, but she cannot resist Lorenzo’s allure. She breaks her vows of chastity and is imprisoned by the Prioress, Agnes almost dies and she loses her unborn child after the ordeal. Lewis’s punitive portrayal of feminity and sexuality clearly harkens back to the witch trials where the corruption of women was a source of societal and religious fear.

Despite the overwhelmingly misogynistic stance found in The Monk, it is fiercely anticlerical. Monasteries and Convents are portrayed as sites of cruelty and repression rather than havens of spiritual purity. The Monk characterises clergy as inherently flawed and predatory individuals hiding their monstrous appetites behind the protection of organised religion. Lewis’s novel suggests that only the most corrupt dedicate their lives to the cloth, regardless of gender. The Prioress of St Clare is not immune to this suggestion, she is described as being “haughty, inflexible, superstitious, and revengeful…. Though naturally violent and severe, when her interests require it, She well knows how to assume an appearance of benignity.” Lewis enforces this image further through the following statements “She is implacable when once incensed, and has too much intrepidity to shrink at taking the most rigorous measures for punishing the Offender. …. She will use every artifice to avoid obeying the mandate of his Holiness, and I shudder to think that Donna Agnes is in the hands of this dangerous Woman”. Underneath his arguments lies a bigger threat: moral superiority and unchecked authority.

These themes clearly explain why Gothic fiction emerged as a cultural irritant to Enlightenment sensibilities. Lord Shaftesbury, an early Enlightenment philosopher, had vocally condemned superstition, theatrical excess, and emotional indulgence. Whilst Gothic literature emerged after Shaftesbury’s death, his views were adopted by critics who regarded the theological corruption and gloom in Gothic novels to be vulgar and morally corrosive (Novak, 1979; Dent, 2016). Despite the sustained negative responses from critics the genre continued to grow and became a place of societal critique.

The Enlightenment promised order and rationality whilst Gothic literature amplified the ambiguity of the human experience and the relentless pressure of the past upon the present. Gothic literature reminds us that the horrors we face are manmade and well within our comprehension. The genre remains as an echo of the witch trials and the Enlightenment alike, within this echo is a poignant reminder that clinging to science and progress does not abolish fear and intellectual advancement does not guarantee moral progress. It is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and our capacity to endure the unthinkable, but also our capacity to inflict untold horrors upon each other. The ghosts are not what haunt us, we are haunted by ourselves.

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this far! A quick note from me to let you know that my works on here will always be free. However if you wish to support my writing I have a Ko-Fi you can find here. Alternatively, if you wish to support me in other ways you can find me on TikTok (@/cathollingsworthtok) where I talk about Gothic Literature and occasionally my own writing.

Art:

Fire Dance (Joseph Tomanek, 1889)

The Great He-Goat (Franciso Goya, 1823)

Books Mentioned:

Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

References:

Dent, J. (2016). Introduction: history and the Gothic in the eighteenth century. In Sinister Histories: Gothic Novels and Representations of the Past, From Horace Walpole to Mary Wollstonecraft. Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719095979.003.0001

Fitzgerald, L. (1993). Gothic Properties: Radcliffe, Lewis and the Critics. The Wordsworth Circle, 24(3), 167–170. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24042450

Goodare et al., (2003) Survey of Scottish Witchcraft. https://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk/faq/

Historic Environment Scotland. (2022). The Witchcraft Act and its impact in Scotland, 1563 - 1738. https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2022/06/the-witchcraft-act-and-its-impact-in-scotland/

HUNTER, M. (2012). THE DECLINE OF MAGIC: CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE IN EARLY ENLIGHTENMENT ENGLAND. The Historical Journal, 55(2), 399–425. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23263343

Longueil, A. E. (1923). The Word “Gothic” in Eighteenth Century Criticism. Modern Language Notes, 38(8), 453–460. https://doi.org/10.2307/2915232

Novak, M. E. (1979). Gothic Fiction and the Grotesque. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 13(1), 50–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/1344951

Schmidt, J. (2014). Enlightenment as Concept and Context. Journal of the History of Ideas, 75(4), 677–685. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43289692

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now