From the Bram Stoker nominated author team who penned A Haunted History of Invisible Women, the first book of its kind to investigate gothic tropes that define American lore. Here is the hidden, dark history of what frightens us – and why.

The Gothic. Brooding, atmospheric, chilling, and not always the outpouring of a feverish imagination. Reality can be even stranger as borne out in this lush and ghostly look at real people who lived–and diedamidst the trappings of the Gothic.

Fog clinging to an isolated mansion. A dangerous patriarch or an overbearing matron. Locked doors and forbidden rooms. Whispers of murder and madness. And a woman shadowed by omnipresent threats. Youve guessed it. Youve stumbled into a Gothic tale, and it will haunt you like a ghost.

We often think of the enduring tropes of the Gothic in terms of fiction and filmbreath-catching escapes that tap into our fears, anxieties, forbidden desires, and unsettling dreams. But what if some of these chilly vibes are rooted in the experiences of real and tragic people who danced a macabre waltz with love and death? Thats why were here. Take the case of teenage Mercy Brown, victimor was it predator?of Rhode Islands vampire hysteria of the 1890s. Marguerite de la Roque, a French noblewoman condemned for sexual crimes to Canadas long-lost Isle of Demons. What happened to her and the barren landscape itself is the stuff of legend. And Mad Lucy Ludwell, the decidedly peculiar eighteenth-century high-society hauteur driven mad in the Virginia estate she prowls to this day. President Helen Peabodys spirit still stringently watches over her Womens College, now part of Ohios Miami University. Ghosts of workers lost in horrific conditions while building the Hoosac Tunnel warn of imminent danger. Settle in. There are more.

Welcome to the phantom ships, haunted academic halls, menacing landscapes, and family curses of Americas Most Gothica tour of true spectral sightings and disordered minds. But beware: its sure to get under your skin. The hauntedand hauntingfigures herein want it that way.