Journey Into Horror and Romance is the 8th grade entry of our Journey Into Literature series, which is a free curriculum that offers everything you need for a complete year of world-class literature studies. Primarily focusing on the genres of horror and romance, Journey Into Horror and Romance is intended for use by advanced 8th graders, while also being suitable for 9th or even 10th grade studies.
Expand Your Student’s Literary Horizons
As with other entries in our Journey Into Literature series, Journey Into Horror and Romance takes students on a deep dive into a subset of the world’s most influential literature: in this case, the genres of horror and romance. Throughout the more than 2,000 pages that comprise Journey Into Horror and Romance, students will read stories of charming courtships, mysterious castles, aggrieved ghosts, deadly vampires, star-crossed lovers, mad scientists, tragic couples, and insanity-inducing cosmic horrors. These stories will guide your child into a sophisticated understanding of the core principles that define the horror and romance genres, as well as their various subgenres.
Covering Long-Neglected Subgenres
One of the primary goals of the Journey Into Literature series is to help students explore the full breadth of literature – including genres and subgenres that are largely ignored by most educators. While it’s fairly common for literature curricula to cover works of gothic horror, such as Dracula or Frankenstein, it’s much rarer for them to treat works of cosmic horror, such as An Inhabitant of Carcosa or The Call of Cthulhu, with a similar level of respect.
Meanwhile, traditional works of romance have become largely frowned upon by schools. To the extent that educators actually assign romance books for reading, they tend to focus on novels that might best be understood as repudiations of the romance genre, such as Wuthering Heights, or on more modern works that celebrate divisive ideals. Jane Austin, despite being one of the most impactful writers in history, is generally looked upon with disdain. We take a very different approach to the representation of romance: the works we’ve included are generally much more sincere (or, at the very least, more emotionally healthy), and we prominently feature Jane Austin’s novel Persuasion.
Horror and Romance: A Perfect Match
The genres of horror and romance are far more closely intertwined than one might at first assume, and it’s common to find elements of both within the same work. Several of Edgar Allen Poe’s best-known stories and poems seamlessly blend the two genres, vampire stories like Dracula generate much of their tension from the corruption of romantic love, and works of romantic tragedy like Romeo and Juliet lean heavily into elements of mundane horror. One of history’s most important and sadly neglected works of literature, The Mysteries of Udolpho, is a romance novel that played a significant role in influencing the development of gothic horror – while also being a primary topic of satire in Jane Austin’s novel Northanger Abbey.
By teaching both horror and romance together, we’re able to call attention to these connections in a way that simply isn’t possible in most curricula.
It’s Not All Doom and Gloom!
We believe it’s always important to balance negative emotions (such as those expressed in most horror works) with positive emotions, and we’ve taken care to include a healthy dose of levity within Journey Into Horror and Romance. Most of the romance stories included in this curriculum have happy endings, and they include comedic works like The Importance of Being Earnest and Much Ado About Nothing. Beyond this, we’ve included The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. We won’t spoil the story, except to say that not every ghost tale is meant to be frightening…
No Busywork
The Journey Into Literature curriculum is designed to respect your time and your child’s time. Unlike traditional textbooks, we don’t add unnecessary discussion questions that break the flow of reading, or assign tedious projects that take excessive amounts of time while offering little academic value. Like any good teacher, we offer as much guidance as necessary, and then move out of the way. The vast majority of your child’s time with this curriculum will be spent reading literature – as it should be.
An Early Access Release
This is an early access release. It collects all the literary works your child needs for a full year of literature, but does not yet include the extensive annotations, background information, and additional reading suggestions that we normally include in our Journey Into Literature series. We are making this version available for free download due to the urgent need for better literature education resources, and will upload the annotated version upon completion.
Be sure to check back for future updates!
We Only Use Works Appropriate for Young Minds
We’ve gone to considerable lengths to ensure that the works included in this curriculum are appropriate for 8th grade audiences. In particular, we’ve avoided inclusion of any horror works with excessive violence, or romance works with anything explicit.
It is worthwhile to note that some of the stories use words that had very different connotations compared to their modern meanings; this leads to some awkward situations where stories can sound less innocent to contemporary readers than they really are. In the final release, we’ll include footnotes to explain the original meanings. In the meantime, you might need to explain the meanings of these words.
Contents
The following works are included in this curriculum:
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- The Fall of the House of Usher
- The Importance of Being Earnest
- Frankenstein
- An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
- An Inhabitant of Carcosa
- The King in Yellow
- Persuasion
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- Dracula (Excerpt)
- “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”
- The Mysteries of Udolpho (Volumes 2 & 4)
- The Turn of the Screw
- Agnes Grey
- The Prophetic Pictures
- The Minister’s Black Veil
- The Canterville Ghost
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Lara, A Tale
- The Body Snatcher
- The Call of Cthulhu
- The Colour Out of Space
- Ligeia
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- The Monkey’s Paw
- Eleonora
- Epithalamion
- The Masque of the Red Death
- The Hand
- Various Short Poems
Terms of Use
The downloadable file on this page includes materials that are in the public domain within the United States. They are also believed to be in the public domain in a majority of other countries, but if you are located outside the United States, please consult any relevant copyright laws before downloading, and compare against the works listed in the acknowledgements below. Only download if the included works are in the public domain in your territory.
These files are made available for personal use only, and may not be distributed elsewhere.
Download Link
A full downloads of the Early Access release is available below. For easy access in the future, we suggest you save the PDFs to your computer (this can be done in most browsers by right-clicking the download button and then clicking “Save link as…”).
Acknowledgements
- Text for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is from: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving; C. S. Van Winkle (Pub.). 1819.
- Text for The Fall of the House of Usher is from: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes (Vol. 2). Edgar Allan Poe; P. F. Collier & Son (Pub.). 1904.
- Text for The Importance of Being Earnest is from: The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde; Methuen & Co. Ltd. (Pub.). 1895.
- Text for Frankenstein is from: Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones (Pub.). 1818.
- Text for An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is from: The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (Vol. 2). Ambrose Bierce; The Neale Publishing Company (Pub.). 1909.
- Text for An Inhabitant of Carcosa is from: An Inhabitant of Carcosa [San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser]. Ambrose Bierce. 1886.
- Text for The King in Yellow is from: The King in Yellow. Robert W. Chambers; F. Tennyson Neely (Pub.). 1895.
- Text for Persuasion is from: Persuasion. Jane Austen; John Murray (Pub.). 1817.
- Text for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is from: Lyrical Ballads. William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; J. & A. Arch (Pub.). 1798.
- Text for Dracula is from: Dracula. Bram Stoker; Archibald Constable and Company (Pub.). 1897.
- Text for “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” is from: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. M. R. James; Edward Arnold (Pub.). 1904.
- Text for The Mysteries of Udolpho is from: The Mysteries of Udolpho. Ann Radcliffe; G. G. and J. Robinson (Pub.). 1794.
- Text for The Turn of the Screw is from: The Turn of the Screw. Henry James; The Macmillan Company (Pub.). 1898.
- Text for Agnes Grey, A Novel is from: Agnes Grey, A Novel. Anne Brontë; Thomas Cautley Newby (Pub.). 1847.
- Text for The Prophetic Pictures is from: Twice-Told Tales. Nathaniel Hawthorne; American Stationers Co. (Pub.). 1837.
- Text for The Minister’s Black Veil is from: Twice-Told Tales. Nathaniel Hawthorne; American Stationers Co. (Pub.). 1837.
- Text for The Canterville Ghost is from: The Canterville Ghost [The Court and Society Review, 23 Feb. and 2 Mar. 1887]. Oscar Wilde. 1887.
- Text for Much Ado About Nothing is from: Much Ado About Nothing. William Shakespeare. 1600.
- Text for Lara, A Tale is from: Lara, A Tale. Lord Byron; J. Murray (Pub.). 1814.
- Text for The Body Snatcher is from: The Body Snatcher [The Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 1884]. Robert Louis Stevenson. 1884.
- Text for The Call of Cthulhu is from: The Call of Cthulhu [Weird Tales, Feb. 1928]. H. P. Lovecraft. 1928.
- Text for The Colour Out of Space is from: The Colour Out of Space [Amazing Stories, Sep. 1927]. H. P. Lovecraft. 1927.
- Text for Ligeia is from: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes (Vol. 3). Edgar Allan Poe; P. F. Collier & Son (Pub.). 1904.
- Text for Romeo and Juliet is from: Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare. 1597.
- Text for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is from: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson; Longmans, Green & Co. (Pub.). 1886.
- Text for The Monkey’s Paw is from: The Lady of the Barge. W. W. Jacobs; Alan Rodgers Books (Pub.). 1902.
- Text for Eleonora is from: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes (Vol. 2). Edgar Allan Poe; P. F. Collier & Son (Pub.). 1904.
- Text for Epithalamion is from: Epithalamion. Edmund Spenser; William Ponsonby (Pub.). 1595.
- Text for The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is from: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. Christopher Marlowe. 1599.
- Text for A Red, Red Rose is from: A Red, Red Rose. Robert Burns. 1794.
- Text for The Skeleton In Armour is from: The Skeleton In Armour [The Knickerbocker, 1841]. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1841.
- Text for Annabel Lee is from: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes (Vol. 5). Edgar Allan Poe; P. F. Collier & Son (Pub.). 1904.
- Text for Mariana is from: Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. Alfred Tennyson; Effingham Wilson (Pub.). 1830.
- Text for Meeting at Night is from: Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. Robert Browning; Robert Browning (Pub.). 1845.
- Text for The Raven is from: The Raven. Edgar Allan Poe; Harper & Brothers (Pub.). 1884.
- Text for To My Dear and Loving Husband is from: Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning. Anne Bradstreet; John Foster (Pub.). 1678.
- Text for Sonnets from the Portuguese 43 is from: Sonnets from the Portuguese. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1850.
- Text for A Man’s Requirements is from: A Man’s Requirements [Blackwood’s Magazine, Oct. 1846]. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1846.
- Text for Love is from: Love [Blackwood’s Magazine, May 1847]. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1847.
- Text for Sonnets from the Portuguese 28 is from: Sonnets from the Portuguese. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1850.
- Text for She Walks in Beauty is from: She Walks in Beauty. Lord Byron. 1814.
- Text for When We Two Parted is from: When We Two Parted. Lord Byron. 1816.
- Text for The Masque of the Red Death is from: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes (Vol. 2). Edgar Allan Poe; P. F. Collier & Son (Pub.). 1904.
- Text for The Hand is from: A Queer Night in Paris. Guy de Maupassant; Haldeman-Julius Co. (Pub.). 1904.
