Back in the olden days, specifically circa 1965-1975, it was much easier to find creepy stories for Halloween mood enhancement. There was something about that era which made housewives want to read horror. Why? Maybe because the bandage of proper conduct had just been ripped off of civilization by Napalm and drug-crazed hippies to expose the ugly chancre which is human nature at its worst, and mainstream women everywhere needed a way to sublimate and therefore understand this.
Here’s the recipe for the standard Gothic Romance so popular at the time. Squish an amorphous morass of anxiety into the turgid writing of a 95¢ paperback, and include the iconography of bewildered, vulnerable fear on the cover: dusk has fallen, and a maiden in skimpy attire, be it nightie or mini skirt, flees a crumbling mansion where one lone light beams searchingly from the highest window. She may be harried by raptors as she stumbles. But no matter what terrors she faces, our heroine always marries the man who will take her away from the inconvenient old house, with its bad wiring and evil plumbing, off to an efficient modern ranch in the suburbs, where she can subscribe to The Workbasket and learn how to crochet purple and orange ponchos on her gold leatherette sofa.
Gothic Romances no longer seem to exist as such, but Lucky Find Salvage Company has saved some vintage examples from the oblivion of thrift store shelves. We present them here, with thrilling back cover blurbs, as a glimpse into the dark shadows of our past.
Angel Among Witches
She was a courageous nurse, but could she prevail against the evil forces of the occult?
The Devil reigned at Froelichsburg. Centuries ago its halls echoed with the shrieks of torture and the moans of bizarre, occult rites. Now, hundreds of years later, the ghosts of that hideous past had returned to stalk their victims down dark corridors at midnight.
When Nurse Joyce Miller came to the snowbound Austrian castle as companion to a charming invalid, she looked forward to a pleasant stay in a fairy tale setting. But all too soon she discovered that other Froelichsburg - a place of brooding evil, where strange dead secrets rose to haunt the living, where love turned to fear... and black magic to brutal, bloody murder.
The October Witch
The Kiss of Death
To Julie Marsden, the world seemed a place full of marvel and wonders... until the day when her future came to a sudden and shocking end in a fiery explosion. In her nightmares she could see again the accident that had wiped out the life of the man she loved... and with him, her only chance for happiness. There seemed no point in continuing... but eventually even grief grew numb, and the dull ache in her heart filled with her memories.
Then Julie came to Ninespear Crag, caught there by a foggy night and an accident with her car. And there she met an impossible man of time's dead legend... and with him she again knew the stirrings of love. For a time she knew happiness... then she learned that for her love was forever a curse, a deadly benediction born not in heaven, but in the fires of hell.
Face of an Angel
She was haunted by what she had seen in a decaying mansion in Italy….
As soon as Meg arrived a Frenchley, a sixth sense told her to run.
Five years before, while touring Italy, Meg stumbled on an ancient villa near Florence. Curiosity had prompted her to accept an invitation to tea from the two inhabitants — the beautiful, lonely Angelica and her grandmother.
Now, that same curiosity drove Meg to see Angelica once more. Her search had led her to an old house in a seemingly peaceful hamlet — a house where evil and decay lay hidden behind its graceful facade — a house where violence and sudden death were not strangers.
Page Four, Issue One
Gothic Romance
Run, run, RUN!!!!
