The Elements of Dark Academia

Ambition. Desire. Secrets. Belonging.

Don your best tweed and sharpen your daggers: school is in session.

In this revelatory collection of over two dozen stories, award-winning anthologist Jared Shurin guides us through the hallowed halls of Dark Academia, from its Gothic roots to its boundary-pushing present. Ranging from the mysterious to the fantastic, the romantic and the horrific, these stories explore the hidden secrets of elite institutions, probe our relationship with power, and examine the darkest corners of human nature.

Within these pages, you’ll meet obsessed professors and the students who will do anything to impress them. Artists and musicians who make deals with the devil. Academic rivalries that turn personal, and even deadly. Students who come to study, but learn that ivory towers often contain dark secrets.

On the syllabus, you’ll find:
Edgar Allan Poe
Evelyn Waugh
Dorothy Sayers
Carmen Maria Machado
M.L. Rio
Lev Grossman
And many more.
And for your final assignment: an original story by Olivie Blake.

Will you dare to explore this tome's hidden depths?