Reading Groups

Bite-Sized Horror: From Edgar Allan Poe to Colson Whitehead with Mary Anna Evans

4 sessions Tuesdays, 6:30 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT September 30 to November 11, 2025

Online via Zoom

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The ‘With Books’ option includes the titles required for this group at an additional 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
9/30, 10/14, 10/28, 11/11
Online via Zoom

Some of the most famous tales of horror ever written are surprisingly brief when compared to their cultural impact. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” are short stories, and Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are novellas, yet all of these titles have had outsized influence, entering the English language as indelible shorthand references to the horrors of arrogance and decay.

Even those who have never read the original texts, or who read them long ago, are often aware of the foreboding dualities of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and of Dorian Gray and his portrait. So let’s read them! And let’s add to the discussion a modern classic of literary horror, Zone One, in which Colson Whitehead brings zombies to Manhattan.

Join Dr. Mary Anna Evans for discussions of horror, beauty, art, life, death, and illusion that are designed to make your spooky season thought-provoking and fun.

What to read in advance of the first meeting: Please read “The Fall of the House of Usher” prior to the first meeting.

What to expect from this reading group: This will be a guided conversation. Dr. Evans will provide context for the texts’ significance in literature, history, and culture, but participants are encouraged to come with questions and observations of their own to share.

Reading List:

Please note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

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Led by

  • Mary Anna Evans

    Mary Anna Evans

    Mary Anna Evans

    Mary Anna Evans holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Camden and a PhD in English literature from the University of Exeter. Her academic and creative interests center on crime, suspense, and Gothic fiction. She is the author of seventeen novels, which have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Will Rogers Gold Medallion, and two Oklahoma Book Awards. She is the co-editor of the Edgar, Agatha, Macavity, and HRF Keating Award nominated Bloomsbury Handbook To Agatha Christie. Her 2025 release, the Gothic suspense novel The Dark Library, is a Hitchcockian homage to Daphne du Maurier and Charlotte Brontë.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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