The dark academia genre overlaps aggressively with the realm of fantasy. This is because the remarkably gatekept world of elite education is out of reach for much of the population.
Even those who have fought tooth and nail to make it into prestigious academic institutions have often failed to claw their way into the deepest circles of the societal elite. It’s what makes the hallowed halls of ancient universities so fascinating to avid readers, and so rife for literary imagination.
The many, varied tales which are spun with fictional or non-fictional colleges at their centre are not only wildly entertaining but frankly gut-wrenching. The formula for darkly academic novels usually sees an outsider of sorts attempt to deceive their way into acceptance. One plotline might see them falsely invited into the fold by members of the so-called elite, or the protagonist may be written with the inherent intention to infiltrate.
With the odds stacked against them and a damning oracle of imminent failure hanging over our protagonists’ heads, these narratives serve as parables for the destructive and corrupt nature of power structures in contemporary society.
Far from democratising education, the mega-wealthy cohort of esteemed colleges and universities are simultaneously self-serving and self-destructive. Populated by shadowy secret societies, addiction and depression, it just so happens that these damning narratives are, more often than not, told through alluring tales of witches, vampires, magic, murder and mayhem.
The genre of dark academia invites us into this strange unfamiliar world, where we gallivant across ancient stone paths alongside students with bottles of champagne which cost more than our monthly rent in each hand, coattails billowing in the wind. The winter semesters are bitter and frozen, rife for murder in cold blood. The summer sees a sickly heat envelop cohorts, driving them to drug-accelerated insanity.
The central conflict at the heart of these novels is death and decay which takes place within beautifully hallowed halls. The tales aren’t exactly accurate or true to life for real academics – but instead exist to demonstrate what can happen when you’re swept up in a microcosmic world which is built to destroy you.
Wildly fantastical or rooted in reality – whichever branch of the dark academia tree tickles your fancy; we’ve got you covered. Keep scrolling for a curated list of the best dark academic books on the market.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Stephen King declared Bardugo’s best-seller to be “the best fantasy novel [he’s] read in years, because it’s about real people.”
We follow the life of Alex Stern, a high school dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific unsolved multiple homicide, as she enters her freshman year at Yale. A free ride at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions supported by mysterious benefactors inevitably comes with a catch, and Alex is tasked with monitoring the activities of Yale’s darkest secret societies – otherwise referred to as tombs.
Known for producing esteemed members of the global elite, Alex uncovers the occult secrets of the university’s haunted societies – but at what cost?
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
Bunny by Mona Awad
Don’t be fooled by the hot pink exterior and saccharine title of this horrifying novel.
Samantha Heater Mackey has just joined a highly selective fiction writing MFA program at Warren University in New England. Funded by a scholarship and contented in keeping to herself, Samantha is frankly disgusted by her strange cohort – a group of girls who refer to one another solely as “Bunny” and seem to be inherently connected by invisible synaptic strings.
Yet when Samantha is invited by the Bunnies into the intimate, monstrous and ritualistic folds of the Smut Salon, she finds her priorities shift towards something far more sinister.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith
Think of A.J. Hackwith’s Hell’s Library trilogy as a deeper, darker imagining of Cornelia Funke’s beloved Inkheart.
It takes place within the folds of the Devil’s library – a shadowy annexe which exists within the most cavernous circle of the inferno. Within its sprawling stacks exists the Unwritten Wing, a neutral space where unfinished novels are filed away. Presided over by a Librarian named Claire, our protagonist oversees many menial librarian tasks, including organising and cataloguing. However, she must also keep an eye on restless stories whose characters run the risk of escaping into the circles of hell.
When a tempestuous hero escapes a novel in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of some colleagues – a chase that, of course, goes horribly wrong.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Set within a world where select humans are capable of skills which vary from the ability to manipulate matter, control the desires of others, and communicate telepathically, The Atlas Six is the story of six of these magic-wielding beings who are invited to compete for membership in the highly secretive Alexandrian Society.
Led by the enigmatic Atlas Blakely, the Alexandrian Society are magic-wielding custodians of lost knowledge from ancient civilisations. Over the course of a year, our six protagonists must practice and innovate their supernatural abilities from within the hallowed halls of the society’s London-based headquarters. The winner is invited into the mystical fold of the supernatural society, while the losers may not survive at all.
Buy now £8.99, Amazon
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Sometimes, darkly academic novels needn’t be shrouded in fantasy and mystery to reveal the untold depths of corruption and decay at the heart of academic institutions.
Brandon Taylor’s semi-autobiographical bildungsroman Real Life is about a gay, black biochemistry student named Wallace who hails from a small town in Alabama. Studying at an unnamed, predominately white university in the Midwest, Wallace is faced with overwhelming feelings of alienation and isolation despite having finally made it to the place which was supposed to set his life in motion.
Buy now £7.32, Amazon
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko
Written by Ukrainian co-authors Marina and Sergey Dyachenko and translated by Julia Meitov Hersey, Vita Nostra is a dark, psychological fantasy thriller which follows the life of Sasha Samokhina. Manipulated by a mysterious man that she meets while holidaying with her mother, Sasha is coerced into joining the mysterious Institute of Special Technologies.
Our protagonist finds her fellow cohort bizarre, and the schoolwork to be impossible, but students face untold punishment if met with failure – violence which is inflicted on their families, instead of the individual who has transgressed. As the novel progresses, we learn whether Sasha will sink or swim in her new, brutal environment through themes including time, metaphysics, transformation and memory.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
The Will of the Many by James Islington
Set in a dystopian world known as the Catenan Republic which is remarkably similar to Ancient Rome, Islington’s high fantasy novel is about the dismantling the brutal structures of power which govern the world. In Catenan society, the lower classes are referred to as the Octavii, and they must cede some of their Will (the very essence of human vitality) to the upper classes.
Our protagonist is a fugitive orphan named Vis Telimus who lies his way into the prestigious Catenan Academy to uncover the dark and brutal secrets which lie within.
Buy now £10.99, Amazon
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
A young intern arrives in New York City in the hopes of spending her summer working at the infamous Metropolitan Museum of Art, all the while escaping her dark past. However, Ann Stilwell is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art.
Before she can even blink, Ann is drawn into the interwoven web of a few enigmatic researchers who share their outlandish theories. The curator of the museum, Patrick Roland, is convinced that tarot has the very real ability to predict the future – but when Ann discovers an ancient deck integral to his theory, she finds herself in a dangerous position. Filled with high-academic passages about the history of art, Hays’ novel is for dark academia enthusiasts looking for a narrative which is 50 per cent fantasy, and 50 per cent high academics.
Buy now £4.50, Amazon
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
When film professor and professional podcaster Bodie Kane reluctantly returns to the New Hampshire boarding school where she spent four miserable years, she finds herself drawn to the inexplicable holes in a brutal murder case which occurred during her matriculation years.
In 1995, Kane’s classmate, Thalia Keith, was murdered and the school’s athletic coach Omar Evans was convicted. Back at The Granby School to teach a two-week course, Kane unwittingly flits between past and present – diving down the rabbit hole to find her world turned upside down.
Buy now £8.49, Amazon
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Originally published in 2006, The Historian is a cult classic among lovers of the dark academia genre – which would’ve merely been referred to as gothic fantasy at the time.
Through the voice of an unnamed female narrator, we are plunged into a metaphysical, palimpsestic narrative which begins upon her discovery of an ancient book and collection of letters in her father’s library. Little does our, at the time, teenage protagonist know, she has stumbled upon a mystery which is her birthright to solve. She must discover the truth behind Vlad the Impaler, the barbaric medieval ruler upon which the myth of Dracula is based by crossing barriers of time, geographical borders and the line between fantasy and historical truth.
Buy now £7.99, Amazon
Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
Deliciously twisted, many readers have a love-hate relationship with Dinerstein Knight’s poison-coated novel due to its satirically pretentious narrative style. A cult-favourite nonetheless, the story follows Nell Barber – an expelled PhD candidate in biological sciences who becomes irrevocably obsessed with her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas.
A treatise on the danger of infatuation and the all-consuming nature of illicit relationships, Hex is a witchy, queer fantasy romance whose narrative reflects the thesis of our protagonist – can one truly toe the line between poison and antidote without succumbing to its destructive effects?
Buy now £7.25, Amazon
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History isn’t your average murder mystery – for we know who is killed, and who the killers are, within the first few pages of this dark tale. The narrator of this inverted piece of crime fiction, Richard Papen, transfers to an elite liberal arts college in Vermont to escape his disinterested and abusive family in California.
Papen finds himself enamoured by a small group of seemingly perfect, erudite Greek students who are taught in secretive tutorials by an eccentric professor. Desperate to enter into the folds of the seemingly impenetrable group, Papen manages to convince the faculty to switch majors – a decision which would turn out to be both deadly and damning.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
If We Were Villains by M.L Rio
A newer entry into the dark academic genre popularised by the likes of Donna Tartt, If We Were Villains takes place within the hallowed walls of a prestigious conservatoire. Following a group of intimately close classmates as they embark on their penultimate year of Shakespearean acting studies, a drunken night leads to a deadly discovery come sunrise – a murder that could only have been committed by one of seven bosom friends.
Buy now £7.99, Amazon
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go takes place in an alternate reality of England in the 90s. The story follows three students at a remote boarding school as they attempt to come to terms with their purpose and potential in an inherently unsure world. Narrated by Kathy, who is now thirty-one, we learn of the dark forces at work in this devastating dystopian novel.
Buy now £8.23, Amazon
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
A fantasy novel written with romantics and dark academia enthusiasts in mind, A Discovery of Witches is about a centuries-old vampire, a reluctant witch and a mysterious alchemical manuscript hidden in the depths of Oxford’s Bodleian library. An object desperate to be discovered, Diana Bishop unwittingly comes across the ancient, bewitched text during the course of her research – and it changes the course of her existence forever.
Buy now £8.94, Amazon
Babel by R.F. Kuang
If you’ve ever found yourself enraptured by the mythological concept of the Library of Alexandria, then R.F. Kuang’s Babel is for you. The capital of all knowledge and progress in the world is an alternate, mythical re-imagining of Oxford, England. At its centre lies the Royal Institute of Translation (nicknamed Babel), and our orphaned protagonist Robin Swift can think of no better location to spend his days. Following themes of the power of language and imperialism, Swift quickly discovers he must do all he can to battle the systemic injustice brought about by the world's most prestigious institutions.
Buy now £5.00, Amazon
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The one-word reviews which adorn the cover of Yanagihara’s best-selling A Little Life truly say it all. ‘Devastating,’ ‘Astonishing’, and ‘Extraordinary’ are certainly apt adjectives to employ for such a masterful novel, which tends to leave readers in floods of tears. As such, we wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not in the mood for a good old sob.
It’s a 700-page epic following the lives of four recent college graduates who settle in New York, and sees Yanagihara ask – to what end can a human being suffer before it is too much? A story of remarkable endurance, love and friendship, A Little Life is not for the faint-hearted but is most definitely a must-read.
Buy now £9.97, Amazon
Piranesi by Susanna Clark
From the best-selling author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clark’s Piranesi is a mystical, contemporary marvel which explores a narrative and structure so unique that it is almost unfathomable just how Clark has conjured it into being.
Our titular protagonist Piranesi has always lived in the House. He is a scientist, who each day records the marvels of his celestial home – its endless labyrinthine halls and staircases leading to nowhere, its changing ocean tides and half-submerged colossal statues, its generous fruits and marvellous creatures. But when scratched-out messages begin to appear in faraway halls, Piranesi takes it upon himself to discover what might be hiding beyond his heavenly marble walls.
Buy now £7.69, Amazon
