A Scare A Day Reading Challenge
Romancing the Gothic founder and organiser, Dr Sam Hirst, is back for another month of A Scare A Day. Dr Hirst curates a daily reading list, and the challenge is to read the story or poem for that day and post your thoughts on social media using the tag #AScareADay (not #ScareADay – don’t forget the ‘A’ at the start like I always do!)
Last year, I posted a creative response to each story or poem featured in the challenge, and turned them into Season 05 of Eldritch Girl, where I talked about the stories and poems, and read my fiction/non-fiction piece inspired by the daily read.
This year, I’m pairing the challenge with #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days so I’m going to be suggesting a film pairing to go with the story/poem, the way I do for my book reviews over on Divination Hollow.
The challenge list is posted on RomancingTheGothic.com, and below. To thank Sam for this service, you can leave them a tip on Ko-Fi!
The “A Scare A Day” Daily Reading List 2026
October 1st – Joanna Baillie – Night Tales of Other Times – 1790 – Read it here
October 2nd – Nikolai Karamzin – The Island of Bornholm – 1794 – Read it here
October 3rd – Anne Bannerman – The Black Knight of the Water – 1802 – Read it here
October 4th – William Harrison Ainsworth – The Spectre Bride – 1821 – Read it here
October 5th – Charles Pigault-Lebrun – ‘The Unholy Compact Abjured’ – 1825 – Read it here
October 6th – Mary Elizabeth Braddon – ‘The Cold Embrace’ (1860) – Read it here
October 7th – Amelia Edwards – ‘In the Confessional’ (1871) – Read it here
October 8th – Elizabeth Stuart Phelps – ‘Since I Died’ (1873) – Read it here
October 9th – Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – ‘The Witch’ (1893) – Read it here
October 10th – Arthur Machen – ‘The Novel of the White Powder’ (1895) – Read it here
October 11th – Gertrude Atherton – ‘The Striding Place’ (1896) – Read it here
October 12th – Elia W. Peattie – ‘From the Loom of the Dead’ (1898) – Read it here
October 13th – Mrs Wilson Woodrow – ‘Secret Chambers’ (1909) – Read it here
October 14th – W W Jacobs – The Well (1911) – Read it here
October 15th – Violet Hunt – ‘The Prayer’ (1911) – Read it here
October 16th – Rabindranath Tagore – ‘The Lost Jewels’ or Monihara (trans. 1917) – Read it here
October 17th – Ellen Glasgow – ‘The Past’ (1920) – Read it here
October 18th – Mikhail Bulgakov – ‘The Red Crown’ (1922) – Read it here
October 19th – John Masefield – ‘The Haunted’ (1923) – Read it here
October 20th – Elsa Morante – The Secret game (1941) – Read it here
October 21st – Dorothy Quick – ‘After an Air Raid’ (1943) – Read it here
October 22nd – Mayra Montero – ‘Corinne, Amiable Girl’ (1991) – Read it here
October 23rd – Ahmed Khaled Tawfik – ‘The Wall’ – Read it here
October 24th – Mariana Enríquez – ‘The Little Angel’s Exhumation’ (2014) – Read it here
October 25th – A. C. Wise – ‘The Stories We Tell About Ghosts’ (2017) – Read it here
October 26th – Brandon O’Brien – ‘The Lagahoo Speaks For Itself’ (2017) – Read it here
October 27th – Darcie Little Badger – ‘Those Hitch-hiking Kids’ (2023) – Read it here
October 28th – Tyler Sookralli – ‘The Devil Wears Skin’ (2024) – Read it here
October 29th – Eleanna Castroianni – ‘They Return’ (2025) – Read it here
October 30th – Ash Vale – ‘consumed’ (2026) – Read it here
October 31st – Quincy Lee – ‘The Dark Follows Me’ (2026) – Read it here
A Scare A Day: Day 17
Day 17: “The Past” by Ellen Glasgow (1920). Read it here.
This story reminds me very strongly of “A Sworn Statement” by Emma Frances Dawson. (Listen on Just Chills) In that story, a valet recounts the story of his former employer and the silent woman who followed him everywhere.
Listen to it narrated by Naya Nomikou, on Naya Reads Ghost Stories:
A Scare A Day: Plot Summary
A new secretary discovers that her employers, Mr and Mrs Vanderbridge, are haunted by a grey-clad ghost of the first wife of Mr Vanderbridge. She can see the ghost, and doesn’t at first understand that she’s seeing an apparition.
After some poking around and general shock, she learns that the ghost is appearing when Mr Vanderbridge thinks of her, and that he blames himself for her death. The ghost seems intent on driving him out of his mind, and he did indeed have a period of mental instability following her death.
The secretary discovers some love letters that prove the ghost-wife was cheating on him, and gives them to Mrs Vanderbridge. She, however, refuses to fight the ghost like that, addressing the spectre directly for the first time instead, and saying she won’t compete with a dead woman or fight unfairly. She burns the letters in front of her husband and won’t let him read them. The ghost is vanquished, as Mr Vanderbridge stops thinking of her as vengeful and recalls her loving side; set against his living wife, the ghost of the dead wife fades away.
A Scare A Day: Film Pairing
La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba/The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Tomb (1971) dir. Emilio P. Miraglia, written by Fabio Pittorru, Emilio P. Miraglia, and Massimo Felisatti.
I quite like the trope of a late wife haunting her husband out of his wits; Blithe Spirit is the comedy version of this trope, my favourite version being the 1945 version, but the 2020 version isn’t bad. This is another one where Lady Morgan’s Vengeance would be ideal as a pairing as well, but in that case, the husband was evil to begin with.
This one takes that trope and then gives it a few twists. The widower lost his mind after the death of his wife, Evelyn, in a more dramatic fashion than Mr Roger Vanderbridge in the story. In this film, our unhinged widower becomes a serial killer to cope with his grief, then gets himself haunted by Evelyn following a séance. But is that really what’s going on?
Other contenders for today’s story/film pairing might include:
- Various adaptations of Rebecca, of course – and, arguably, Jane Eyre
- The Intruder (1999) dir. David Bailey
- What Lies Beneath (2000) dir. Robert Zemeckis
- Crimson Peak (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro
- Separation (2021) dir. William Brent Bell
- A Haunting in Ravenwood (2021) dir. Calvin Morie McCarthy
- สุสานคนเป็น/Tomb Watcher (2025) dir. Vathanyu Ingkawiwat
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