14 Real Places That Haunt the Pages of Literature

One of literature’s greatest gifts is its ability to transport us to other worlds: some utopian and fantastical, others dark and unnerving, scary and supernatural ... This guide is all about the latter (which are, arguably, much more fun). These are the novels, short stories, and novellas that get under your skin, that stay in your psyche long after you’ve put them down and returned to the world of the living. Little do folks know that many of these works were inspired by — or, in a few cases, explicitly based on — real-life places that you can still visit today. Whether you’re a proud horror nerd or a self-proclaimed scaredy cat, there’s something indescribably special about visiting places that affected authors so deeply they simply had to put them down on paper. From the various historic structures that inspired Count Dracula’s castle, to the isolated island ruins that tugged at Lovecraft’s imagination, to the Maine water tower that was immortalized in “It,” these eerie places around the world are unforgettable stops for book lovers to explore during spooky season. Journey to one (or all) of these horror-coded locales this fall for scary stories that leap off the page. 1. Ruins…

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