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8 Favorite Literary Horror Heroines

by The Mary Sue Staff | 12:30 pm, October 31st, 2012


Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is one of my favorite classic books to explain to folks who’ve never read them (second only to The Count of Monte Cristo). See, the uninitiated might take a look at a novel written by a woman in the 1800s and assume that it’s a society romance with plenty of upper crust social politics. Then I explain that sure, I guess the rigid social rules of the 1840s informed the narrative of the novel, but the scandal fodder in Jane Eyre begins with an illegitimate child and probably tops out at a man hiding his murderous and insane wife in the attic of his house for years.

And, of course, the book opens with a young Jane in the care of an abusive aunt and bullying cousins, locked in the room in which her uncle died as punishment. She encounters (or hallucinates) his ghost, has a panic attack, and passes out. The book ends with fire, death, madness, disfigurement, blindness, and marriage. Gothic romance, everybody!

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  • http://twitter.com/GeekGirlsRule MickeyDousedInBlood

    Um, if you watch the original “Let the Right One In” Eli is a boy, a castrated boy, but a boy all the same. I believe the book is also pretty clear on that.

  • http://handfulofhealth.com elaine!

    Love that you have Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper in this roundup!! And agreed on Count of Monte Cristo, too. Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre were the first books I read on my Kindle because they’re public domain, not to mention AWESOME. I’ll have to add the Jackson book to my Goodreads, that’s a new one to me.

  • Helen

    I’m SO glad you included Sabriel!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dana-Kay-Bach/1043956249 Dana Kay Bach

    Thank you thank you thank you for including Sabriel and Lirael!!! Those books are hands down my favorite horror fantasy, definitely my top five series of all time.
    Nix needs better PR because Sabriel is an amazing role model, so much better than stupid Bella…

  • ALittleBitNerdy

    Hey! The “view all on one page” link isn’t working and I usually prefer that to going page to page to page for a few paragraphs. could this be remedied please? thanks!

  • Anonymous

    Fixed!

  • ALittleBitNerdy

    whoa fast! thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/AnotherElle Elle C

    I don’t think it’s clear at all that Eli identifies as a boy. We see that she once had male genitals, but that’s not really the same thing. It’s also worth noting that she refuses boy’s clothes and wears dresses. She says, “I’m not a girl,” but she never tells us what she is.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Amanda-LaPergola/81300432 Amanda LaPergola

    A list that includes Jane Eyre, Michonne, and Batwoman just seems…right.

  • http://twitter.com/acidragdoll Bel

    Still no Integra Hellsing? You guys are missing out.

  • Rudiger Dingobait

    Coraline does “curl up in a ball and cry” when she finds out her parents are missing. That’s the first thing she does.
    Not that it’s a bad thing. I couldn’t stand the way that nothing in Oz ever seemed to phase Dorothy; giving Coraline the capacity for sadness allows her rising above it to actually mean something.

  • http://www.facebook.com/lee.cox Lee Ann Cox

    I wondered if Jane Eyre would make the list. There’s so much to that novel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for Merricat – “We Have Always Lived In The Castle” is a longtime favourite of mine.

  • http://www.facebook.com/laura.truxillo Laura Truxillo

    The Yellow Wallpaper is still one of the scariest things I’ve ever read.

  • http://www.heroinejewelry.com/ Rose – HeroineJewelry

    Ah, I hadn’t seen Sabriel in such a long time! And I’ve always loved the Yellow Wallpaper. Victorian (& surrounding society) absolutely terrified me once I realized how they treated women. Good for Charlotte for sticking up for herself. Great list!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000035470616 Rhodri James ‘Llewelyn’ Gillha

    Sabriel was one my favourite books when I was younger. Still is. For horror heroines, while it’s principally Urban Fantasy, there’s more horror than most horror books in the Dresden Files. So I think Karrin Murphy, head of CPD’s Special Investigations (vastly underfunded monster hunters and undisputed masters of creative report writing). Five foot and change, she once took out an Ogre with a chainsaw and laid down the gauntlet to several thousand vampires, some of which were worshipped as gods. But not without her vulnerabilities, having come under vicious psychic attack on prior occasion.

  • Jen Roberts

    My favorite part of Jane Eyre is when Jane – who is poor, young, a governess, and a woman – looks her rich, older, male employer in the eye and tells him that she and he are EQUALS…and HE AGREES WITH HER. For that time period, it was pretty daring stuff. :)

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