Ideal Bookshelf 1239: Dark Academia

School is often absolutely terrifying, no? 

Here are a bunch of intense Dark Academia books, full of gothic feels in institutes of higher education.

• First offered in September 2025
• Archival pigment ink print on fine art paper
• Based on original work by Jane Mount

BOOKS INCLUDED:

• Bunny by Mona Awad
• Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum
  
• Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
  
• If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
  
• A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
• The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
  
• Vicious by V. E. Schwab
  
• A Lesson in Vengeance by VICTORIA. LEE
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
  
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
  
• The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
  
• Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
  
• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
  
• Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
  
• Confessions by Kanae Minato
  
• These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
  
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
  
• Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
  
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
  
• Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang
  
• Wilder Girls by Rory Power
  
• The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass
  
• One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
  
• Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
  
• The Likeness by Tana French
  
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman
  
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt