The ultimate guide to Dark Academia

What is Dark Academia?

Dark Academia is a cultural and aesthetic movement that started in the late 2010s. It combines Gothic sensibilities with a sense of nostalgia for the cozy, but often macabre, surroundings of old schools, universities, museums and other such institutions. The tools of learning — books, maps, pens, tools — are appreciated as beautiful objects, although ones that may be put to sinister use.

Dark Academia became increasingly popular during the Covid pandemic, due to its unique offer of both comfort and escapism. Unlike other trends from the time, Dark Academia has continued to thrive, and to this day, has a heavy influence on fashion, home interior, music, TV, film and — of course — literature.

Dark Academia books have a sinister, unsettling atmosphere, and are filled with secrets. They are set in or around elite institutions of learning, and the pursuit of knowledge is often an important part of the plot. Those institutions, and the systems and powers that protect and sustain them, are often characters in their own right.

In a Dark Academia story, the answers are often found in the past, but there will always be opposing forces at play, attempting to keep that past safely buried away. The tension between the search for knowledge, and those who wish to keep it from being found, is often the central conflict in Dark Academia.

As a result, a Dark Academic story can be categorised as crime, fantasy, literature, young adult, or none of these things. It is the themes and sense of place that establish a book as Dark Academia.

The most famous Dark Academia book is Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, and it stands alone as the icon of the genre. There are also important precursors, such as A Separate Peace and Gaudy Night that help describe the themes and tone of Dark Academia. Most importantly, there are many new books, from Legendborn to Bunny, that show how Dark Academia continues to extend across genres, adapt to new contexts, and find new readers..

What makes a book Dark Academia?

1. It's set in or around an elite institute of learning.

The setting is perhaps the most obvious and visible trait of Dark Academia.

There are plenty of school stories that are not Dark Academia, but almost all Dark Academic books are some form of school story. These schools may be real, like the many set at Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard, analogous, like Bret Ellis’ “Camden” or entirely fantastical like Lev Grossman’s Brakebills.

Although universities are the most common setting, Dark Academia books also takes place in high schools and secondary schools, art schools, dance programmes, magic colleges and beyond.

Katie Hays’ The Cloisters is placed in the famous New York museum of the same name, with the beautiful museum feeling like an oasis of art and learning, separate from the rest of the city.
John Fowles’ The Magus is set on the Greek island of Phraxos, with a young English teacher finding himself in an unconventional and sinister tutorship with a wealthy recluse.
Ann Liang’s If You Could See the Sun takes place in an elite, and extremely expensive, Beijing boarding school. So expensive, in fact, that the protagonist has to turn to unusual crimes.

2. The environment has a deep sense of place.

The setting for Dark Academia is more than window dressing, it is an important part of the plot, or something that fundamentally impacts the character’s motivation or behaviour. Dark Academia stories take place in locations rich in history and secrets, with complex layers that have built up over time. This sense of place is an important part of the story.

Lex Croucher’s The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones is centered around extremely exclusive school called Temple, where the students might even learn magic. Briar Jones desperate wants to be on the inside, but once they find themself there, their perspective changes.
Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education features a school that is the series’ villain - sentient, aggressive, and seemingly doing its best to wipe out a generation of young scholars.
John Knowles’ A Separate Peace is set at a prep school during World War II. The school and its bucolic setting stand in stark contrast to the chaos and turmoil of the outside world.

3. There’s a rich sense of history and tradition.

Dark Academia, like the Gothic, has an appreciation for the past and its appeal. The elite institutions at the centre of the stories are often eclectic and strange, but with the type of whimsy that only the truly successful can cultivate. The traditions on display showcase the long legacy of the institutions, and how they use rituals, fashions, language and behaviours to reinforce their power.

Timothy Fuller’s Harvard Has a Homicide is one of the earliest murder mysteries set in a university. Although a murder mystery, the book is more focused on the intricate social relationships and strange behaviours of life on campus. No surprise, since it was written by a student at the time!
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is a historical mystery that takes place in a monastery. The heart of the story is an empathetic exploration of the monastic lifestyle, and how the institution itself is caught in a clash between the worldly and the sublime.
Elisabeth Thomas’ Catherine House features a remote private college that demands complete seclusion from its students. The school’s claustrophobic atmosphere and eccentric traditions mask even darker secrets.

4. The plot has layers and layers of secrets.

Possibly the most important aspect to Dark Academia (except for the setting) is the presence of secrets. Nothing is ever as it seems in a Dark Academia story. Friends are enemies; enemies are lovers; parents are strangers; mentors are corruptors. Even the institutions have their own secrets to protect.

Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You features a successful alumnus returning to her school to teach a course on podcasting. When her students choose to investigate the murder of one of her old classmates, they find the case is not entirely solved.
Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn, features a young Black woman at  the University of North Carolina. When she learns of a secret, magical society - and then realises she might have a place within it - she becomes torn between worlds.
James Islington’s The Will of the Many features a young man, asked to infiltrate an elite military academy to uncover its secrets. While on this mission, he also becomes entangled in multiple conspiracies - both for and against an oppressive magical empire - all while concealing his own mysterious origins.

5. The characters have a respect for knowledge.

Dark Academia works respect history and are obsessed with the trappings and traditions of academia. Beyond this, Dark Academia respects knowledge for its own sake. Often the characters are motivated by a pure desire to learn. Not for power or survival, but simply from a burning curiosity to understand how the world works, and to understand their place in it.

Whether it is Shakespeare, art or the Classics, Dark Academia features characters that see the world around them through the lens of their chosen subject matter. Knowledge, lost or forbidden or simply desired, is often embodied in the form of a single lost object. Mysterious manuscripts, lost spellbounds, and secret tomes abound.

Sara Gran’s The Book of the Most Precious Substance features book dealers and collectors around the world race to find a unique book - one that can only be read through a series of increasingly complex rituals.
Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches takes place at Oxford, with a young American scholar soon realising that she’s part of a complex world of supernatural beings. The trigger is, of course, a lost alchemical manuscript that falls into her hands.
Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow is a series of short stories, many of which feature a lost, fantastical play called “The King in Yellow”. Although play itself never appears, it leaves chaos and change in its wake.

6. People are motivated by desire.

Dark Academia is packed with dreaming spires and forbidden tomes, secret cliques and murderous siblings - but at the heart of it, it is about very human needs. In Dark Academia, the protagonist is often someone looking for a place to belong. The elite institution may be the solution, or it may only exacerbate the character’s loneliness.

Similarly, Dark Academia stories are about characters with strong desires: to succeed, to win, to know the unknowable. This ambition often puts them in conflict with the systems in place around them, and they are often forced to choose between achieving their desires and staying true to who they are.

Bret Easton Ellis’ The Rules of Attraction shows the sordid, earthy side of life at a prestigious school. The students try to find meaningful connections, while surrounded by sex, drugs, entitlement and disappointment.
Alexa Dunne’s The Ivies revolves around the competitive antics of five young women at an elite boarding school, who will do anything to get into their Ivy League university of choice.
Quan Barry’s We Ride On Sticks follows a group of high school field hockey players on an unlikely winning streak - possibly fuelled by witchcraft.

What are the criticisms of Dark Academia?

Dark Academia is often criticised for being too nostalgic about the past, which can mean being unintentionally or willingly blind to legacies of racism and colonialism. By taking place at or around famous institutions, Dark Academia can also seem overly respectful of the class system, or even encouraging of elitism.

However, many Dark Academia books are not afraid to engage with these challenges head on.

Li Grace’s Portrait of a Thief is an action-packed heist novel about a group of Chinese-American students who band together to steal (or reclaim) artifacts from museums.
R.F. Kuang’s Babel is set in a fantastical Oxford, where language scholars struggle with the realisation of how their studies support an aggressive Empire.
Pat Conroy’s Lords of Discipline is an important Dark Academia predecessor that discusses racism in a Southern military college.

What genre is Dark Academia are there?

Dark Academia is not a genre of its own. It relies on an evocative sense of place, and inspiring a certain emotional response of wistfulness, nostalgia, and desire. These tropes and themes of Dark Academia can be found in literature of all types. Whatever type of book you like - and in any section of a bookshop - you can find Dark Academia.

Literary

Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
Emily Layden’s All Girls
Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night
Michael Chabon’s The Wonder Boys

Crime

Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Megan Abbott’s Dare Me
Tana French’s The Secret Place
Kate Weinburg’s The Truants

Fantasy

Kate Golden’s Half City
Ava Reid’s A Study in Drowning
Alix Harrow’s Starling House
H.A. Clarke’s Scapegracers
Lev Grossman’s The Magicians

Young Adult

Katie Cotugno’s Hemlock House
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s Where Sleeping Girls Lie
Ravenna Guron’s This Book Kills
Jessica Goodman’s They Wish They Were Us

Memoirs and narrative nonfiction

Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep
Meyer Levin’s Compulsion

Where to begin with Dark Academia?

If you’re a new student of Dark Academia, these six books will serve as an introductory course. Once you find your particular topic of interest, a further course of study awaits.

Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is the quintessential Dark Academia text. Richard Pape is an ordinary young man trying to reinvent himself by joining a small group of extraordinary people, the Classics scholars.
Mona Awad’s Bunny follows Samantha, an MFA student, as her many artistic frustrations are mirrored by her stymied friendships and broken relationships. Above all, she has to deal with a clique of fellow students known as the ‘Bunnies’.
Christopher J. Yates’ Black Chalk features a circle of six friends at Oxford. They begin playing a game of dares, but it escalates, and the consequences haunt the players for years to come.
Olivie Blake’s Atlas Six revolves around the schemes and betrayals of the titular six, the six best magicians of their generation - all competing for the greatest prize of their lives.
Benjamin Wood’s The Bellwether Revivals is about a young man’s gradual entry into the orbit of an eccentric, but brilliant, group of young Oxford scholars.
M.L. Rio’s If We Were Villains is the recounting of what may be a murder: the mysterious death of a student at a prestigious drama school.

But an even better place to start? This collection of over two dozen stories that explore the hidden secrets of elite institutions, probe our relationship with power, and examine the darkest corners of human nature.