# What is the best dark academia novel of all time?

> Candlelit libraries, secret societies and brilliant students flirting with ruin, from Gothic classics to modern bestsellers. Cast your vote!

*By YPB Team · Published October 13, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-dark-academia-novel-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Secret History**
   Donna Tartt's 1992 novel of a clique of classics students at a Vermont college whose bond ends in murder.
2. **Babel**
   R.F. Kuang's 2022 alternate-history novel about translators at Oxford's Royal Institute of Translation.
3. **The Atlas Six**
   Olivie Blake's 2020 novel of six gifted magicians competing for a place in a secret society.
4. **Ninth House**
   Leigh Bardugo's 2019 dark fantasy about Yale's secret societies and the occult.
5. **A Deadly Education**
   Naomi Novik's 2020 novel set in a deadly magical school with no teachers.
6. **Piranesi**
   Susanna Clarke's 2020 mystery set in an endless house of statues and tides.
7. **If We Were Villains**
   M.L. Rio's 2017 novel of Shakespearean actors at an elite conservatory and a fatal secret.
8. **Bunny**
   Mona Awad's 2019 surreal horror-comedy about an MFA student drawn into a cult-like clique.
9. **The Picture of Dorian Gray**
   Oscar Wilde's 1890 Gothic novel of a beautiful young man and his corrupted portrait.
10. **Brideshead Revisited**
   Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel of Oxford friendship, privilege and faith.
11. **The Magicians**
   Lev Grossman's 2009 novel of a student at a secret magical college in New York.
12. **A Separate Peace**
   John Knowles's 1959 novel of friendship and rivalry at a New England boarding school.
13. **Vita Nostra**
   Marina and Sergey Dyachenko's eerie novel of a girl forced into a strange institute.
14. **The Likeness**
   Tana French's 2008 mystery of a detective going undercover in a close-knit graduate house.

Tags: fantasy, books, mystery, dark academia