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Theme: decay

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Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea / Eastern Wonders

Author: Jules Verne (Gutenberg)  | Themes: beauty and decay, exploration, cultural encounter  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-02-03

I cannot express my astonishment at the beauties of these new regions. Here the grouping formed an oriental town, with innumerable mosques and minaret...
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Dracula / Life and Death

Author: Bram Stoker (Gutenberg)  | Themes: mortality, decay, resurrection, the macabre, the supernatural  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-02-02

Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, I made a discovery. There, in one ...
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Frankenstein / Transformed Perception

Author: Mary Shelley (Gutenberg)  | Themes: injustice, empathy, transformation, human nature, societal decay  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-01-21

Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient days or imaginary evils; at lea...
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The War of the Worlds / Urban Dichotomy

Author: H.G. Wells (Gutenberg)  | Themes: faith, social class, urban decay, community, moral conflict  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-01-20

The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers w...
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The War of the Worlds / Decay and Ambition

Author: H.G. Wells (Gutenberg)  | Themes: technological hubris, survival, decay, ambition, conflict  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-01-20

The pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, rose we...
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Dracula / Grotesque Survival

Author: Bram Stoker (Gutenberg)  | Themes: desperation, moral decay, survival instinct, existential crisis, societal norms  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-01-16

He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same ti...
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Frankenstein / Decay and Mortality

Author: Mary Shelley (Gutenberg)  | Themes: fragility of life, inevitability of death, transformation, beauty and decay  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2026-01-13

My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and...
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The War of the Worlds / Survival in Darkness

Author: H.G. Wells (Gutenberg)  | Themes: abandonment, desperation, vulnerability, decay, survival  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-12-16

Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion suddenly complained o...
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The War of the Worlds / Urban Conflict

Author: H.G. Wells (Gutenberg)  | Themes: violence, mortality, trauma, urban decay  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-12-13

Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet again. Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies. I saw altoge...
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / Urban Decay

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle (Gutenberg)  | Themes: addiction, urban life, social contrast, moral decay, secrecy  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-12-10

Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge. Between a slop...
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Dracula / Dreadful Transformation

Author: Bram Stoker (Gutenberg)  | Themes: mortality, decay, horror, fear, the supernatural  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-12-09

If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her to-day. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the red seemed to have gone even fro...
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The War of the Worlds / Nature and Decay

Author: H.G. Wells (Gutenberg)  | Themes: growth decay, urbanization, environmental fragility, contrast, nostalgia  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-12-03

The red creeper swarmed up the trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its ...
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / Decay and Observation

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle (Gutenberg)  | Themes: decay, observation, secrecy, domesticity  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-11-30

These articles, with two small wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the room save for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards ...
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The War of the Worlds / Natures Sublime Encounter

Author: H.G. Wells (Gutenberg)  | Themes: bravery, curiosity, decay, nature, confrontation  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-11-26

The thought that had flashed into my mind grew real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards th...
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Gulliver's Travels / Societal Degradation

Author: Jonathan Swift (Gutenberg)  | Themes: desperation, escapism, moral decay, survival, societal critique  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-11-26

Hence it follows of necessity, that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping...
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A Journey to the Centre of the Earth / Despair and Isolation

Author: Jules Verne (Gutenberg)  | Themes: loneliness, decay, weakness, struggle, endurance  | Source: Project Gutenberg  | Published: 2025-11-19

Again I made the old ruins resound with my cries, and finally so exhausted myself that I fainted. How long I lay in a kind of trance or sleep I cannot...