Verse
A quiet, book-like Ghost theme for fiction, serials and poetry, with reader settings, a bookshelf of serials, chapter navigation and "continue where you stopped".
// overview
About Verse
Verse is a quiet, book-like theme for fiction, serials and poetry. Reader settings, a bookshelf of serials, chapter navigation and 'continue where you stopped' make long reading on the web feel like reading a well-made book.
Who it is for
- You publish short stories, poems or a novel in chapters
- Your readers read long pieces and come back later
- You want a page that feels like a well-made book
- You sell memberships for the later chapters
Probably not for you if
- You run a news site with many posts a day — see Gazette
- You write a technical blog with code — see Stack
- You need a photo-led magazine — see Atelier
Pages and layouts
Page templates: Topics (the library), Writers, Membership, Signin, Signup, Account.
Extra post layouts: Poem.
Getting set up
- Books: create a tag for each serial with a slug that starts with book-, an upright cover image and a description.
- Chapters: put the book tag first on each chapter, so the book is its primary tag. Chapters are ordered by publish date.
- Lead story: mark a story as Featured. The newest featured story leads the homepage.
- Upload the theme zip in Ghost Admin → Settings → Design, then fill in the theme settings.
- Import the sample content if you want to start from the demo and replace it with your own posts.
What you download
- The theme, ready for Ghost 6.0 or later (verse_1.0.0)
- Documentation in HTML
- Sample content you can import into Ghost
- 12 months of updates and support from the people who built it
Requirements
A Ghost 6 site: Ghost(Pro) on a plan that allows custom themes, or self-hosted Ghost. Memberships and paid tiers use Ghost's own members feature and its Stripe connection; the theme adds the pages and the paywall design. Demo photos are not included in the download.
// features
What's included
- Reader settings (the Aa button): five text sizes, three pages (paper, white, night) and serif or sans text; the choice is remembered with no flash on the next page
- Focus mode: press F to hide everything but the story, Escape to come back
- Serials: a book is a tag whose slug starts with book-; its posts become chapters in reading order
- Chapter pages show "Chapter 3 of 8", previous and next chapter, and the full contents
- A book page with the cover, a numbered contents list and a Start / Continue button
- Bookshelf on the homepage and the library page, with each reader's progress ("3 of 8 read")
- Verse remembers where each reader stopped: a "continue where you stopped" button on the story and a Continue reading box on the homepage
- A small "minutes left" note while reading
- Drop cap and small capitals at the start of each story; ⁂ for scene breaks
- Two post layouts: the story page and Poem, which keeps every line break
- Light (paper) by default, with a night page and a reader toggle
- Library and Authors page templates
- Membership page with tiers and a monthly/yearly switch; styled paywall for members and paid chapters
- Sign in, sign up and account pages
- Reading progress bar, image lightbox, galleries, callouts and toggle cards
- Self-hosted fonts (Cormorant, Literata)
- Fully translatable, 18 theme settings, no jQuery
Compatibility & tags
Changelog
v1.0.0 · 2026-09-30
- First release.
// faq
Questions about Verse
No. Verse is a theme for Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. It needs a Ghost 6 site, either on Ghost(Pro) with a plan that allows custom themes, or self-hosted Ghost.
No. You upload the zip in Ghost Admin and change colours, homepage sections and text in the theme settings (18 of them). The documentation walks through every setting. Custom CSS is optional.
Yes. The theme includes a membership page with your tiers and a monthly/yearly switch, a styled paywall for members-only and paid posts, and sign-in, sign-up and account pages. Payments run through Ghost's built-in Stripe connection, so you keep your subscribers and your revenue.
Yes. Every word the theme shows comes from a translation file, so you can translate it into your site's language.
The regular licence covers one website that you or your client run. The extended licence is for a single end product that you sell to others, for example a paid product where buyers receive a site built on the theme. If you are unsure which one you need, contact us before you buy.
Yes. Our Ghost theme install and setup service puts the theme on your Ghost site, sets your colours, navigation and homepage, connects memberships and imports your content. See the services page for the price.
Read more about Verse
How to Publish Fiction and Serial Stories Online with Ghost
Serial fiction platforms own your readers. Your own site can feel like a well-made book instead, with chapters, reader settings and paid later chapters.
How to Build a Digital Garden with Ghost (and the Theme We Made for It)
A digital garden is a personal site that grows instead of a feed that scrolls. Here is how to build one on Ghost, with essays, notes, growth stages and sidenotes.
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