The Room in the Tower, and Other Stories
E. F. Benson (1867 - 1940)
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:08:18:32 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
These stories have been written in the hopes of giving some pleasant qualms to their reader, if by chance, anyone be occupying in their perusal a leisure half-hour before he goes to bed when the night and the house are still, he may perchance cast an occasional glance into the corners and dark places of the room where he sits, to make sure that nothing unusual lurks in the shadow. For this is the avowed object of ghost stories and such tales as deal with the dim unseen forces which occasionally and perturbingly make themselves manifest. The author therefore fervently wishes his readers a few uncomfortable moments.
A Sicilian Romance
Ann Radcliffe (1764 - 1823)
Read by Betsie Bush
Running Time:7:21:16 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
A Sicilian Romance is a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe. It was her second published work, and was first published anonymously in 1790. The plot concerns the turbulent history of the fallen aristocrats of the house of Mazzini, on the northern shore of Sicily, as related by a tourist who becomes intrigued by the stories of a monk he meets in the ruins of their doomed castle.
The Statement of Stella Maberly
F. Anstey (1856 - 1934)
Read by Anne Fletcher
Running Time:04:23:06 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
From childhood Stella Maberly has been violently wilful and jealous, yet certain of her own superiority. She can be loving and friendly, but soon loses friends, when in the grip of her “demons” she acts with disdain and subtle cruelty, and then revels in the misery of her loneliness. Her paranoia results in tragedy for her best friend Evelyn, and Stella comes to believe that Evelyn is possessed by an evil spirit. In this statement Stella reflects on the events leading to her present situation...Was the evil imagined? Who was “possessed”? Is Stella to be blamed or pitied? This story can be seen from two viewpoints: do we take the words of the other characters literally at face value, or are we being influenced by Stella's interpretation? It’s fun to try interpreting from both angles!
Tales and Stories
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 - 1851)
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:13:47:37 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
While Mary Shelley will most likely always be known for her enduring classic of mad science Frankenstein, this collection intends to show the sheer breath and quality of her writing beyond the creation for which she is most known. Many of these stories are told in an atmospheric gothic fiction vein, full of eerie old castles, strange revelations and family secrets. But we also have stories of the supernatural and even science fiction to contend with. Shelley was a true literary master and should be recognized for her contributions to literature beyond her most famous work. This audiobook contains 22 stories.
The Tower of Dago
Mór Jókai (1825 - 1904)
Read by Carolyn Kaiser
Running Time:02:05:27 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
This is the story of Feodor von Ungern, who, betrayed by his brother Zeno, installs himself with his son and a group of his most trusted men in a dark tower on the island of Dago. Sheltered in this tower, he terrorizes the seas, until, one day, his brother falls into his hands.
Trilby
George du Maurier (1834 - 1896)
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:11:12:35 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Trilby, published in 1894, fits into the gothic horror genre which was undergoing a revival during the Fin de siècle and is one of the most popular novels of its time, perhaps the second best selling novel of the Fin de siècle period after Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The story of the poor artist's model Trilby O'Ferrall, transformed into a diva under the spell of the evil musical genius Svengali, created a sensation. Soap, songs, dances, toothpaste, and Trilby, Florida were all named for the heroine, and a variety of soft felt hat with an indented crown (worn in the London stage production of a dramatization of the novel) came to be called a trilby.
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James (1843 - 1916)
Read by Sandra Cullum
Running Time:04:57:12 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
A gothic, ghost story, you are a jury of one. Is the Governess correct in her assumptions that her charges, two adorable and exemplary children, Miles and Flora are victims of malevolent spirits? As the story unfolds it gets darker and more questions arise than answers.
Two Supernatural Stories
Perceval Landon (1868 - 1927)
Read by Newgatenovelist
Running Time:01:06:14 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Perceval Landon was a journalist and short story author, and in these two tales he explored the supernatural. In ‘Railhead’, a man receives an urgent message – from an out-of-service telegraph. In ‘Thurnley Abbey’, the titular abbey’s past might be less remote than its occupants believe.
Uncle Silas
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814 - 1873)
Read by Great Plains
Running Time:18:38:27 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Uncle Silas is a Victorian Gothic mystery/thriller novel by the Anglo-Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. It is notable as one of the earliest examples of the locked room mystery sub-genre. It is not a novel of the supernatural (despite a few creepily ambiguous touches), but does show a strong interest in the occult and in the ideas of Swedenborg.
Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf
George W. M. Reynolds (1814 - 1879)
Read by Clarinetcarrot
Running Time:18:51:45 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Wagner is a poor, lonely old shepherd living on the edge of the Black Forest. In a devil's pact he gains youth and wealth for the price of transforming into a ravenous wolf once a month. This book contains everything from murder, kidnap, robbery, sadistic nuns and lust to war in sixteenth century Italy. Originally published in a serialised form, this penny dreadful is definitely not a piece of fine literature, but is hopefully entertaining.
This book contains racial and other prejudices that were once commonplace. They are retained, as originally written in this recording, because to do otherwise would be to deny they existed.
Weird Tales
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776 - 1822)
Read by Expatriate
Running Time:23:22:38 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
This recording includes both volumes of E. T. A. Hoffmann's Weird Tales, a collection of gothic novellas set in Germany, Italy, and some of the wilder parts of Europe. What there is of the supernatural in these tales is introduced with great subtlety if at all; most of the stories draw their "weirdness" from extraordinary characters, circumstances, or coincidences rather than from the paranormal, working out dark passions in dark settings. There are two themes dominating almost every one of these stories: not only the passion of young tragic love, but also a passion for Art in its every manifestation. With an almost religious fervor, Hoffmann builds each of his stories on a veneration for poetry, painting, craftsmanship, music. It is perhaps this passion for Art for Art's sake that made the stories of Hoffmann so profoundly influential on later writers, from the Bronte sisters of England to the Serapion Brethren and Marina Tsvetaeva of revolutionary Russia.
Werewolf -- Five Pieces
Read by David Wales
Running Time:03:14:01 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Five stories and essays about werewolves.
How To Become A Werwolf by Elliott O'Donnell
The Spirits Of Werwolves by Elliott O'Donnell
The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman Parts 1 &2
The Origin Of The Werewolf Superstition by Carolyn Steward Taylor
The She-Wolf by Saki
Wieland; Or, The Transformation: An American Tale
Charles Brockden Brown (1771 - 1810)
Read by Karen Joan Kohoutek
Running Time:07:34:36 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
The lives of a prosperous, intellectual family are disrupted when they meet the mysterious Carwin. Set in the period before the Revolutionary War, this is often described as the first American Gothic novel.
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848)
Read by Ruth Golding
Running Time:14:48:42 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Emily Brontë's only novel, published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.
Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights met with mixed reviews by critics when it first appeared, with many horrified by the stark depictions of mental and physical cruelty. Though Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was originally considered the best of the Brontë sisters' works, many subsequent critics of Wuthering Heights argued that its originality and achievement made it superior.
The Wyvern Mystery
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814 - 1873)
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:15:12:57 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
A classic with a pinch of romance, a pinch of gothic, and a dash of mystery, are you interested yet? When young Alice Maybell’ father dies she is taken in by Squire Fairfield, a widower with two handsome young sons, Charles and Harry. As Alice grows into a lovely young woman she attracts the attentions of more than one admirer, not all welcome. She marries the man she loves whilst fleeing the home she grew up in, but the blissful happiness that follows is short-lived. She finds herself pulled into the middle of the secrets of her husbands family’s past. No one is quite what they seem, and there are many twists along the way. What is this dark secret in her husband’s past? Who - or what - is the malignant presence that haunts Carwell Grange? Join us as we answer these troubling questions in ‘The Wyvern Mystery’
Zofloya
Charlotte Dacre (ca. 1771 - 1825)
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:11:46:27 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Victoria de Loredani lives the life of a fairy tale princess in Venice. She has everything one might desire and more, until the sinister Count Ardolph enters her world. The Count carries off Victoria's mother in an elopement, and sets off a series of dramatic events that begin to unhinge Victoria's life entirely. Passion, brutality, and murder begin to dominate the separated worlds of Victoria and her brother Leonardo.
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