Embrace the darkness

Read by Robert Maskell, Richard Mitchley, Christopher Ragland(Unabridged: 13hrs 00mins)

Featuring stories by Louisa Baldwin, Anton Chekhov, Vsevolod Garshin, Thomas Hardy, Dorothy Havers & many more

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.

But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?

Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are suddenly upon us in twisted revelation that may thrill, may disturb, but will always engage and help us explore the edge of darkness where some of the very best literature patiently lurks …. waiting …. for the likes of me and you.

1 - Stories from the Shadows - The 1880's - An Introduction

2 - The Weird of the Walfords by Louisa Baldwin

3 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov

4 - A Red Flower by Vsevolod Garshin

5 - The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy

6 - Dog or Demon by Dorothy Havers

7 - The Vision of the Dead Creole by Lafcadio Hearn

8 - Carnivorine by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

9 - The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling

10 - Cohen of Trinity by Amy Levy

11 - The Horla by Guy de Maupassant

12 - The Crystal Man by Edward Page Mitchell

13 - The Story of the RipplingTrain by Mary Louisa Molesworth

14 - John Charrington's Wedding by Edith Nesbit

15 - The Open Door - Part 1 by Margaret Oliphant

16 - The Open Door - Part 2 by Margaret Oliphant

17 - In the Mist by Mary E Penn

18 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell

19 - The Body Snatcher - Part 1 by Robert Louis Stevenson

20 - The Body Snatcher - Part 2 by Robert Louis Stevenson

21 - Diary of a Lunatic by Leo Tolstoy

22 - The Canterville Ghost - Part 1 by Oscar Wilde

23 - The Canterville Ghost - Part 2 by Oscar Wilde