The Phantom Coach

A Connoisseur's Collection of the Best Victorian Ghost Stories

De: Michael Sims

Narrado por: Matthew Waterson

A spine-tingling new collection of the best Victorian ghost stories—as suspenseful and entertaining as anything written today.

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

©2014 Michael Sims (P)2014 Audible Inc.

A great collection of well read stories.

We'll read and enjoyable stories. If you want a really good, creepy story with just the right touch of humor and enough terror to induce chills, you can't beat "The Southwest Chamber", by Mary E. W. Freeman. And the reader's performance is so spot on that, only upon reflection did the fact that most of the characters in the story are women even occur to me.

Superb narration!!!!

Many of these stories are quite familiar having read/or heard them on several occasions. But don't let that deter you. If you're a fan of gothic style ghost stories, these are good examples of the masters(many by women). But what makes this particular audiobook worth listening to (again and again, in my case)is the fantastic narration. "
The best example (in my opinion) and my favorite story in this collection is ' the Southwest Chamber ' By Mary E. W. Freeman. The narrator is so good at interpreting and conveying the emotion behind the words, that I can feel goosebumps as he describes the phenomenon each character experiences that would totally freak me out, and in the next lines be laughing out loud because (this is the author's skill) of the way their reactions to the terror and with each other as denial and confusion and fear struggle for dominance. This collection would be a great way to introduce young people to gothic era ghost stories. I highly recommend.

Excellent Narration and Great Selection of Stories

I was pleasantly surprised with this collection of Victorian ghost stories! Michael Sims is an excellent narrator and I enjoyed listening to his voice and various character accents. By far my favourites are The Old Nurse's Story and The Captain of the Pole-Star. Here's what you get on the audiobook:

The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Phantom Coach by Amelia B. Edwards
The Trial for Murder by Charles Dickens
The Captain of the “Pole-Star” by Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Edmund Orne by Henry James
The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chambers
The Library Window by Margaret Oliphant
The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs
The Southwest Chamber by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
“They” by Rudyard Kipling
The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce
August Heat by W. F. Harvey

A highly recommended audiobook for those looking for some great classic ghost stories!

Scary yes!

These stories had me jumping or turning round! They were all very good and enjoyed my time with them throughly! I have my favorites of course but all are worth a listen if this genre suits you.
I especially enjoyed the brief bio of each author at the beginning of their story as I was not familiar with all of them.
The narrator was wonderful, full of emotion and handled each character as it's own person.

Thrilling Start

The first two stories had me enthralled. I thought, "There's nothing better than a Victorian ghost story!" I was proven wrong the longer I read as the quality deteriorated with perhaps half the stories. All in all, I enjoyed the book, but as I said, half were meh. One in particular toward the end was ludicrous. Another was downright confusing. I wish the quality had been a bit more consistent, but it wasn't a bad selection.

I found Matthew Waterson to be an excellent narrator for this content, though I know others had issues with his reading.