Gothic Tales

Arthur Conan Doyle was the greatest genre writer Britain has ever produced. Throughout a long writing career, he drew on his own medical background, his travels, and his increasing interest in spiritualism and the occult to produce a spectacular array of Gothic tales. Many of Doyle's writings are recognized as the very greatest tales of terror. They range from hauntings in the polar wasteland to evil surgeons and malevolent jungle landscapes.   

This collection brings together over 30 of Conan Doyle's best Gothic tales. Darryl Jones's introduction discusses the contradictions in Conan Doyle's very public life - as a medical doctor who became obsessed with the spirit world, or a British imperialist drawn to support Irish Home Rule - and shows the ways in which these found articulation in that most anxious of all literary forms, the Gothic.

©2016 Darryl Jones (P)2018 Tantor

Doyle , full circle

loved narrator! Stories provide a clearer picture of who Doyle was as a writer, moving past Holmes

Holmes with monsters :)

I love the warm comfortable feel of Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories. Here there are actual monsters but remarkably the feel is still warm and comfortable. I enjoyed the preface too. It really is amazing to see Conan Doyle the firm believer in the British Empire wrestling with Conan Doyle the humanist. His colored villains are never totally evil; you can see why they are doing what they are doing. Some of the stories are trifles but no complaints! I enjoyed the Irish narrator who really does a wide range of accents. One quibble, the "Indian" uncle in the Brown Hand isn't really Indian, he just worked in India. So it's unlikely he would have had the Indian accent that is given to him.

I gotta tip my hat...

I gotta tip my hat to this narrator. At first I was a little skeptical, because he seems cagey about his origins, and I don't want a non-Brit reading British lit, even if it means the frequent (in Doyle stories) American voices are atrocious. But his is good, and after a while I gave up trying to figure out which was the fake accent, and just marvel at the range of them Furlong displays. The guy must put in a ton of work, for which I'm grateful. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and this ability is rare. Plus his acting is very good, voice pleasant, and he pays attention to the text and not his voice. My only quibble is he slurs the odd word, but only in the English accent. Maybe that means he's British?

As for the stories, they're perhaps my favorite of all the Doyle I've read.

A Real Treat

Written and read in a style that cannot be beat. Strange games are afoot and our guide is non other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Table of Contents by Title for Gothic Tales

Gothic Tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Here is a list of the complete table of contents, by chapter, for the Audible audiobook book Gothic Tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. At a length of 19 hours and 12 minutes it can be very frustrating to get to the right chapter. Selecting the table of contents in the Audible app lists only the chapter numbers—without the title! This omission seems especially egregious with audiobooks of this length. It was particularly a problem for me because I am using an Amazon Echo Show device with Alexa to select and play the desired chapter. Note: Using Alexa, this can be done by saying "Alexa, play my Audible book Gothic Tales" and then "Alexa, go to chapter 10" or whatever the chapter number. But with only the chapter numbers it was hit or miss getting to the specific chapter I wished to hear.

This being the case, I have included below the story title for each chapter in hopes it will be useful in seeing what's included in this audiobook and for selecting the correct chapter from the Audible app or from an Alexa device like the Amazon Echo Show, Echo Dot, Echo Auto, Echo Frames eyeglasses, and/or an Amazon Fire TV or Fire Tablet.

Gothic Tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1. Introduction
2. The American’s Tale
3. The Captain of the ‘Polestar’
4. The Winning Shot
5. J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement
6. J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement (Part 2)
7. John Barrington Cowles
8. Uncle Jeremy’s Household
9. The Ring of Thoth
10. The Surgeon of Gaster Fell
11. A Pastoral Horror
12. ‘De Profundis’
13. Lot No. 249
14. The Los Amigos Fiasco
15. The Case of Lady Sannox
16. The Lord of Château Noir
17. The Third Generation
18. The Striped Chest
19. The Fiend of the Cooperage
20. The Beetle-Hunter
21. The Sealed Room
22. The Brazilian Cat
23. The New Catacombs
24. The Retirement of Signor Lambert
25. The Brown Hand
26. Playing with Fire
27. The Leather Funnel
28. The Pot of Caviare
29. The Silver Mirror
30. The Terror of Blue John Gap
31. Through the Veil
32. How It Happened
33. The Horror of the Heights
34. The Bully of Brocas Court
35. The Nightmare Room
36. The Lift