Showing results by publisher "Red Door Audiobooks" in Classics

The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Never more so than in this collection of 30 weird and macabre tales.

Count Eric Stenislaus Stenbock (1860-1895) was an aristocrat of German-Estonian origin who lived in England. He wrote weird, macabre fantasy fiction and was a favorite of H. P. Lovecraft. He was well known for his eccentric lifestyle, keeping snakes, salamanders, and toads in his bedroom, and owned a bear, a reindeer, and a fox. He had a life-size doll with him at all times which he claimed was his son.

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist and journalist who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. 'Caveat Emptor' is a humorous story of a bric-a-brac collector who finds an antique shop in a little German town which appears to be selling the most extraordinary treasures at rock-bottom prices.

William James Wintle (1861-1920) was a Welsh writer who established himself as an author before becoming an Oblate for the Abbey of Caldey Island in Wales. It was there that he wrote a series of horror stories for the enjoyment of eight boys who attended the abbey. Wintle noted that the stories were originally told on Sunday nights while "crouching over a wood fire on a wind-swept island off the Western shore".

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost stories. Expiation is a real gem of a ghost story. Two old friends rent a lonely house in an idyllic but remote part of Cornwall. But within a short time of their arrival, they become aware of a mystery about the house.

Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was a British writer of detective stories, many featuring the investigator Dr. Thorndyke, who uses a mixture of medical and forensic techniques to solve the most baffling crimes. In The Blue Sequin, a beautiful young woman as been found alone, dead in a railway carriage, with a peculiar combination of head injuries inflicted with great force by a sharp, round implement.

William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres. The Man Who Hated Aspidistras is an eerie tale of a man whose life, from boyhood onward, as been blighted by the sinister houseplants favoured by Victorian ladies. His dislike turns almost to a mania...and then things take on a very peculiar turn....

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), who wrote as H. P. Lovecraft, was an American writer who achieved posthumous fame through his brilliant and highly influential works of horror fiction. In the Vault tells the tale of a lazy and parsimonious undertaker who tries to skimp on the cost of a coffin by reusing a substandard, cheap box which he had made previously for a very short man.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845) was an English writer and great friend of Lamb, Hazlitt and De Quincey. Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, the Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. "A Tale of the Great Plague" is an ironic piece set in the time of the Black Death, about how an old man outwits a gang of ruthless cutthroats.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. "The Debt" is the story of the relationship between an eminent Professor of Biology and a young but highly talented student. The great Professor Landfear adopts the bright but socially awkward Galen Dredge as his protegé and future successor, preferring him even over his own son Archie.

Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) was an English author of 21 novels and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works have been ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells, and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. In his stories of detection, Bramah hit on the idea of a blind detective, Max Carrados, whose triumphs are all the more amazing because of his disability.

Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his ghost and horror stories. Rose Rose is a hauntingly beautiful ghost story about an artist and his exquisite if somewhat unreliable model, Miss Rose Rose, who is sitting for his great painting of Aphrodite. Miss Rose Rose, on this occasion, is not as unreliable as expected....

W. W. Jacobs (1863-1941) is best known as a writer of humorous stories and the crafter of the most grisly of horror stories. "The Well" tells the subtle and terrible tale of a man who murders his unscrupulous cousin, who is attempting to blackmail him, and hides the body in a disused well. It seems to be the perfect crime until one day his beloved drops her treasured bracelet down the well...

George Robert Gissing (1857–1903) was a popular English novelist and short story writer who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. Humplebee tells the tale of a young man of the same name who, in his youth, saves the life of his schoolfellow, Leonard Chadwick, who falls through thin ice on a winter pond.

Three short detective anecdotes by one of the key founding fathers of the detective genre, Charles Dickens. The Pair of Gloves, The Artful Touch, The Sofa.....

As the invention of the automobile enabled quicker travel and enhanced the lives of the early motorists, it also gave new impetus to a generation of story writers. Automobiles were unusual, unfamiliar beasts. They combined speed and danger with an uncanny ability to break down at unexpected moments, catapulting the unhappy traveller into new adventures, or thusting mystery strangers onto the inhabitants of remote houses.

The bizarre death of the Countess Görlitz at Darmstadt in Germany, in 1847, was one of the greatest mysteries of the age. For several years it was widely believed that the Countess had spontaneously combusted at her writing desk. Another popular theory was that her husband, Count Görlitz, a Privy Councillor and Chamberlain to the Grand-Duke of Hesse had murdered her - a charge which he vigorously denied.

A German toymaker seeks to oblige his daughter's friends by building the perfect dancing partner. He can dance all night, never treads on your feet, always says the right thing. At the ball the dancing partner is a great success...at first. But the waltz gets faster and faster...and the scene quickly turns to one of horror.

A celebrated doctor receives a visit from a new patient with a most peculiar ailment. He has an excruciatingly painful spot on his hand. But on examination, he can find nothing wrong with the patient at all. He assumes it is a psychosomatic illness, but the patient is insistant that the area of his hand be surgically removed. When the doctor declines this, the patient attempts to cut out the area himself, and the doctor is obliged to complete the operation after all.

Banjo Paterson's wry tale of a pugilistic sheep-worrying hound on a remote sheep station in Australia. When Hughey wants a dog "as can fight" the Super brings him Stumpy, a psychotic canine whose ability to murder other members of his own and other species is undisputed. Hughey's dog becomes the sensation of the station, but when he is unleashed on an invading dingo pack, things do not turn out as Hughey intends. Stumpy's downfall come from a vendetta he has with the Dutch cook on the station.