Showing results by publisher "The Story Circle Ltd" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

On Christmas Eye, in the year 1907, Mr Batchel, who would have liked to sleep well lay hopelessly wide awake. A brilliant moon shone into his room - he heard the clocks strike the hour of midnight, and having now lost all hope of falling asleep, he rose from his bed and passed into the library, with the intention of reading himself sleepy - if he could.

Sixteen thrilling and chilling stories by some of the greatest writers of horror and the supernatural.

Nineteen stories of the supernatural: The Brazilian Cat by Arthur Conan Doyle Read by Paul Panting, Eveline’s Visitant by Mary E. Braddon Read by Hayward Morse, The Leopard Man’s Story by Jack London Read by Garrick Hagon, The Eyes of the Panther by Ambrose Bierce Read by Garrick Hagon, The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson Read by Sean Barrett, Oshidori by Lafcadio Hearn Read by Liza Ross, Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson Read by Paul Panting.

Hodgson’s finest short story is set at sea, where one dark, starless night a schooner is hailed by a voice from a nearby rowing boat. The passenger refuses to bring his craft alongside and insists that the crew put away their lantern. He has approached them to beg for food for his fiancée, who he has left behind upon an island, but dares not come any closer. The crew float a box of food to him, and with heartfelt thanks he rows away. But three hours later he returns....

A doctor is sitting by his fire one evening when his peace is disturbed by a visitor: a tall woman, dressed in mourning and wearing a thick black veil. It is clear that she is in distress, and she tells him that she has come in a desperate bid to save someone dear to her who is in deadly peril. But she will not let the doctor attend to the patient immediately, insisting that he must wait until nine o’clock the following day - and the dreadful reason becomes apparent when the doctor arrives the next morning.

"Here is a nice thing for a lady now - this hand-glass: fifteenth century; comes from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable collector." The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a shock had passed through Markheim.

It was at a masked ball at the Palais Royal that my fatal quarrel with my first cousin André de Brissac began. The quarrel was about a woman. The women who followed the footsteps of Philip of Orleans were the causes of many such disputes; and there was scarcely one fair head in all that glittering throng which might not have seemed bedabbled with blood.

Here is a compelling tale sure to delight the most discerning reader of Victorian tales of terror and the supernatural.

A rare and strange story from a master of Victorian horror fiction, this enthralling tale of terror will send chills down the spine and thrill anyone who loves to be terrified.

I met a man in the Strand one day that I knew very well - though I had not seen him for years. We walked together to Charing Cross, and there we shook hands and parted. Next morning - I learnt, for the first time, that the man had died six months before.

A man and woman are sitting together on a rustic seat, talking. He is trying desperately to persuade her to marry him, but she is adamantly refusing. Finally, she tells him her real reason for refusing: she is insane. As he listens, she recounts the terrible tale behind her stark statement.

The Leopard Man, with his sad, dreamy eyes, seems oppressed by gloom. But all attempts to get his story out of him end in frustration: he seems to lack imagination. Until, finally, he reveals the tale of the lion-tamer and the man who hated him…

A young, hard-up aristocrat decides to visit his wealthy relative in the hope of obtaining a loan. When he arrives at Greylands Court, he is warmly greeted by his cousin, but his hostess is strangely hostile. However, her husband urges the young man to pay no attention to her, and invites him to tour his menagerie. There he sees the star of his cousin’s collection: a sleek, black Brazilian puma.

At a party, the guests are discussing the Saint-Cloud mystery, which has been the talk of Paris for over a month. As they crowd round the judge in the case to hear his opinion, a woman remarks that the crime seemed so horrific, it verged on the supernatural. Not so, retorts the judge - and goes on to tell his listeners of a terrible affair he was once involved in where the uncanny did play a part…

"I heard, with an unpleasant surprise, close to me, a voice that was drawling, and, I fancied, sneering, repeat the words: 'Food for worms, dead and rotten; God over all.' There was a small window in the wall, here very thick, which had been built up, and in the dark recess of this, deep in the shadow, I now saw a sharp-featured man, sitting with his feet dangling. His keen eyes were fixed on me, and he was smiling cynically...."

In a certain portion of a certain Australian Colony, two miners, when out prospecting in what was then, as now, one of the dreariest parts of the Island Continent, chanced upon a rich find. But before they could enjoy their riches, the field was declared abandoned, and the dead were left to take their last long sleep, undisturbed by the clank of windlass or the blow of pick.

One of Poe’s most famous stories and a masterpiece of psychological horror, 'The Tell-Tale Heart' is recounted by an unnamed narrator who insists he is not mad, but was driven to murder by his over-acute senses. To prove his sanity, he tells the listener how he conceived of the idea of killing the old man he lived with, how he went about it - and what happened afterwards....