Victorian Horror

Featuring work by Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Clara Venn and Hume Nisbet, this collection of nine enduring stories - some well-known, others less familiar - evoke the many spirits of Christmas. Featuring misty journeys to distant loved ones, Christmas Eve manifestations and lonely, frost-filled vigils.

Few ghost stories are as chilling as the ones written by Victorian writers. Featuring work by H.G. Wells, Edith Wharton, F.G. Loring and Florence Marryat, this second volume of eight enduring stories, some well-known, others less familiar, transport you to a cosy fireside to hear tales of disembodied voices, haunted objects and unknown entities lurking in the shadows cast by candlelight.

1851, Angel Meadow Asylum. Dr. Rutherford, principal physician to the insane, is found dead, his head bashed in, his ears cut off, his lips and eyes stitched closed. The police direct their attention towards Angel Meadow's inmates, but to Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain the crime is an act of calculated retribution, rather than of madness. To discover the truth Jem and Will must pursue the story through the darkest corners of the city.

On December 19th, 1851, a crime took place in the center of London. One of the few who knows what truly happened is Countess Alina Bronskaya. But she will never speak of it. The crime is her curse and her salvation.

Legendary thriller writer David Morrell transports listeners to the fogbound streets of London, where a killer plots to assassinate Queen Victoria. The year is 1855. The Crimean War is raging. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the English government. The empire teeters. Amid this crisis comes opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brilliant personalities of Victorian England. Along with his irrepressible daughter, Emily, and their Scotland Yard companions, finds himself confronted by an adversary who threatens the heart of the nation.

Addressing the corpse of her husband, who has just been pronounced dead, a hysterical Mrs Arne prays that 'if there be a God in heaven, and if He ever answered a prayer, let Him...give you back to me'. Shortly afterward, an amazed doctor finds that the patient he had thought dead has somehow miraculously recovered. But as time goes by, it's clear that there is something unsettling about Edward Arne, something that frightens people, including his once-adoring wife.

Really, it's too much to expect any normal man to behave like a staid accountant in order to inherit the fortune he deserves to support the lifestyle of an earl. So when Derek Saunders's favorite elderly aunt and her ill-conceived - and possibly fraudulent - Lady Travelers Society loses one of their members, what's a man to do but step up to the challenge? Now he's escorting the world's most maddening woman to the world's most romantic city to find her missing relative.

Thirteen classic stories of horror and the supernatural by some of the greatest writers in the genre. This compilation includes a mix of well-known classics by authors such as Edith Nesbit, J. Sheridan Le Fanu and M. R. James, alongside several tales by less familiar names who were hugely popular and prolific in their day.

William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens­—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he’s­ done.

The unnamed narrator of the story lives alone in a dark, ancient castle surrounded by a dense forest. He never sees sunlight, and he has no memory of human contact. One day, desperate to see the sun, the narrator decides to climb the ruined tower which is the only part of the castle taller than the trees. After the dangerous climb to the top room of the tower, the narrator is delighted to see the moon through a grating. Soon, however, he discovers the horrible truth behind his confinement.

In one of M.R. James’ creepiest short stories, night of terror plays out with every glimpse at a static picture and the viewer is powerless to prevent a dark figure’s progress. 'The Mezzotint' is taken from the second volume of the Victorian Anthologies Horror series, featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known. With music by Benedict Edwards.

Celeste struggles with finding her way from a dark past, until she gets a summer volunteer gig at the local historical fair. Enter: outrageous actors, dominating psychics, and ghosts stirred by a medium’s presence. With the help of the psychic’s son - who isn’t at all what her dream date would look like but rather endearing all the same - Celeste uncovers secrets about the village left hidden among the dilapidated buildings.

From the author of the Amazon best-seller The Soul Collector comes a real life story of terror and intrigue. When Edwin Gonzalez and Lillian Otero purchased the historic S.K. Pierce Victorian Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts, in 2009, they scoffed at the ghostly legends surrounding the house. They didn't believe in ghosts. The house soon proved them wrong. By the fall of 2011, they were forced from their house, narrowly escaping with their lives.

A Wicked Voice is the tale of a composer haunted by the music of the 18th century and by the exquisite voice of a singer of that period who reputedly sang so beautifully his songs could (quite literally) kill with their beauty.

‘The Signalman’ (1866) is a short story by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870). In the story, a practical-minded narrator meets a railway worker who has been seeing supernatural visions. The narrator doubts the man at first, but at the story’s conclusion a strange event makes him a believer.

England, 1925. Louisa Drew lost her husband in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly remarried to a war-traumatised husband and seven months pregnant, Louisa is asked by her employer to travel to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction. She learns Clewer Hall was host to an infamous séance in 1896, and that the lady of the house has asked those who gathered back then to come together once more to re-create the evening.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the book that changed the world. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a movie starring Elle Fanning as Mary Shelley, Monster is a brilliant fictionalized biography akin to The Other Boleyn Girl. Two centuries ago this year, the young woman who invented science fiction was only 20 when she wrote the book that became Frankenstein. Mary Shelley said, “People ask how I, then a young girl, could think of, and dilate upon, so hideous subject?”

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.

Almost always when we think of Ghost Stories, we first think of those written by the Victorians. When you consider the depth of literary talent available over the extraordinary length of Queen Victoria’s reign, allied to the fascination with their all things spiritual on ‘the other side’, then perhaps it’s simply right place, right time. Whatever the reasons given or proffered the reality and known facts are that if you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your listening pleasure.

Forever untangling the branches of her strange family tree, Edwina Blackwood is at a turning point. Her parents’ disappearances still strike her as unaccountably odd. Her sister’s questionable life and untimely death have left her shaken. Spellfire has transformed her home and livelihood to ash. And now a devious stalker is on her trail. With supernatural detective Ian Cameron by her side, Edwina can’t get out of London fast enough.