Classics Literature Horror

Welcome to Volume Five of one of the world's largest collections of high quality, classic horror short-story audiobooks. If you're at home, then get some logs ready and put on your most comfortable slippers, as we kick things off with Doug Bradley's well-researched introduction to the authors and stories featured in this volume....

Here is the most famous of all tales of vampirism and an enduring classic. Jonathan Harker's journeys to Transylvania and the discovers the un-dead Count Dracula. Upon his return to England, Professor Van Helsing joins the dark struggle to overcome the evil Count. Only with a pursuit back to Transylvainia can the battle between good and evil finally prove decisive.

The unifying factor of this collection is that, without exception, every author included here was in some way or another involved with or interested in the occult. In some cases, they were members of an occult organization, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, or similar such groups. Others simply had a strong personal interest in the subject matter or practiced some form of the esoteric sciences in private.

In this original collection from Skyboat Media and Blackstone Publishing, Elizabeth Gaskell showcases the height of gothic fiction's ability to delight in the otherworldly and to dig deep into what truly haunts us. Set against the backdrop of the Salem witch trials, "Lois the Witch" reveals much about the complicity of mankind. Recently orphaned, Lois is forced to leave the English parsonage that had been her home and sail to America.

Mysterious entities take possession of a long deserted castle creating fear among the residents of the adjacent village of Werst, in Transylvania. The village sends two men to the castle to investigate, but they are repulsed by what the men feel are "supernatural" means. The heroes of the story, Count Franz de Telek and his man Rotzko learn of the mystery while passing through the village and become determined to solve it.

"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...."

Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish vision, H.P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror, "At the Mountains of Madness". The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition's uncanny discoveries - and their encounter with an untold menace in the ruins of a lost civilization - is a milestone of macabre literature.

Dorian Gray, giovane e bellissimo dandy della società londinese del diciannovesimo secolo, plagiato e iniziato dall'amico esteta Lord Henry, esprime, contemplando un proprio ritratto, il desiderio di poter rimanere sempre giovane e bello. Per un terribile sortilegio è il dipinto a portare i segni dell'età che avanza e della decadenza umana e morale ...

Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) 'killer plant' in fiction, film and video games. Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's giant wisteria and H.G. Wells' hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit's wandering creepers. Every strain of vegetable threat can be found within this new collection.

This is the original classic story of Bram Stoker's undead monster. It has influenced Western portrayals (including Buffy and Angel) of vampires and vampirism for nearly a century. Even after all this time, Bram Stoker's Dracula remains the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing.

Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow of the workhouse. Every night, Jake promises his little sister ‘tomorrow will be better’, and when the chance to escape poverty comes their way, he seizes it despite the terrible price. And so Jacob Marley is set on a path that leads to his infamous partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge. As Jacob builds a fortress of wealth to keep the world out, only Clara can warn him of the hideous fate that awaits him if he refuses to let love and kindness into his heart....

Volume 11 begins with Doug's well-researched insight into the stories and their authors. This is followed by Edgar Allan Poe’s highly acclaimed gothic romance "Ligeia", Ambrose Bierce's haunting "A Fruitless Assignment", H. P. Lovecraft's dark and disturbing "Pickman's Model", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's sinister masterpiece "Blue John Gap", and more.

Welcome to Doug Bradley's Spinechillers, Volume Six, part of the world's largest collection of high-quality, classic horror audiobooks. Are you ready for our latest installment of enthralling horror masterpieces? Good, then we'll begin with Doug's well researched and passionate introduction to the authors and stories in this volume. This is closely followed by his literary majesty, Edgar Allen Poe, with the well known classic tale "The Pit and the Pendulum".

Doug Bradley's Spinechillers takes you into the world of classic short horror stories read by Hollywood horror icons. We get underway with H. P. Lovecraft, who explores dark deception in "The Terrible Old Man". An unearthed, long-forgotten artifact, is protected by powers intent on punishing those who would remove it, in M. R. James' "A Warning to the Curious".

Welcome to Doug Bradley's Spinechillers, Volume Four, part of what is on the way of becoming the world's largest collection of high quality, classic horror short-story audiobooks. We start with Doug Bradley's well-researched introduction to the authors and stories featured in this volume. Launching us into "Lost Hearts", M. R. James' creepy tale of ghostly children seeking revenge and peace from the man who caused their untimely demise.

Volume 7 starts off with Edgar Allan Poe's story of a gifted boy hounded by his shadow, "William Wilson". We take to the sky's with a pilots investigation into unexplainable events thousands of feet above ground in Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Horror of the Heights". Next up, Ambrose Bierce plays with time in "The Suitable Surroundings".

Volume 12 begins with Doug Bradley's well-researched insight into the stories and their authors. This is followed by what H. P. Lovecraft considered to be one of his best stories, "The Music of Eric Zann". "The Tool" by W. F. Harvey is a horrifying tale narrated by an inmate of a mental institution. Next Edgar Allan Poe revisits his terrifying fear of being buried alive in "The Premature Burial". Then an eavesdropper overhears five creepy and scary ghost stories in Charles Dickens "To Be Read at Dusk".

Wieland (1798) is an early American novel set in 1760s Pennsylvania. Based on a real case of a New York farmer who murdered his family, the story is imbued with suspense and intrigue, adopting Gothic devices such as ventriloquism and spontaneous combustion. The satanic interloper Carwin exercises his power over the narrator, Clara Wieland, wreaking havoc over the Wieland family with disastrous consequences. A central theme in the novel is the issue of the values that formed the basis of a new democratic and republican America.

The first gothic novel! Manfred, the lord of the castle intends to wed his son to a lovely princess. But after the untimely death of his son, Manfred takes up the task of trying to marry the princess Isabella. She does not desire to marry Manfred, and steals away with the help of a peasant named Theodore.

Since the publication of his first novel 30 years ago, Don DeLillo has lived in the skin of our times. He has found a voice for the forgotten souls who haunt the fringes of our culture and for its larger-than-life real figures. The Body Artist is DeLillo's haunting and profoundly moving new novel.