Listening to great writing is a pleasure unto itself. Sometimes the opening paragraph of a work, or even the first sentence, makes it obvious that you are in the hands of a master, and once venturing a few furtive steps onto the path of prose, no matter what forest it enters, valley it descends, or mountain it scales, you will walk the entire distance. 

Each story in this collection thus endures for a reason. Though the tales may go from macabre to merry, from black comedy to fabulist, they are each wonderfully written, and for this reason are still being listened to more than a century and a half after their first publication.