Showing results by publisher "MuseumAudiobooks.com" in Horror

"Ligeia" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. An unnamed narrator’s beautiful and gifted wife Ligeia, falls ill and dies. After her death, the narrator marries Lady Rowena Trevanion, to whom the same thing happens. As the grief-stricken narrator keeps vigil overnight, he sees Rowena showing signs of life, in a sequence of violent revivals and relapses. When the shrouded Rowena gets up, he recognizes Ligeia, his strange and brilliant first wife. There is, however, a possibility that the narrator experienced a hallucination induced by opium.

Anatole France (1844-1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist who wrote several best sellers. The Revolt of the Angels is a mischievous take on the theology of modern society; it chronicles the thoughts of Arcade, a lowly guardian angel, as he discovers the ugly truths of his divine master in the library of his human charge As Maurice, the young man abandoned by Arcade, struggles to get his guardian back, one gets a view of a wide variety of the author’s artistic personalities, most of whom are fallen angels.

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, was an Irish writer known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. His book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, comprises two parts, the first being the "Kwaidan Proper" and the second, "Insect-Studies", which consists of an essay each on ants, butterflies and mosquitos. According to the author, most of the folk tales and ghost stories in the first part were translated from old Japanese texts. The themes encompass resurrection, sacrifice, magic, and the realm of dreams.

The story of the Egyptian priest Sosra who was condemned to live for 3,500 years before he got the chance to join his fiancee, Atma, in the afterlife. A student of Egyptology who had fallen asleep in the Louvre Museum, is a witness to Sosra’s discovery of the elixir that would reunite him with Atma.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a Gothic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is about a London legal practitioner who investigates strange occurrences between his friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll and the evil Edward Hyde. The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has entered the vernacular to refer to people with a dual nature.

William Wymark Jacobs (1863-1943) was an English author of short stories and novels, well known for his comedies involving rural Essex characters. His most famous story, "The Monkey's Paw" (1902) is a tale of intense psychological horror. "The Old Man of the Sea" is a farcical comedy about a young man, George Wright, who tries to win a lady’s hand by pretending to be the only heir of a rich uncle.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an expose of the cruelty that the author observed when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo. The story is based on a journey that Conrad took up the Congo River in 1890, during King Leopold II of Belgium’s abusive rule of the area. The main thread follows the journey of the ferry-boat captain, Marlow, who must return Kurtz, an ivory trader, to Europe. The severely ill Kurtz dies on the journey after handling Marlow a collection of papers. Back in Europe, Marlow gives these to a journalist instead of those for which they were intended.

Green Tea is the story of the Reverend Jennings, who consumes copious amounts of green tea while pursuing his esoteric interests late at night. When something goes wrong, he approaches Doctor Hesselius, who sets out the narrative in the form of a series of letters to another physician. He discusses the symptoms of the clergyman’s mysterious affliction, which torments him and interferes with his services. The illness appears to be mental rather than physical.

"The Middle Toe of the Right Foot", a ghost story by the writer and Civil War soldier Ambrose Bierce, was first published in The San Francisco Examiner in 1890. A man named Manton had murdered his children, and his wife who lacked the middle toe of her right foot. A decade later, he returns to the area; and having been recognized, is provoked to a duel in the dark, to be held at the scene of the crime. When the time of the duel comes, no antagonist appears, and Manton stands alone in the haunted darkness. The next day, they found his corpse, throttled by terror, crouching in a corner.

A ghost story about a non-existent room 13 in an inn. The occupant of room 12 and the inn-keep hear noises next door, but it’s not coming from room 14. When they do discover the door to number 13, strange things start happening....

"Mother Sauvage" by Guy de Maupassant is a short horror story of the Franco-Prussian War. The four young Prussian soldiers quartered in the house of Mother Sauvage do chores around the house as if it were their own. Mother Savage continually asks them about the French 23rd Regiment of the Line in which her son is serving, but they know nothing. When she hears of her son’s death, Mother Sauvage exacts revenge on the young soldiers. The story subtly explores the theme of revenge from the perspective of the narrator, and from the perspective of his friend Serval, who tells him the Mother Savage story.

The Conjure Woman is a collection of short stories by noted African American author Charles Waddell Chesnutt. It is considered to be one the seminal collections of African American literature.

In this atmospheric horror story, the city of the title is the ruin of a primordial site in the Arabian desert, thought to be more ancient than the first human civilization. In its heyday, the city flourished on the edge of the ocean. The inhabitants were a species of reptile looking like a hybrid of crocodile and seal, but with horns and protruding foreheads. They moved by crawling, so the remaining buildings have low ceilings.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Captain of the Pole-Star is a collection of mystery tales about amnesia, sea voyages, shipwrecks, lost love, and heists. It includes humorous stories and fairy tales.

This is the story of a university student, John Barrington Cowles, murdered by his lover, Kate Northcott, an evil woman with psychic powers. It is told from the perspective of another university student, so the narrator is not the protagonist.

The Monkey's Paw is the classic American tale that warns listeners to be careful what they wish for. Both a tale of magic and of horror, a family is thrown in shambles after they receive a mysterious gift: a monkey's paw that can grant the user three wishes. However, their greed overcomes them, and they soon learn that what you wish for is not always what you wanted.

During a cholera epidemic in New York City, the narrator visits a relative living just outside of the city. One day, the narrator has a vision of a ghastly monster alighting in the distant hills. After a second vision, his host reveals that the "monster" is neither as large nor as distant as the visitor imagined, being only an insect.

"The Domain of Arnheim" is a short tale about a man of great means named Ellison who builds a castle with a garden of breathtaking beauty called Arnheim. In "The Domain of Arnheim", Poe delves deep into the human mind, creative imagination, the soul, and the nature of beauty.

What is considered an autographical piece, the story centers around a young couple in love in a wonderful and isolated valley of beauty, until illness changes everything and the valley, too, begins to lose its luster.

Two drunken sailors, Hugh and Legs, find themselves in a part of London quarantined due to the plague. Passing by one of the buildings, they are lured inside by loud noises and discover a party of people around a table and a cellar full of liquor. A quarrel ensues, a barrel of punch is knocked over, and everyone but the sailors and two of the women drown in the deluge of liquor.