Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814 1873) was born in Dublin, Ireland and is acknowledged as an influential writer in the genre of gothic and supernatural fiction of the nineteenth century. Many of his short stories were originally published severally in various magazines. Here are six of them:“The White Cat of Drumgonnial”“Dickon the Devil”“The Drunkard's Dream”“The Secret of the Two Plaster Casts”“The Vision of Tom Chuff”“An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House”

Barry Pain was noted for his humorous tales of “Eliza” and her husband but his tales of the weird and supernatural are equally noteworthy. This volume of More “Tales in the Dark” contains eight of them. They are:“The Gray Cat”“Post-Mortem”“Linda”“The Unfinished Game”“The Widower”“The Unseen Power”“The End of a Show”“This is All”

The delicious, biting wit of Saki's short stories satirizing Edwardian high society are some of the funniest and most delightful of exquisite literary miniatures. In this third volume there are 21 glittering examples.Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Monro. He was born in Burma in 1870 where his father was a senior official in the Burma Police. From the age of two he lived with two maiden aunts and his grandmother in Devon and was educated in Exmouth and at the Bedford Grammar School. L...

E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is probably best known today for his sparkling, comic “Lucia”novels. In his own day it was his ghost stories which were his most popular works. “Naboth's Vineyard” exemplifies Benson's fine literary style and his ability to create the most frightening of supernatural and macabre tales.

Ambrose Bierce's collection of short stories of the supernatural and macabre "Can Such Things Be?" was first published in 1893 and republished in a revised edition in 1910. This selection contains two of his most famous tales: "The Moonlit Road" and "The Death of Halpin Frayser" together with 10 others: “John Mortonson's Funeral,” “One Summer Night,” “A Baby Tramp,” “A Diagnosis of Death,””Staley Fleming's Hallucination,” “Moxon's Master,” “A Psychological Shipwreck,” “John Bartine's Watch...

E. Nesbit is rightly best known for her children's books but she also wrote works for adults including short stories in the genres of the uncanny, macabre and supernatural. There are five of these in this collection. They are: “The House of Silence”“The Power of Darkness”“The Ebony Frame”“The Pavilion”“The Detective”

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author known for his works of horror and the fantastic. He is recognized as an influence on modern writers of supernatural fiction. “Holy Terrors” (published in 1946, a year before his death) is a collection of fourteen short stories of which nine are very short and are included in this recording. They are:“The Rose Garden”“Psychology”“The Soldier's Rest””“The Cosy Room”“The Ceremony”“Holy Things”“The Turanians”“The Happy Children”“Munitions of War”

Jerome K. Jerome is of course known for the hilarious adventures of "Three Men in a Boat". He also wrote many short stories and essays that have all the wit, whimsy and wisdom of his more famous work. The essays in this volume were published together with "The Diary of a Pilgrimage" in 1891. They are:"Evergreens""Clocks""Tea-Kettles""A Pathetic Story""The New Utopia""Dreams"

Robert Browning (1812-1889) playright and poet is known and admired for his dramatic monologues in blank verse of which he is a recognized master. He was not always popular in his own time but is now considered one of the foremost poets of Victorian England.This volume contains some of the best of the monologues including “Porphyria's Lover”, “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”,”The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came” and“...

The narrator is in deep sorrow, mourning his lost love and is slowly sinking into despair when he is visited by a talking raven from whom he seeks comfort and hope but whose only utterance is a single portentous word - “nevermore.”

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer, born in Italy and educated in the USA. He also studied at the universities of Cambridge and Heidelberg. He was a prolific writer in many fields but it was his novels that were most popular, commanding a large following. His stories of the macabre and supernatural are very highly regarded. Roy Macready reads five of them from “Uncanny Tales”:The Dead SmileThe Screaming SkullMan Overboard!For the Blood is the LifeThe Doll's Ghost

A selection of sonnets by William Shakespeare. There are 24 in number in this first selection. They are in order:Numbers: 18, 33, 11, 3, 5, 6, 29, 10, 22, 2, 4, 7, 1, 9, 27, 8, 30, 116, 34, 54, 12, 66, 77, 60.