The Castle of Otranto - audiobook Horace WALPOLE (1717 - 1797) The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally held to be the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th century and early 19th century. Thus, Castle, and Walpole by extension is arguably the forerunner to such authors as Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Daphne du Maurier, and Stephen King. (Summary by Wikipedia) Genre(s): Gothic Fiction Language: English Read more [...]
The House of the Seven Gables audiobook by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) "The wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones and... becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief." Hawthorne's moral for "The House of the Seven Gables," taken from the Preface, accurately presages his story. The full weight of the gloomy mansion of the title seems to sit on the fortunes of the Pyncheon family. An ancestor took advantage of the Salem witch trials to wrest away the land whereon the house Read more [...]
Arthur Mervyn audiobook by Charles Brockden Brown Arthur Mervyn is the story of a young man from the country who arrives in a city stricken with Yellow Fever. He soon comes down with the illness and is rescued by a kindly doctor. Arthur tells the doctor and his wife the story of his life, thereby gaining the doctor's confidence and good will. However, others familiar with Arthur tell another tale, and the doctor's as well as the reader's confidence in Arthur is shaken. Brown, who himself contracted Read more [...]
The Phantom of the Opera (dramatic reading) by Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) Over the years, strange things have been happening at the Paris Op?ra House. The new owners, M. Moncharmin and M. Richard don't know what to do about the mysterious "Opera Ghost" demanding money, nor the tragic death of the chief scene-shifter. Now the young Soprano, Christine Daae, has been kidnapped and her lover, the Vicomte de Chagny, is going mad. The opera house is falling to pieces. Could this all be the work of the Read more [...]
Wuthering Heights audiobook by Emily Bronte (1818 - 1848) Emily Bront?'s only novel, published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights met with mixed reviews by critics when it first appeared, with many horrified by the stark depictions Read more [...]
Jane Eyre (dramatic reading) by Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855) (FULL Audio Book) Jane Eyre is a masterpiece of romance and hardship, penned by beloved author Charlotte Bront?. From a childhood spent as a dependent relation amongst cruel relatives and then as a student at a spirit-crushing charity school, Jane grows to become a remarkable woman: poor and plain in an era that viewed women as little more than ornaments, she believes in her own worth and craves independence and adventure. She becomes Read more [...]
Rookwood (FULL Audio Book) by William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) A rich and complex Gothic-Romance centring on the murky deeds of an ancient family. It is a wonderfully atmospheric piece that combines narrative, poetry, song, and descriptive writing to great effect. The character of Dick Turpin that we know today -- the dashing highwaymen and unmatched horseman -- can be said to stem directly from this novel, as the most famous part of the book (often published on its own in the past), Turpin's Read more [...]