The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast

Something is wrong in the woods.The artist notices him first — and says almost nothing. One remark, on the way to the station, barely above a murmur. Then the train comes, and he is gone.It falls to Van Cheele to find out what his friend meant. What he discovers, by the pool in the oak coppice, is a boy with light brown eyes that hold something tigerish in them, lying in the sun with an ease that belongs to no child he has ever met.The aunt will find him charming. The dog will not stay in the house.Saki understood that the old country — the country before the parishes and the property lines — was never entirely tamed. The animals there talk. "Gabriel-Ernest" was first published in 1909 in the Westminster Gazette, and later collected in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches (1910). Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), a writer of savage wit and supernatural unease. He was killed on the Western Front in the closing months of the Somme campaign. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here:https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here:payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 1 June 2026

There is a house in Auburn, California, with a tragic history and a new tenant. Jean Averaud has come from New Orleans with money, with books, with a beautiful mute woman who watches him with eyes full of something between devotion and dread. He has come with a theory about evil — not the Devil, not sin, not the ordinary darkness of human nature, but evil as a cosmic force, a radiation from a black sun somewhere in the depths of space. And he has come with a purpose. In the old Larcom house, with its history of sorrow and disaster, he has found exactly the conditions he needs. His neighbour, a novelist, finds himself drawn into Averaud's orbit.  Clark Ashton Smith's The Devotee of Evil is a quiet story. It does not rush. It thinks. And what it thinks about has been troubling philosophers and theologians for two thousand years.  The Devotee of Evil was first published in Smith's self-produced chapbook The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies in 1933, after failing to find a commercial publisher. It reappeared in Stirring Science Stories in February 1941.  Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) was a California poet, painter, sculptor and writer of weird fiction, one of the central figures of the Weird Tales circle alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, with whom he maintained a long correspondence. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 29 May 2026

A young man waits in a suburban lane for his sweetheart. She doesn't come. Walking home past her house, he finds the front door standing open, the windows dark. He goes in. He goes upstairs. He strikes a match. The next morning she is perfectly well, and the room he entered was locked all night, the key in her pocket. But the almanack on the mantelpiece read the 21st of October. And it was May.  "The Mystery of the Semi-Detached" was first published in Edith Nesbit's collection Grim Tales in 1893. Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) is best remembered today as the author of The Railway Children and Five Children and It, but she was also a prolific and accomplished writer of supernatural fiction, whose ghost stories combine suburban ordinariness with genuine dread to unsettling effect. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 24 May 2026

A man reads about a murder in his morning paper over breakfast in his Piccadilly rooms. That should be the end of it. But something follows him from that reading — something that refuses to stay on the page. And when fate places him in the jury box at the murder trial itself, he begins to count his fellow jurymen, there there should be twelve, he counts thirteen... Dickens wrote this story with a title that is itself a warning. Whether you take that warning as a comment on the narrator, on the law, or on the nature of what follows, is a question the story leaves carefully unanswered. * "To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt"* was first published in the Christmas 1865 edition of *All the Year Round*, Dickens's own literary journal, as part of a collection entitled *Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions*. It was later republished under the titles *The Trial for Murder* and *The Thirteenth Man*. Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in Portsmouth and is widely regarded as the greatest English novelist of the Victorian era. He was also one of the finest writers of ghost stories in the language, and this story was considered the definitive English ghost story for decades, before M.R. James arrived to claim that title. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2026

A Walk in the Park by William Bundy There is a park at the edge of a sleeping city. A man walks through it at night — tall, cloaked, unhurried — as if he has walked this way before, many times, across many years. A boy watches from a window. Dreams come. And something waits outside in the moonlight, patient as stone, returning with every full moon whether it is wanted or not. William Bundy's *A Walk in the Park* is a story about inheritance — the kind you don't choose. --- *A Walk in the Park* is published on William Bundy's Substack at redsaidwrites.substack.com, where you'll find more of his writing in the same vein. --- William Bundy is a UK-based writer of dark and supernatural fiction whose work spans short stories, essays, and film. Find his writing at williambundy.com, his Substack at redsaidwrites.substack.com, his film work on Instagram at instagram.com/redsaidfilms, and all his links gathered in one place at linktr.ee/williambundy. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 14 May 2026

A man drives out to the Norfolk Broads one February night to look at a holiday bungalow. Snow is falling. The marshes are silent. Not even the waterfowl are stirring. Then, close to midnight, headlamps appear on the road — a car has broken down, and a young woman is alone with an engine that won't start. He does what anyone would do. He helps. He offers whisky. He thinks nothing of it.  But there is something not quite right about her. Something in the way she watches the road behind her. Something in the way she keeps to the shadows. "My Adventure in Norfolk" by A.J. Alan, first collected in Good Evening, Everyone!, published by Hutchinson in 1928. The story was originally broadcast live on the BBC in the mid-1920s. A.J. Alan was the pseudonym of Leslie Harrison Lambert, a senior intelligence officer who worked at Bletchley Park and served as Vice-President of the Magic Circle. He broadcast only a handful of stories each year and never revealed his true identity to the public during his lifetime.  The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 8 May 2026

This is for Terry Illikainen. No commentar.y As an experiment, I will do the commentary as a separate post. In a sombre Elizabethan pile above Lake Windermere, the air is thick with more than just decay. Miss Prunella Pendleham, the last of a long line, watches her companion, Amelia, wither into a gaunt and listless shadow. Amelia is the sixth companion; three before her never left these walls alive. Amidst the rattle of mountain rain, thin, high screams echo through the stone-vaulted halls. Is it the onset of madness, or is the house reclaiming a brutal, hidden history? As the light fades, the only certainty is the tightening grip of a terror that will have its say. The Triumph of Death first appeared in The Arkham Sampler, Autumn 1949. It was later collected in Strayers from Sheol (1961) and The Best Ghost Stories of H. Russell Wakefield (1978). H. Russell Wakefield (1888--1964) was an English writer best known for his unsettling ghost stories. Drawing on clerical, military, and publishing-world experience, he brought a sharp psychological edge to the classic British supernatural tale. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2026

Tom Enderby is a widower who would like to remarry. There is nothing unusual in that. He has found a woman he is fond of, a gentle and pretty woman who is fond of him in return. There is nothing unusual in that either. What is unusual is what keeps happening to the white linen. His first wife Gloriana has been dead for four years. She asked only one thing of him before she died — a small, strange, domestic request — and he honoured it. He made no promises. He is bound by nothing. And yet. H. D. Everett's "The Death Mask" is a ghost story about what we owe the dead, and about the debts that accumulate, unnoticed, in the ordinary fabric of a marriage. The fabric, in this case, is quite literal. --- "The Death Mask" was first published in 1920 as the title story of *The Death-Mask and Other Ghosts* (London: Philip Allan, Quality Court, Chancery Lane), issued under the name Mrs. H. D. Everett. Henrietta Dorothy Everett (1851–1923) was an English writer of supernatural fiction and historical novels who published her first book at the age of forty-four under the male pseudonym Theo Douglas, and whose ghost stories drew admiring notice from both M. R. James and H. P. Lovecraft. ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2026

Lost Hearts by M R James (1862-1936) Join my patreon: https://patreon.com/barcud There is a house in Lincolnshire where a scholar lives alone with his books and his learning and his carefully recorded dates. He is a kind man, by all appearances — generous to orphaned children, interested in the old religions, methodical in his habits. The kind of man that academics find reliable. M. R. James wrote this story in 1895. His erudition encompassed the respectable and the less so, and he knew the darker currents of the archive as well as any man alive. Something — or someone — has been waiting in that house. Waiting, with considerable patience, for the third. "Lost Hearts" was first published in the Pall Mall Magazine in 1895, and collected in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, published by Edward Arnold in 1904. Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medieval manuscript scholar, Provost of King's College Cambridge and later of Eton, and the most influential writer of English ghost stories of the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 15 April 2026

On a forgotten platform at a junction no map records, a man waits for a train he half-remembers from childhood nightmares. In his hands, a battered red book falls open, again and again, to the same impossible picture: a tunnel mouth, a lamp, a solitary figure who will not quite turn his face to the light. As the night thickens and the pages repeat themselves, memory and prediction begin to trade places, and the question of who is watching whom will not stay safely inside the story. First published in The London Mercury in November 1935; later collected in the volume The Sun Cure (1936). Now widely reprinted in anthologies of supernatural and psychological horror, where it has earned a reputation as a minor classic. Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) was a British poet and prose writer, best known for poems such as “The Highwayman”. Alongside his popular verse, he wrote a small but influential body of uncanny fiction, of which “Midnight Express” is the most celebrated. Join the mailing list for an occasional newsletter https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 8 April 2026

Join the mailing list for an occasional newsletter https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal A man arrives at a desert fortress to visit an old friend. The friend is not there. The English servant says he will return shortly. The heat presses down. The water tastes wrong. And the waiting stretches on in ways that are difficult to explain. Edith Wharton set this story not in her usual territory of New York drawing rooms, but somewhere in North Africa, in a crumbling pile of Crusader stonework and Arab plasterwork, where the palms rattle like rain above an ancient well, and the desert stretches out in every direction, golden and merciless. She wrote it without a single ghost. She didn't need one. First published in the Saturday Evening Post in March 1926 under the title "A Bottle of Evian," the story was collected in Certain People (1930) and later reprinted in Wharton's posthumous ghost story anthology Ghosts (1937). Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was an American novelist and short story writer, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence in 1921. She published more than forty books across four decades. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2026

The moon lifts off the water and climbs the sky over Calabria. Two men sit on the stones of an old tower above the coast, sipping the local wine, basking in the warm dark. Below them, where the rock runs down toward the sea, there is a mound in the earth. One of them notices something in the gorge far below. He descends to look. The other sits, and watches, and says nothing. When the first man climbs back up, his companion turns to him quietly and asks: do you want to hear the story of what you saw there, and also what you didn't? First published in Collier's Weekly, 16 December 1905. Collected in Wandering Ghosts, 1911. F. Marion Crawford (1854–1909) lived most of his adult life in Italy. In his own time he was one of the most widely read novelists in the English language. He is less remembered now than he deserves. New type of image because I was recently told that my Audiobook style images were the reason that my channel's growth has stagnated. Hope you like it!!!!! 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2026

In an old private chapel attached to a country house, a trusted servant keeps night watch beside the ancient altar, alone behind a locked door. By morning he is found dead, a dagger from the chapel’s peculiar mechanism driven clean through his heart—though no human hand should have been able to strike the blow. No tracks, no witnesses, only the oppressive sense that something in that dim, little sanctuary has moved unseen. As Thomas Carnacki retraces the dead man’s final hours and tests the chapel’s sinister contrivance for himself, the silence around the altar begins to sound like an answer of its own. First published in the 1909 collection The Ghost Pirates, A Chaunty, and Another Story, “The Thing Invisible” later appeared in The New Magazine (January 1912) before being collected in Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder (1913). The story is in the public domain. William Hope Hodgson (1877–1918) was an English writer of sea stories, supernatural fiction, and weird horror. He is best known for his visionary novels The House on the Borderland and The Night Land, as well as his stories featuring the occult detective Carnacki. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2026

There is a house at the end of a lane. You have seen it before — or something like it. Palladian, still, its pale stone holding the last of the May light as if reluctant to let the evening come. The chestnut trees stand tall around it. The air is warm and gold and very quiet. Charles Dash stops his car. He is trespassing, he knows, but the house is empty, surely? And it is such a beautiful house. Worth seeing, if only for a few minutes. And then the car key goes missing. He cannot find it anywhere. And the owner appears — such a welcoming man, such a pressing, generous, will-not-take-no-for-an-answer kind of man. Do come in. Stay for dinner. The night is drawing in. Why not stay? Why not? A Recluse was first published in 1926 and collected in On the Edge, Faber and Gwyer, 1930. Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) was an English poet, novelist and short story writer, regarded as one of the supreme masters of the uncanny in the English language. His ghost stories occupy a singular place in the tradition — atmospheric, oblique, and finally inexplicable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2026

Link to Audio version “The Bat” is a short horror monologue recorded by Bela Lugosi, built around his spoken persona rather than a conventional plot. In it he addresses the listener directly and describes the bat as a creature of night and hush, a watcher at windows and eaves, half in the natural world and half in something older and less defined. The piece is more mood than story: a sequence of images about darkness, wings, and unease, letting pauses and emphases do most of the work.  After arriving in the United States as a stateless immigrant in 1920, Lugosi struggled with the English language, often memorising his lines phonetically. His big break came in 1927 when he was cast as the lead in the Broadway production of Dracula. His performance was so magnetic that Universal Pictures cast him in the 1931 film adaptation. Lugosi’s portrayal—characterised by his slow, melodic Hungarian accent, intense gaze, and formal evening wear—transformed the vampire from a finished, rat-like monster into a seductive, sophisticated villain. This performance became the template for every vampire depiction that followed. While Dracula made him a superstar, it also trapped him. Lugosi found it nearly impossible to land roles outside of the horror genre. The Rivalry: He was frequently paired with Boris Karloff (who played Frankenstein’s monster), though Karloff often received higher billing and better pay, which reportedly frustrated Lugosi. The Roles: He gave notable performances in White Zombie (1932), The Black Cat (1934), and as the broken-necked Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939). Health Struggles: Chronic sciatica led to a severe dependency on painkillers. As his health declined and his "classic" style of horror fell out of fashion, he found himself relegated to low-budget "B-movies." In the 1950s, Lugosi experienced a strange career coda through his friendship with cult director Ed Wood. He appeared in films now famous for being "so bad they're good," such as Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space (released posthumously). Lugosi passed away in 1956 at the age of 73. In a final tribute to the role that defined him, he was buried in his full Dracula cape at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Despite his difficult later years, he remains one of the most recognisable and influential icons in cinema history. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2026

Link to Audio version “The Bat” is a short horror monologue recorded by Bela Lugosi, built around his spoken persona rather than a conventional plot. In it he addresses the listener directly and describes the bat as a creature of night and hush, a watcher at windows and eaves, half in the natural world and half in something older and less defined. The piece is more mood than story: a sequence of images about darkness, wings, and unease, letting pauses and emphases do most of the work.  After arriving in the United States as a stateless immigrant in 1920, Lugosi struggled with the English language, often memorising his lines phonetically. His big break came in 1927 when he was cast as the lead in the Broadway production of Dracula. His performance was so magnetic that Universal Pictures cast him in the 1931 film adaptation. Lugosi’s portrayal—characterised by his slow, melodic Hungarian accent, intense gaze, and formal evening wear—transformed the vampire from a finished, rat-like monster into a seductive, sophisticated villain. This performance became the template for every vampire depiction that followed. While Dracula made him a superstar, it also trapped him. Lugosi found it nearly impossible to land roles outside of the horror genre. The Rivalry: He was frequently paired with Boris Karloff (who played Frankenstein’s monster), though Karloff often received higher billing and better pay, which reportedly frustrated Lugosi. The Roles: He gave notable performances in White Zombie (1932), The Black Cat (1934), and as the broken-necked Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939). Health Struggles: Chronic sciatica led to a severe dependency on painkillers. As his health declined and his "classic" style of horror fell out of fashion, he found himself relegated to low-budget "B-movies." In the 1950s, Lugosi experienced a strange career coda through his friendship with cult director Ed Wood. He appeared in films now famous for being "so bad they're good," such as Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space (released posthumously). Lugosi passed away in 1956 at the age of 73. In a final tribute to the role that defined him, he was buried in his full Dracula cape at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Despite his difficult later years, he remains one of the most recognisable and influential icons in cinema history. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2026

A young doctor, recovering from illness, is sent to the Derbyshire hills for his health. He takes lodgings at a remote farm, where he notices the family's reluctance to discuss the valley below. There's a Roman mine nearby that no one acknowledges, and a particular opening in the earth that unsettles him. His diary records what starts as mild interest in local folklore. But as he explores the mine workings beneath the Blue John caverns, his entries shift. The question becomes less about what might exist in the old tunnels, and more about what happens to a man who goes looking for it. First published in The Strand Magazine in August 1910, “The Terror of Blue John Gap” was later collected in The Last Galley: Impressions and Tales in 1911. It draws on the real Blue John Cavern near Castleton, with its distinctive banded fluorite. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and author, best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Beyond detective fiction, he wrote historical novels, science‑fiction romances, and a rich vein of ghostly and weird tales. Get the last copies of the first edition of Once in a Haunted House, our print magazine. Not many left! Here: https://payhip.com/b/fE1Gz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2026

A man takes a sunlit shortcut through an English wood and finds that something is missing. There is no thrush, and no blackbird, and no rustle of wings – only a strange dimming of the light, and a silence that feels willed, and watchful, and almost hungry. At his friend's house the dogs will not cross the tree-line, and they bare their teeth at empty air. In the evenings, that grey band of trees seems to lie under a shadow that falls from nowhere anyone can see. There is something in the wood, something that makes the dogs keep away and the birds fall silent. His friend suspects it, and his friend's wife avoids talking about it, and neither will say what they believe it might be. First published in Woman magazine in December 1926, and later collected in Spook Stories (Hutchinson, 1928). Public domain text sourced from Project Gutenberg Canada. Edward Frederic Benson (1867–1940) was an English novelist, and biographer, and master of the uncanny short story. Best known for his Mapp and Lucia comedies and his eerie tales of the supernatural, he wrote across nearly every genre of early twentieth-century popular fiction. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 27 February 2026

Two noble houses. Centuries of hatred. A prophecy that may mean nothing—or everything. In medieval Hungary, the young Baron Metzengerstein encounters a horse—gigantic, fiery-colored, unlike any creature in his stables. He rides it obsessively. Dawn and midnight. Sickness and health. Riveted to the saddle as if becoming one with the creature. It performs impossible feats. The servants whisper of things they cannot explain. Some souls dwell only once in flesh. After that—only the scarcely tangible resemblance. Publication Details: "Metzengerstein" first appeared anonymously in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier on January 14, 1832, making it Edgar Allan Poe's first published tale. It was later revised and included in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. Author Biography: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, and literary critic who pioneered the modern short story and detective fiction. His works of Gothic horror and psychological complexity remain among the most influential in world literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 20 February 2026

A solitary man, lost in the Welsh hills, stumbles through thick mist—his only companion a mounting sense of unease. The landscape is indifferent; the path vanishes; every familiar landmark dissolves into obscurity. Rescue appears in the form of an enigmatic stranger, whose kindness feels both matter-of-fact and unsettling. A map changes hands, but the mist has a memory longer than any traveller’s, and the hills have their own way of keeping secrets. What follows is not a tale of terror, but a quiet reckoning with the uncanny—a story in which benevolence and danger are not so easily separated. “An Encounter in the Mist” by A. N. L. Munby, first published in The Alabaster Hand (1949). A. N. L. Munby (1913–1974) was a British librarian, bibliographer, and author, best known for his ghost stories and scholarly work on rare books. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories https://www.classicghost.com/ghost-stories-episodes/buy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 16 February 2026

A mediaeval abbot leaves behind a cipher—not in his will, but scratched into the glass of his own church. The treasure it guards has lain undisturbed for centuries. Mr. Somerton, a scholar with a taste for puzzles, believes he can solve what others have missed. The Latin is difficult, the clues are scattered, but gold is gold, and curiosity has its own momentum. What waits beneath the stone was put there deliberately. It has been patient. Some things, once disturbed, do not easily return to silence. "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" was first published in 1904 in M.R. James's second collection, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. The story has been widely anthologized and was adapted for television by the BBC in 1974. Montague Rhodes James was a distinguished mediaeval scholar and Provost of King's College, Cambridge, later of Eton College. He is regarded as one of the finest writers of supernatural fiction in the English language, and his ghost stories continue to define the antiquarian tradition of literary horror. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 13 February 2026

A schoolmaster arrives late at night in a remote Alpine village. The inn has no rooms. Then suddenly—there is one. A room that's occupied, yet empty. A room whose previous tenant, an Englishwoman, left two days before and hasn't returned. As he unpacks his few belongings, the atmosphere begins to press in. Something lingers here—in the faded flowers by the washstand, in the air itself. And when darkness falls, he feels it: a crushing weight of despair that doesn't belong to him. Thoughts that aren't his own. A blackness so complete it whispers of only one escape. The search party is still out on the mountains. But what if they're looking in the wrong place? Publication Details: "The Occupant of the Room" was first published in 1909 in Blackwood's collection John Silence: Physician Extraordinary, featuring the psychic detective Dr. John Silence. The story showcases Blackwood's mastery of psychological horror and the contagion of extreme emotional states. Author Biography: Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a British author, occultist, and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His work explored the boundaries between psychological experience and supernatural phenomena, establishing him as one of the most influential writers of weird fiction in the early twentieth century. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 6 February 2026

Sponsored by the generosity of Gavin Critchley. Thanks, Gavin! The valley of Cwm Garon is a place of ancient ruins and emerald meadows, tucked deep within the Welsh Borderland. When John Carfax first arrives, it seems a sanctuary, far from the grime of the city. But the stillness here is deceptive; it is a silence that watches. As the mountain shadows lengthen, the beauty of the landscape begins to distort into something more sinister4 Among the brooding crags and shifting mists, a feeling of unwelcome intrusion takes hold In Cwm Garon, the land itself remembers, and the shadows have never truly been empty. Publication Details "Cwm Garon" was first published in 1948 as part of L.T.C. Rolt’s landmark supernatural collection, Sleep No More. It is frequently anthologized as a masterclass in the "antiquarian" ghost story tradition. Author Biography L.T.C. Rolt (1910–1974) was a prolific English writer and engineer who co-founded the Inland Waterways Association to preserve Britain's canal heritage. While famous for his biographies of industrial icons, he is equally celebrated for his atmospheric weird fiction, often set in the isolated landscapes he encountered during his travels. Don't forget: 24/7 Ad free stream of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast on Internet radio. It goes on and on and on and on. For all you not-so sleepy heads, and better still: it's free! www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 30 January 2026

Lichen Hall is the perfect English country mansion, a veritable rural paradise—a Tudor house of mellow beauty that has been carefully restored after the fire that claimed a child's life twelve years ago. For Claude Halyard, it is an earthly paradise reclaimed. For his wife Laura, it is a home that seems to cast a spell—lovely, peaceful, and somehow waiting. Their daughter Hyacinth finds the old day nursery and makes it her own. She plays alone there for hours, running invisible races, laughing at jokes only she can hear. She is never lonely, she insists. She has a friend. Laura begins to notice small impossibilities: a rocking horse galloping in an empty room, its stirrups held forward. Candles lit on a Christmas tree when no one has been near. The faint sound of a child's gramophone playing "Boys and Girls Come Out to Play." Claude grows tense, strained, building walls of silence his wife cannot penetrate. He speaks of leaving. He cannot say why. But Hyacinth has made a promise to her playmate. And some promises, once given, cannot be broken—even when the one who waits to claim them has been dead for twelve years. "The Playfellow" by Lady Cynthia Asquith was first published in This Mortal Coil (Arkham House, 1947), later reissued in the UK as What Dreams May Come (Rich & Cowan, 1951). Lady Cynthia Asquith (1887–1960) was J. M. Barrie's secretary, a distinguished memoirist and biographer, and editor of the influential Ghost Book series. Her own supernatural fiction is characterized by restraint, psychological insight, and civilized unease. 24/7 Ad free stream of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast on Internet radio. It goes on and on and on and on. For all you not-so sleepy heads, and better still: it's free! www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2026

Let's go Gothick. Get your pitchfork. Get your burning brand. We're off to the castle to see the count. The Skeleton Count; or, The Vampire Mistress In the shadowed corridors of a remote castle, Count Rodolph has made a bargain that no mortal should contemplate. The price of eternal life is high, and the methods by which it is secured are terrible beyond imagining. When the corpse of the beautiful Bertha is carried from her grave to his study, something moves beneath the burial shroud. Eyes that had closed in death open once more, fixed upon the Count with a gaze both empty and aware. She will be his companion through the centuries—but what hungers might stir in one recalled from the tomb? What thoughts take root in a mind that has crossed the threshold between this world and the next? The villagers whisper of strange lights in the tower. A child is found pale and trembling in the night. And in the castle, two beings who should not exist learn what it means to be neither living nor dead. First published in 1828 in the English periodical The Casket, this early vampire tale predates both Carmilla and Dracula, exploring the dark territory between necromancy and vampirism. The story has been attributed to Elizabeth Caroline Grey, though both the authorship and original publication remain subjects of scholarly dispute. If the attribution holds, it represents the first vampire story written and published by a woman. Don't forget the radio station https://www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 16 January 2026

Jean-Pierre Ducharme and Ms. Esmeralda Spinoza are experts in the delicate architecture of the séance. Inside the stillness of Julia Silverman’s game room, they prepare to reach across the divide for a daughter lost four months prior. It is a space of flickering candles, soft whispers, and the heavy weight of a mother’s grief. But as the circle joins hands, the atmosphere begins to curdle. The familiar rituals start to feel unpredictable, and a coldness settles that no draft can explain. They have spent years navigating the boundaries of the unknown, but tonight, those boundaries are no longer holding. "A Message for Julia" was first broadcast on The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast in January 2025. Roy Sunter is a New Hampshire-based author. Roy Sunter’s primary body of work can be found at Studio 8, with earlier archives located at ArcanumCafe. He writes under the handle "sasha"—the Russian diminutive of his middle name, Alexander. His ongoing "chapbook" at Studio 8 features a collection of spontaneous prose, much of it in the zuihitsu style, alongside his photography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 13 January 2026

One of my own stories. The River Thames freezes and a Frost Fair is held for the first time since 1814. Two friends meet for a pint of Dark Ale in the ancient London riverside pub, the Water Witch. What could go wrong? If you've never listened to one of my stories, give this one a try. Many people find them splendid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 9 January 2026

It's Boxing Night in Bruddersford and the pantomime's a disaster waiting to happen. The company's second-rate, the theatre's half empty, and the actor playing the Demon King hasn't turned up. Then he does—and suddenly everything changes. The performance takes on an authority it never had in rehearsal. The comedy gets sharper, the villain more convincing, and by the end something has happened that nobody can quite explain. Priestley wrote this in 1931, drawing on his Bradford theatre days and the tradition of the pantomime devil who enters from stage left. The BBC adapted it for radio in 1962 with Ian Wallace, adding Radiophonic Workshop effects to a story that's as much about provincial theatre life as it is about the supernatural. First published 1931. BBC Home Service radio adaptation December 1962. Author: J. B. Priestley (1894–1984), Bradford-born novelist and playwright. Best known for The Good Companions, Angel Pavement, and An Inspector Calls. During the war his BBC radio talks reached audiences of 16 million. Listen to a 24/7 Stream of Classic Ghost Stories Ad Free here: www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 2 January 2026

On Christmas Day, two sisters in a remote farmhouse in the middle of the Romney Marshes, have a dream. The snow begins to fall heavily and they are isolated miles away from any help. But a dream is just a dream, isn't it? Written by E F Benson Why not try my cost free, ad free new Ghost Stories Radio? Listen to it here: www.gravenheim.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 26 December 2025

Teaser Script Christmas at Abingdale Hall. The great house decked in festive greenery, servants bustling, family gathering from across the country. And in the entrance hall, a magnificent Scots Pine—ten feet of perfect symmetry, branches heavy with the promise of celebration. But the tree came from Lucky's Grove. The estate manager is new. He doesn't know the local warnings. He doesn't know that some groves have been sacred since before Christianity reached these shores. He doesn't know that when you take a tree from such a place, something comes with it. The guests arrive. The children play in the snow. The fires are lit, the table laid. Everything proceeds as it should. Almost. There are accidents. Small things at first. A workman injured. Strange dreams that leave everyone unsettled at breakfast. A boy builds a snowman with a wolf's head and cannot explain why. The gods of Lucky's Grove are patient. They have waited centuries. They can wait until Christmas Day. Publication Details "Lucky's Grove" by H. Russell Wakefield was first published in The Clock Strikes Twelve (Herbert Jenkins, 1940), later expanded by Arkham House in 1946. Author Biography Herbert Russell Wakefield (1888–1964) was an English writer whose atmospheric ghost stories earned him comparison to M. R. James. His fiction insisted on the reality of the supernatural, presenting hauntings with clinical precision and iron control over dread. ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2025

Christmas at Colonel and Lady Garrison’s house is all warmth, laughter, and parlour games, until the evening’s “entertainment” arrives: a small, shabby medium with disconcertingly sharp eyes. The guests settle round the table for an amusing bit of spiritualism. As the lights dim and the control takes over, the party games curdle into something closer to an inquest, and the most unwelcome of visitors finds its way back. First published in The Sphere on 20 November 1935, “The Man Who Came Back” was collected in The Floating Café and Other Stories (Jarrolds, 1936). It has since reappeared in several modern anthologies of seasonal supernatural tales, including the British Library’s Sunless Solstice: Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights (2021). Margery Harriet Lawrence (1889–1969) was an English writer who moved with ease between ghost stories, occult fiction, romance, and crime, and whose work was widely read in the inter-war decades. She is now best remembered for her Club of the Round Table tales and for Dr Miles Pennoyer, her “psychic doctor” occult detective, whose cases draw heavily on the spiritualist beliefs she embraced in later life. Buy My Christmas Ghost Stories Paperback as a Gift for Someone!? https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=MxXXCglWV2Uu4L9ArK8eIz8rexI8huhrBketkRcyMfh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 18 December 2025

The Four-Fifteen Express, a Christmas Ghost Story by Amelia B. Edwards A fantastic story by the very competent Victorian writer, Amelia B. Edwards. This story was published in the 1866 Christmas number of Charles Dickens's magazine All The Year Round. It's set against the railway investment bubble of the 1860s and has a ghost, a mystery, a crime and a cigar case. What more could you want? I need you to support me. Join my Patreon.com/barcud even as a free member and it will help Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 5 December 2025

A dollmaker works late into the evening to repair a broken doll. Outside, London's fog presses against the windows. Inside, in the dim workshop light, something moves among the shelves—something that shouldn't move at all. "The Doll's Ghost" first appeared in The Undesired Princess collection (1897), later included in Wandering Ghosts (1911). F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909): American novelist resident in Italy, author of historical romances and supernatural tales praised by M.R. James for their atmospheric restraint. Christmas Presents! Buy my Christmas Ghost Stories as a paperback as a present for some who likes Christmas ghost stories, or who might be persuaded. https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=MxXXCglWV2Uu4L9ArK8eIz8rexI8huhrBketkRcyMfh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 28 November 2025

In Ireland, a newly purchased castle unsettles its American owner. He is wealthy, engaged to a local woman, and certain that jealous countrymen mean him harm. What truly threatens the household is a particular room that fills at night with a dangerous, sustained whistling that rises and falls like breath. Doors quiver; servants keep away. Carnacki is summoned with his lamps, his electric scepticism and his knowledge of spirit manifestations. He investigates, seals the room, warns no one to enter and admits himself stumped. At least at first! “The Whistling Room” was first published in 1910 and later collected in Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder (1913).UK publisher: Eveleigh Nash. William Hope Hodgson (1877–1918) was an English writer of sea horrors and visionary weird fiction.A former merchant sailor, he served in the First World War and was killed near Ypres. Here is my ebook and audiobook store payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast For 33% discount - use coupon 33OFFGHOSTPOD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2025

A neglected Georgian house, shutters still, poplars trees surround it, whispering. Downstairs is a row of servant bells to call servants. One has a mysterious name and is reputed to ring when no one is there. Rumour speaks of a hooded figure and an owl; the corridors mutter with sounds of pipes, disconnected wires, and something harder to dismiss. By night, faces seem to change in the mirror; but by day, the rooms are ordinary. Servants won't stay there and then the owner organises an investigation, a ghost hunt, if you like. A society of guest who are to keep their counsel until Twelfth Night, listening for what remains and for the presence that speaks when the house is empty. First published as the Christmas number of All the Year Round (December 1859), a collaborative sequence framed and partly written by Charles Dickens. This reading includes Dickens’s chapters: “The Mortals in the House” and “The Ghost in Master B.’s Room.” Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was a British novelist and social critic, author of Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and Great Expectations. He edited Household Words and All the Year Round, helping to make the Victorian Christmas ghost story a tradition. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 14 November 2025

Beneath the soot and iron of England’s industrial heart, a foundry lies silent. Its furnaces once roared for empire, but the men are gone, the machinery rusted, the sand floor undisturbed. When war comes and the living return to wake it, something else stirs too—something that remembers.In the stillness of metal and dust, the past is waiting to be poured once more. “Hawley Bank Foundry” was first published in L. T. C. Rolt’s collection Sleep No More (1948), a landmark of twentieth-century British ghost fiction. L. T. C. Rolt (1910–1974) was an engineer, historian, and writer whose love of canals and craftsmanship gave his supernatural tales their distinctive sense of industrial melancholy and moral gravity. P S I've just had my Classic Detective Podcast demonetised by YouTube for some spurious reason, probably decided by a bot. So, if you're reading this and enjoying it please consider becoming a patreon https://patreon.com/barcud Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 7 November 2025

A remote New England village. Dark rumours swirl among its lonely hills. Whispers of strange rites, of a family line touched by shadows, haunt the woods and starlit nights. Something stirs where the old stones lie, and the boundary between the known and the unseen begins to thin. In my Halloween tradition, the tale chosen is “The Dunwich Horror”—a story rich in mystery, and alive with Lovecraft’s trademark unease. First published in Weird Tales, April 1929. Collected in "The Outsider and Others" by Arkham House, 1939. H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer whose cosmic horror stories explored the limits of knowledge and the fragility of sanity. His influenced echoes through horror, science fiction, and popular culture to this day. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 31 October 2025

Twilight opens in a garden where beauty wears a mask to protect it from the years, and twilight brings regrets and confessions. A young courtier stumbles upon a Duchess at dusk—painted, jewelled, and demanding. She wants him to be her father confessor, but what does Lucrezia Borgia want to confess and why does he run away? My first video podcast on Spotify... Publication: First published in God’s Playthings (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1913), under Marjorie Bowen’s principal pseudonym. Setting and subject: Ferrara; Lucrezia Borgia in her final twilight. Author: Marjorie Bowen (Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long, 1885–1952), prolific British writer of historical and supernatural fiction. Noted for: Lush atmosphere, moral chiaroscuro, and “twilight tales” that fuse history with the uncanny ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 31 October 2025

A northern lad takes a cheap room above a Wapping pub in ’87, where the Thames presses at the windows like weather. He wants to be a journalist not a barman, but he needs the money... He learns. that the cellar has secrets and that the beer is popular. Especially the Thames Halloween Dark Ale. I've made this members only story for November available to everbody as it's the Halloween one. Hope members don't mind! Here is my ebook and audiobook store payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast For 33% discount - use coupon 33OFFGHOSTPOD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 30 October 2025

A man stands on a railway bridge. Orders pass along the line; the river says nothing. A watch ticks, a breath stalls, and time begins to misbehave. Memory intrudes, desire bargains, and the world narrows to rope, water, distance. No fanfare; only procedure—and a mind trying to outrun it. Follow the story to its far edge. First published in 1890; collected in *Tales of Soldiers and Civilians* (1891). Text: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842–c. 1914), American author, journalist, and Civil War veteran. Best known for unsentimental war tales and the sardonic *Devil’s Dictionary*. Here is my ebook and audiobook store payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast For 33% discount - use coupon 33OFFGHOSTPOD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 24 October 2025

A lonely farmhouse stands in a hollow of the hills—its windows dark, its doors long locked, and a story clinging to it that no one in the valley will tell aloud. When a sceptical visitor decides to spend the night within, he discovers that silence itself can harbour memory, and that the past, once woken, does not easily return to sleep. Phantom Silhouette is a tale of curiosity meeting what endures when reason has gone. First published in The Ghosts and Scholars Book of Shadows, edited by Rosemary Pardoe (Souvenir Press, London, 1971). Reprinted in later anthologies of twentieth-century supernatural fiction. Joy Burnett was an Australian-born actress who worked in theatre, film, and television after moving to England. In her spare time she wrote short stories, several of which appeared in British and American magazines; Phantom Silhouette was her first venture into the ghost-story tradition. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 16 October 2025

In a dim Underground carriage, a weary traveller meets a stranger whose silent presence unsettles more deeply than words can tell. Walter de la Mare’s Bad Company is a tale where dread arises not from what happens, but from what might. Bad Company was first published in Walter de la Mare’s final collection, A Beginning and Other Stories (1955). Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) was an English poet, novelist, and short story writer, best known for his uncanny tales and dreamlike verse. His supernatural fiction remains admired for its atmosphere, suggestion, and refusal to explain away the mysterious. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 10 October 2025

# Cushi - Teaser Script In the chalk hills of Hertfordshire lies Rooksgate Green, where tradition runs deeper than any rector's authority. Here, the sexton Cushi Holloway has his own peculiar ways—with hymn numbers, with cats, with the rituals of the churchyard. When the Reverend David Evans arrives from Cardiff, he sees only quaint village customs that need reforming. But some traditions have roots that go deeper than doctrine. And some authorities cannot be challenged. The villagers watch in silence as their world changes. Cushi says nothing, yet something shifts in the parish—something the new rector cannot quite understand. In the churchyard where the sexton tends his domain, an older power stirs. When the outside world intrudes upon Rooksgate Green, it will uncover more than anyone expected. Some things, once disturbed, refuse to rest quietly. Christopher Woodforde was an Anglican clergyman, Dean of Wells, and scholar of medieval stained glass who told supernatural tales to choirboys at New College, Oxford. He died in 1962, his stories published posthumously. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 3 October 2025

In a fading Irish house, two sisters live with their reclusive aunt. Outwardly clever, even charming, they are burdened by secrecy, shabby finery, and a restless need to keep appearances intact. What follows is a tale of genteel decay, of objects that carry more weight than they should, and of a past that refuses to stay silent. “Hand in Glove” first appeared in 1952 and has since been recognised as one of Elizabeth Bowen’s most disturbing short stories. It is reprinted in her collection A Day in the Dark and in numerous anthologies of twentieth-century ghost stories. Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, short story writer, and critic, celebrated for her precise psychological portraits and her haunting depictions of Anglo-Irish decline. Her work includes ten novels, more than a hundred short stories, and some of the most accomplished supernatural fiction of the twentieth century. Get ad free stories by signing up to my site: www.classicghost.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 26 September 2025

Et in Sempiternum Pereant by Charles Williams Lord Arglay, retired Chief Justice and seeker of forgotten knowledge, sets out for a quiet scholarly errand in the English countryside—only to find the landscape subtly warped, time grown strangely dense, and a chimney smoking where no fire burns. Drawn by a narrow path to a door that seems to wait for him alone, he enters a place where memory thickens, boundaries blur, and the air presses with the weight of something ancient and unyielding. Each step leads him deeper into a mystery that threatens not just understanding, but escape itself. First published in The London Mercury, December 1935.
 Charles Williams (1886–1945) was a British novelist, poet, and critic associated with the Inklings.
He wrote metaphysical thrillers—War in Heaven, Descent into Hell, All Hallows’ Eve—exploring theology, myth, and the supernatural. Join Our Podia Community for 100s of Ad Free Ghost Stories https://www.classicghost.com/ghost-stories-episodes/buy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 19 September 2025

A man walks the London streets, thin as a shadow, his eyes open but unseeing. He has no destination, yet something leads him — as if by an unseen hand — to a quiet room where the ordinary will no longer hold. What follows is not terror in the usual sense, but a slow unravelling, as if the familiar fabric of life has been touched by something that should have remained at rest. The Hollow Man by Thomas Burke first appeared in Collier’s on 14 October 1933, and was later collected in Night-Pieces: Eighteen Tales (Constable, 1935). Thomas Burke (1886–1945) was a British author best known for his tales of London’s hidden quarters, especially Limehouse. He wrote across fiction, essays, and poetry, blending realism with the uncanny. ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 12 September 2025

On a wet and foggy evening in post-war London, a man arrives at a modest hotel carrying the calm assurance of wealth and distance. But something else arrives that night too—quietly, without fuss, with a newspaper clipping and a request for a room. In the lounge, the sounds of unseen children drift through the walls. In his sleep, the man dreams of trees and dead branches. And outside, the fog thickens. *“A Visitor from Down Under” first appeared in *The London Magazine* and was later collected in *The Travelling Grave and Other Stories* (1948). It was included in *The Collected Macabre Stories of L. P. Hartley* (Tartarus Press, 2001).* L. P. Hartley (1895–1972) was an English novelist and short story writer, best known for *The Go-Between*. Though celebrated for his novels, his ghost stories reveal a quieter, colder kind of terror. ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 5 September 2025

At Brinton-on-Sea, the summer passed in gentle rhythms. Mariella and her young fiancé read side by side on the beach, swam together in the quiet sea, while her parents looked on from their chairs. Nothing seemed amiss. But something was. She said nothing, yet her smiles grew thinner, her sleep unsettled. Her eyes lingered too long on nothing at all. And in the evenings, the air inside the house felt changed—thickened, as if it held its breath. Whatever troubled her was unseen, but it was growing. Publication details: “Old Man’s Beard” was first published in Old Man’s Beard: Fifteen Disturbing Tales by Geoffrey Bles in 1929. Author biography: H. R. Wakefield (1888–1964) was a British writer and publisher, known for ghost stories that marry restrained supernatural suggestion with psychological unease. He brought the Edwardian tale into the modern world with quiet menace. ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 29 August 2025

In an old house by the Glebeshire coast, silence lingers more heavily than the sound of the sea. Its walls hold an atmosphere of watchfulness, as though the house itself remembers lives once lived within it. To a grieving visitor, it offers not terror but something stranger, something that cannot easily be explained. “The Little Ghost” by Hugh Walpole was first published in When Churchyards Yawn (1931), edited by Cynthia Asquith, and later collected in Walpole’s own volume All Souls’ Night (1931). Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) was a bestselling English novelist and short story writer. He is remembered for his Lake District saga The Herries Chronicle and for a handful of haunting tales that combine psychological insight with Gothic atmosphere. Here is my ebook and audiobook store payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast For 33% discount - use coupon 33OFFGHOSTPOD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 22 August 2025

Steven Acroyd is a jealous man—jealous, and prone to sudden, violent anger. He works in a remote country house under the quiet rule of an elderly master, brooding, watching, waiting. One night, he listens at a window and hears something about his fiancée that pushes him too far. He does something terrible, then tries to get away with it. Some ghosts come bearing messages, but this one brings a stranger message than most. Publication Details The Victim was first published in Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair in 1923. The collection reflects Sinclair’s deep interest in spiritualism and the metaphysics of consciousness. Author Biography May Sinclair (1863–1946) was a British novelist, philosopher and suffragist, best known today for pioneering stream-of-consciousness technique and for her fusion of idealist metaphysics with modernist fiction. She was one of the first critics to praise T. S. Eliot and to write seriously about Freud and mystical experience in English literature. ⭐ Join my Patreon ⭐ https://patreon.com/barcud Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.  You can choose to have ghost stories only, or detective stories or classic literature, or all of them for either $5 or $10 a month.  Many hundreds of hours of stories. Who needs Audible? Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-classic-ghost-stories-podcast--7002956/support. *To buy my paperback books:* https://books.by/tony-walker-books The Classic Ghost Stories Newsletter — short essays on the genre, odd discoveries, and recommendations. Free, fortnightly. Subscribe: https://www.classicghost.com/#/portal  To buy my ebooks and audiobooks: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk  *Intro and Outro Music by The Heartwood Institute* 🎼 https://bit.ly/somecomeback 

Transcribed - Published: 15 August 2025