Short Stories audiobooks

Ken's Mystery

By: Julian Hawthorne

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934) was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous short stories, mystery/detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies and histories.

'Ken's Mystery' is a wonderful story blending Gaelic folklore with Gothic mystery. Kenningale - or Ken, as his... Read more

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

By: John Keats

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 2 minutes

Abridged: No

John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the great English Romantic poets. 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' is a haunting ballad describing a young knight whose very lifeblood and vitality have been drained by a beautiful but parasitic, fairylike vampire. This knight has now been left as an undead shell of his former self, alone on a barren hillside. Read more

Marsyas in Flanders

By: Vernon Lee

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 31 minutes

Abridged: No

"Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of Violet Paget (1856 - 1935), a British writer most famous for her supernatural short stories. She was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement.

""Marsyas in Flanders"" is a strange tale of an ancient carving of the crucified Christ - minus its arms and cross - which once washed up in the twelfth century on a... Read more

The Piano Next Door

By: Elia W. Peattie

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862-1935) was a prolific American author, journalist and critic. Although she left school at 14, she was enormously talented, and by her 20s she was well established as a writer of short stories.

'The Piano Next Door' is an eerie tale about a man who hears beautiful and inspirational music emanating from the house next... Read more

Mrs. Amworth

By: E. F. Benson

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost and horror stories.

'Mrs. Amworth' is arguably Benson's most famous story...and certainly one of the most terrifying. It tells the story of a mysterious outbreak of... Read more

The Bride of Corinth

By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is widely recognized as Germany's greatest poet and writer. His early works are rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which was also the early phase of German Romanticism.

'The Bride of Corinth' was written as part of a ballad-writing competition which Goethe was engaged in with Friedrich von... Read more

The Horla

By: Guy de Maupassant

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 1 hour 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), a French author, was one of the most influential short story writers of the 19th century.

'Le Horla' is a truly terrifying story of a man, told through the pages of his diary, who is under the malign influence of some strange, invisible, parasitic being which saps his life energy.

De Maupassant's clear, pragmatic... Read more

The Death of Halpin Frayser

By: Ambrose Bierce

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 38 minutes

Abridged: No

"Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 - 1914) was an American writer famous for his dark and cynical writings, which earned him the nickname ""Bitter Bierce"". He is famous also for his mysterious demise. He wrote a letter to a friend, which he closed by saying, ""As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination,"" and then he vanished... Read more

The Sad Story of a Vampire

By: Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Count Eric Stenislaus Stenbock (1860-1895) was an aristocrat of German-Estonian origin who lived in England. He wrote weird, macabre fantasy fiction and was a favorite of H. P. Lovecraft. He was well known for his eccentric lifestyle, keeping snakes, salamanders, and toads in his bedroom, and owned a bear, a reindeer, and a fox. He had a... Read more

The Vampire Maid

By: Hume Nisbet

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 15 minutes

Abridged: No

James Hume Nisbet (1849 - 1923) was born in Scotland but travelled extensively in Australia before returning to his native country. He became a writer in middle-age and wrote prolifically, mainly mystery and adventure fiction. "The Vampire Maid" is a classic vampire story about a traveller who takes lodgings with an apparently kind landlady and... Read more

Ghosts, Werewolves and Vampires

By: Various Authors

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 25 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

A terrifying collection of classic Victorian short stories about ghosts, werewolves and vampires.

1. The Wolf Book by Henry Chapman Mercer
2. Number Ninety by B. M. Croker
3. Ken’s Mystery by Julian Hawthorne
4. The Piano Next Door by Elia W. Peattie
5. The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains by Frederick Marryat
6. The Horla by Guy de... Read more

An Unrestored Woman

By: Shobha Rao

Narrated by: Neela Vaswani

Length: 6 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

In her mesmerizing debut, Shobha Rao recounts the untold human costs of one of the largest migrations in history.

1947: the Indian subcontinent is partitioned into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. And with one decree, countless lives are changed forever.

An Unrestored Woman explores the fault lines in this mass displacement of... Read more

Unti Wilde Novella #2

By: Lori Wilde

Narrated by: TBD

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Read more

HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbor, and Other Short Stories

By: Nicholas Monsarrat

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 7 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In “HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbor,” an old sloop, homeward bound, is torpedoed, leaving her guns out of action, more than three quarters of her crew dead, and radio contact impossible. But her valiant captain steadfastly refuses to surrender his ship. In “Leave Canceled,” an army officer and his young wife concentrate their passionate love... Read more

Bad Behavior

By: Mary Gaitskill

Narrated by: Mary Gaitskill

Length: 7 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a reissue of National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill’s debut collection, Bad Behavior—powerful stories about dislocation, longing, and desire, which depict a disenchanted and rebellious urban-fringe generation as it searches for human connection.Now a classic, Bad Behavior made critical waves when it was first published, heralding... Read more

A Tyranny of Petticoats

By: Jessica Spotswood (Editor)

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 13 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

From an impressive sisterhood of YA writers comes an edge-of-your-seat anthology of historical fiction and fantasy featuring a diverse array of daring heroines.Criss-cross America—on dogsleds and ships, stagecoaches and trains—from pirate ships off the coast of the Carolinas to the peace, love, and protests of 1960s Chicago. Join fifteen of... Read more

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

By: Helen Oyeyemi

Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Bahni Turpin & Piter Marek

Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

From the award-winning author of Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox comes an enchanting collection of intertwined stories. Playful, ambitious, and exquisitely imagined, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is cleverly built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical. The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret-Oyeyemi's keys not only... Read more

The Grinding of the Mills

By: Morgan Robertson

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Morgan Andrew Robertson (1861-1915) was a popular American author of short stories and novels who claimed to have been the inventor of the periscope.

'The Grinding of the Mills' is the bizarre tale of two men born at the same moment in the same hospital but from very different backgrounds. It appears that key future events in their lives are... Read more

The Ghost Club

By: John Kendrick Bangs

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 39 minutes

Abridged: No

John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) was an American author, editor and satirist. 'The Ghost Club' is a lighthearted ghost story told by a prisoner who has been found guilty of burglary and the theft of a set of ornate silver teaspoons. His improbable story of how he came to be in possession of the spoons is extraordinary and charmingly engaging. Read more

The Trade Wind

By: Morgan Robertson

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Morgan Andrew Robertson (1861-1915) was a popular American author of short stories and novels who claimed to have been the inventor of the periscope.

'The Trade Wind' is the strange and unsettling story of a ship where all the crew are mysteriously struck blind after a night of drinking rum in the tropics...a condition called moon blindness, for... Read more

Fantastic Tales

By: Various Authors

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 22 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

A spine-chilling collection of fantastical and enchanting classic short stories.

'The Wolf Book' by Henry Chapman Mercer
'Absolute Zero' by Morgan Robertson
'An Uncommon View of It' by W. C. Morrow
'The Baumoff Explosive' by William Hope Hodgson
'Absolute Evil' by Julian Hawthorne
'The Dolls' Castle' by Henry Chapman Mercer
... Read more

Changelings, Evil Twins and Doppelgangers

By: Various Authors

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 15 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most enduring themes in great literature is the eternal struggle between good and evil - often embodied in such devices as the werewolf, the doppelganger and the evil twin.

This anthology presents a selection of the greatest short stories whose tension and drama revolves around the conflict of good and evil.

'The Grinding of the... Read more

The Black Dog

By: Stephen Crane

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was a prolific American poet, novelist, and short story writer. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.

'The Black Dog' is a supernatural tale of a group of travellers who seek shelter in a remote cabin where an old man lies dying. They hear from the man's nephew of a... Read more

The Twins

By: Bessie Kyffin-Taylor

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 1 hour 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Lady Bessie Kyffin-Taylor was an English writer famous for her outstanding supernatural stories, which were published in a single volume in 1920, just two years before her death.

The Twins is one of Kyffin-Taylor's most famous novelettes. It tells the bizarre tale of identical twin brothers. One brother is hell-bent on evil and constantly... Read more