"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The short story, a work of Gothic fiction, includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.

The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country, complaining of an illness and asking for his help. As he arrives, the narrator notices a thin crack extending from the roof, down the front of the house and into the adjacent tarn, or lake.

It is revealed that Roderick's sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family...

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits. 0:00:00

The Fall of the House of Usher 0:00:42

Ending Credits 0:47:09

CREATED:

Narrated by Logan Keen

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Date of original publication: 1840

Genre: short story

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 gothic horror novella by Henry James which first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly from January 27 to April 16, 1898. On October 7, 1898, it was collected in The Two Magics, published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. The novella follows a governess who, caring for two children at a remote country house, becomes convinced that they are haunted. The Turn of the Screw is considered a work of both Gothic and horror fiction.

In the century following its publication, critical analysis of the novella underwent several major transformations. Initial reviews regarded it only as a frightening ghost story, but, in the 1930s, some critics suggested that the supernatural elements were figments of the governess' imagination. In the early 1970s, the influence of structuralism resulted in an acknowledgement that the text's ambiguity was its key feature. Later approaches incorporated Marxist and feminist thinking.

The novella has been adapted several times, including a Broadway play (1950), a chamber opera (1954), two films (in 1961 and 2020), and a miniseries (2020).

On Christmas Eve, an unnamed narrator and some of his friends are gathered around a fire. One of them, Douglas, reads a manuscript written by his sister's late governess. The manuscript tells the story of her being hired by a man who has become responsible for his young niece and nephew following the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London and has a country house in (fictional) Bly, Essex...

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits 0:00:00

Introduction 0:00:38

Chapter 1 0:17:04

Chapter 2 0:26:54

Chapter 3 0:35:40

Chapter 4 0:48:11

Chapter 5 1:00:14

Chapter 6 1:08:39

Chapter 7 1:24:56

Chapter 8 1:34:19

Chapter 9 1:46:11

Chapter 10 1:57:52

Chapter 11 2:07:50

Chapter 12 2:16:23

Chapter 13 2:23:19

Chapter 14 2:35:01

Chapter 15 2:43:18

Chapter 16 2:49:50

Chapter 17 2:56:03

Chapter 18 3:05:44

Chapter 19 3:13:00

Chapter 20 3:20:50

Chapter 21 3:31:41

Chapter 22 3:44:29

Chapter 23 3:53:00

Chapter 24 4:01:21

Ending Credits 4:12:57

CREATED:

Narrator: Logan Keen

Author: Henry James

Date of original publication: 1898

Genre: Gothic horror novella

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

Frankenstein is one of the best-known works of English literature. Infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, it has had a considerable influence on literature and on popular culture, spawning a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Since the publication of the novel, the name Frankenstein has often been used to refer to the monster.

Plot:

Victor Frankenstein, son of an upper-class Genevese family, spends his youth obsessed with alchemy. As he grows older, he develops an interest in modern sciences such as chemistry and electricity. After his mother Caroline dies of scarlet fever, Victor leaves home to attend the University of Ingolstadt. Through his studies, Victor discovers a new way to create life, which he uses to create a large and grotesque humanoid creature. When the creature awakens, Victor flees in terror. He returns to find the creature gone.

The newly conscious creature runs away, discovers fire, and learns to avoid humans, who find him frightening. He finds a hovel attached to a small house, which lets him observe a family while remaining unseen. As the family teaches their language to a foreigner, the creature also learns to speak and write. He also finds a collection of books, including Paradise Lost, and learns to read. When he finally reveals himself to the family, they are horrified by his appearance and chase him away. The creature then saves a young girl from drowning, only to be shot by her father, who perceives his rescue as an attack...

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits 0:00:00

Part 1.- Letters, Letter 1. 0:00:49

Letter 2. 0:08:20

Letter 3. 0:16:25

Letter 4. 0:18:38

Part 2.- Story, Chapter 1. 0:34:58

Chapter 2. 0:45:56

Chapter 3. 0:59:35

Chapter 4. 1:15:54

Chapter 5. 1:31:36

Chapter 6. 1:45:40

Chapter 7. 2:02:27

Chapter 8. 2:24:11

Chapter 9. 2:43:01

Chapter 10. 2:56:42

Chapter 11. 3:11:10

Chapter 12. 3:28:16

Chapter 13. 3:40:59

Chapter 14. 3:53:36

Chapter 15. 4:04:34

Chapter 16. 4:23:29

Chapter 17. 4:42:47

Chapter 18. 4:54:06

Chapter 19. 5:11:40

Chapter 20. 5:27:33

Chapter 21. 5:48:09

Chapter 22. 6:10:08

Chapter 23. 6:31:05

Chapter 24. 6:46:24

Part 3. 7:04:28

Ending Credits 7:37:07

CREATED:

Narrator: Nick Donovan

Author: Mary Shelley

Date of original publication: 1818

Genre: gothic novel

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

Audiobook "The Yellow Wallpaper" (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature for its illustration of the attitudes towards mental and physical health of women in the 19th century. It is also lauded as an excellent work of horror fiction.

The story is written as a collection of journal entries narrated in the first person. The journal was written by a woman whose physician husband has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the husband confines the woman to an upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the husband forbids the journal writer from working or writing, and encourages her to eat well and get plenty of air so that she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency", a common diagnosis in women at the time.[2][3][4] As the reader continues through the journal entries, they experience the writer's gradual descent into madness with nothing better to do than observe the peeling yellow wallpaper in her room.

The story describes a young woman and her husband. He imposes a rest cure on her when she suffers "temporary nervous depression" after the birth of their baby. They spend the summer at a colonial mansion, where the narrator is largely confined to an upstairs nursery. The story makes striking use of an unreliable narrator in order to gradually reveal the degree to which her husband has "imprisoned" her due to her physical and mental condition. She describes torn wallpaper, barred windows, metal rings in the walls, a floor "scratched and gouged and splintered", a bed bolted to the floor, and a gate at the top of the stairs, but blames all these on children who must have resided there.

CREATED:

Narrated by Abigail Weir

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Date of original publication: 1892

Genre: short story

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

Wuthering Heights is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' foster son, Heathcliff. The novel, influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction, is considered a classic of English literature.

Wuthering Heights was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey before the success of their sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, but they were published later. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition of Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1850.

Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, including domestic abuse, and for its challenges to Victorian morality, religion, and the class system.

CREATED:

Narrated by Abigail Weir

Author: Emily Brontë

Date of original publication: 1847

Genre: novel

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

The Daughter of Time is a 1951 detective novel by Josephine Tey, concerning a modern police officer's investigation into the alleged crimes of King Richard III of England. It was the last book Tey published in her lifetime, shortly before her death. In 1990 it was voted number one in The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time list compiled by the British Crime Writers' Association (CWA).

Plot:

Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant (a character who also appears in five other novels by the same author) is feeling bored while confined to bed in hospital with a broken leg. Marta Hallard, an actress friend of his, suggests he should amuse himself by researching a historical mystery. She brings him some pictures of historical characters, aware of Grant's interest in human faces. He becomes intrigued by a portrait of King Richard III. He prides himself on being able to read a person's character from his appearance, and King Richard seems to him a gentle, kind and wise man. Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer?

With the help of other friends and acquaintances, Grant investigates Richard's life and the case of the Princes in the Tower, testing out his theories on the doctors and nurses who attend to him. Grant spends weeks pondering historical information and documents with the help of Brent Carradine, a likable young American researcher working in the British Museum.[2] Using his detective's logic, he comes to the conclusion that the claim of Richard being a murderer is a fabrication of Tudor propaganda, as is the popular image of the King as a monstrous hunchback.

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits. 0:00:00

01. Chapter. 0:00:48

02. Chapter 0:22:33

03. Chapter 0:55:15

04. Chapter 1:11:43

05. Chapter. 1:25:05

06. Chapter 1:44:01

07. Chapter 2:02:33

08. Chapter 2:27:51

09. Chapter 2:55:46

10. Chapter 3:16:25

11. Chapter. 3:29:09

12. Chapter 3:47:43

13. Chapter 4:03:42

14. Chapter 4:28:49

15. Chapter. 4:46:06

16. Chapter 5:07:26

17. Chapter. 5:14:32

Ending Credits. 5:39:45

CREATED:

Narrated by Nick Donovan

Author: Josephine Tey

Date of original publication: 1951

Genre: detective novel

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Edward Bear, Pooh Bear or simply Pooh) is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a children's story commissioned by London's Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925. The character is inspired by a stuffed toy that Milne had bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods department store, and a bear they had viewed at London Zoo.

The first collection of stories about the character is the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children's verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927). All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. The stories are set in Hundred Acre Wood, which was inspired by Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex—situated 30 miles (48 km) south of London—where the Londoner Milne's country home was located.

A. A. Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son, Christopher Robin Milne, on whom the character Christopher Robin was based.

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits. 0:00:00

Introduction 0:00:42

01. Chapter 0:03:38

02. Chapter 0:22:47

03. Chapter 0:34:15

04. Chapter 0:42:01

05. Chapter 0:51:12

06. Chapter 1:07:35

07. Chapter 1:28:47

08. Chapter 1:42:52

09. Chapter 2:04:46

10. Chapter 2:20:19

Ending Credits. 2:32:28

CREATED:

Narrated by Nick Donovan

Author: A. A. Milne

Date of original publication: 1925

Genre: children's story

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (also known as Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was conceived on 4 July 1862, when Lewis Carroll and Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up the river Isis with the three young daughters of Carroll's friend Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte (aged 13; "Prima" in the book's prefatory verse); Alice Pleasance (aged 10; "Secunda" in the verse); and Edith Mary (aged 8; "Tertia" in the verse).

The book has never been out of print and has been translated into 174 languages. Its legacy includes adaptations to screen, radio, visual art, ballet, opera, and musical theatre, as well as theme parks, board games and video games. Carroll published a sequel in 1871 entitled Through the Looking-Glass and a shortened version for young children, The Nursery "Alice", in 1890.

Plot:

Alice, a young girl, sits bored by a riverbank and spots a White Rabbit with a pocket watch and waistcoat lamenting that he is late. Surprised, Alice follows him down a rabbit hole, which sends her into a lengthy plummet but to a safe landing. Inside a room with a table, she finds a key to a tiny door, beyond which is a garden. While pondering how to fit through the door, she discovers a bottle labelled "Drink me". Alice drinks some of the bottle's contents, and to her astonishment, she shrinks small enough to enter the door. However, she had left the key upon the table and cannot reach it. Alice then discovers and eats a cake labelled "Eat me", which causes her to grow to a tremendous size. Unhappy, Alice bursts into tears, and the passing White Rabbit flees in a panic, dropping a fan and two gloves. Alice uses the fan for herself, which causes her to shrink once more and leaves her swimming in a pool of her own tears. Within the pool, Alice meets various animals and birds, who convene on a bank and engage in a "Caucus Race" to dry themselves. Following the end of the race, Alice inadvertently frightens the animals away by discussing her cat...

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits 0:00:00

01. Chapter 0:00:38

02. Chapter 0:12:41

03. Chapter 0:25:01

04. Chapter 0:36:10

05. Chapter 0:51:15

06. Chapter 1:04:36

07. Chapter 1:20:10

08. Chapter 1:34:43

09. Chapter 1:49:47

10. Chapter 2:04:15

11. Chapter 2:17:41

12. Chapter 2:29.10

Ending Credits 2:42:07

CREATED:

Narrated by Abigail Weir

Author: Lewis Carroll

Date of original publication: 1865

Genre: children's novel

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire with an obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922. Following a move to the French Riviera, Fitzgerald completed a rough draft of the novel in 1924. He submitted it to editor Maxwell Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After making revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title and considered several alternatives. Painter Francis Cugat's dust jacket art, named Celestial Eyes, greatly impressed Fitzgerald, and he incorporated its imagery into the novel.

In spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a World War I veteran—journeys to New York City to obtain employment as a bond salesman. He rents a bungalow in the Long Island village of West Egg, next to a luxurious estate inhabited by Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic multi-millionaire who hosts dazzling soirées yet does not partake in them...

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits. 0:00:00

Chapter 1 0:00:39

Chapter 2 0:36:51

Chapter 3 1:02:44

Chapter 4 1:38:37

Chapter 5 2:12:09

Chapter 6 2:38:18

Chapter 7 Part 1 3:03:41

Chapter 7 Part 2 3:40:45

Chapter 8 3:59:24

Chapter 9 4:26:29

Ending Credits 4:56:49

CREATED:

Narrated by Nick Donovan.

Author: Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Date of original publication: 1925

Genre: novel

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles

Audiobook Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a staunch believer in democratic socialism and member of the anti-Stalinist Left, modelled the Britain under authoritarian socialism in the novel on the Soviet Union in the era of Stalinism and on the very similar practices of both censorship and propaganda in Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated.

The story takes place in an imagined future. The current year is uncertain, but believed to be 1984. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking.

CHAPTERS:

Opening Credits 0:00:00

Part 1: Chapter 1 0:00:46

Part 1: Chapter 2 0:34:31

Part 1: Chapter 3 0:51:25

Part 1: Chapter 4 1:08:28

Part 1: Chapter 5 1:29:55

Part 1: Chapter 6 2:00:06

Part 1: Chapter 7 2:11:36

Part 1: Chapter 8 2:34:24

Part 2: Chapter 1 3:19:18

Part 2: Chapter 2 3:42:11

Part 2: Chapter 3 4:00:34

Part 2: Chapter 4 4:19:52

Part 2: Chapter 5 4:40:24

Part 2: Chapter 6 4:59:04

Part 2: Chapter 7 5:04:54

Part 2: Chapter 8 5:20:23

Part 2: Chapter 9 5:43:35

Part 2: Chapter 10 6:57:12

Part 3: Chapter 1 7:10:42

Part 2: Chapter 2 7:38:04

Part 2: Chapter 3 8:14:29

Part 2: Chapter 4 8:40:07

Part 2: Chapter 5 8:56:38

Part 2: Chapter 6 9:05:49

Appendix 9:27:47

Ending Credits 9:54:44

CREATED:

Narrated by Mark Macho

Author: George Orwell

Date of original publication: 1949

Genre: Dystopian novel

Language : English

Version : unabridged, full/complete

Without subtitles