Classic Ghost Stories

The story of a female vampire, a femme fatale, a girl who just one day walks into a photographer's studio and wants to do some modelling.Get my audiobooks at an insane deal. London Horror Stories https://mailchi.mp/tonywalker/london-horror-stories (https://mailchi.mp/tonywalker/london-horror-stories)If you want to say thank you for all the stories please don’t buy me a coffee (I’m wired enough), buy a book! Get an ebook here: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-haunting-of-tullabeg (https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-haunting-of-tullabeg)Get a paperback here: https://www.bookdepository.com/Haunting-Tullabeg-Tony-Walker/9798736978946 (https://www.bookdepository.com/Haunting-Tullabeg-Tony-Walker/9798736978946)Join my mailing list and get a download: https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire (https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire)Music By The Heartwood Institutehttps://bit.ly/somecomeback (https://bit.ly/somecomeback)Fritz LeiberFritz Reuter Leiber Jr was born in 1910 in Chicago, Illinois and died in San Francisco, California in 1992 when he was 81. His parents were actors and when he was a child he toured with them when they were acting. He got his degree in 1932 in psychology and then after graduating went to be a minister in the Episcopal Church. But didn’t finish and went back to do postgraduate studies in philosophy.He is best known for his fantasy, horror and science fiction stories but he was also a chess master. He was one of he fathers of the Sword & Sorcery genre along with Robert E Howard and Michael Moorcock and it was Leiber who coined the term.His early career was as an actor, following in his parents’ footsteps. But he did write some stories. His literary career seems to have been spurred on when he entered into correspondence with H P Lovecraft in 1936 (Lovecraft died in 1937) and he published his first Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser sword and sorcery story in 1939 in a pulp magazine. He had been a pacifist but when the Second World War broke out he was convinced that the struggle against fascism was worth fighting and he went to work for Douglas Aircraft corporation but still wrote fiction.He married Jonquil Stephens in 1936 and she died in 1969. Leiber had a life-long battle with alcoholism and long period of addiction to barbiturates was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Despite the success of his novels he was extremely poor and lived in a down at heel hotel surrounded by bookshelves with a manual typewriter. Things looked up towards the end of his life when he began to get royalty checks from TSR who were the publishers of the successful Dungeons & Dragons games and who had licensed his work.Leiber died in 1992 of a stroke but he married Margo Skinner in the last year of his lifeThe Girl With The Hungry EyesLieber published this story in 1949 and it was made into an episode of The Night Gallery in 1972 and has been made into a film twice, once in 1967 and then in 1995. It was also the title of a. Son by Jefferson Starship in 1979 on their album Freedom at Point Zero.Our protagonist is a down at heel commercial photographer when The Girl seeks him out. Is this an act of philanthropy? In fact as deadly as she is to all other men who covet her she seems to have a soft spot for our photographer and let’s him live, repeatedly rebuffing his attempts to engage in fatal lovemaking. This seems a very male story. It is uncomfortable to read after the #MeToo revelations because it suggests that slapping the chops off The Girl would be an appropriate and even positive thing to do and that making a pass at a girl in an empty office is exactly what all men would and should do.She is the only female in the sSupport the show

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A dark fairytale set in the wild moors of the North of England. A foolish girl falls in love with a tall, dark handsome stranger who stepped out of the woods these days. He says he's a fine lord, and she sees his golden sash and his silver sword and his black velvet jacket. An old wise woman warns her not to take a gift from him, nor eat a morsel of his food, nor yet cross running water to stand beside him. But will she listen?Get a great discount on my Horror Stories For Halloween audiobook & ebook bundlehttps://spirit.ghostpod.org/horror-stories-for-halloween#audiobook #horrorpodcast #shortstories #literature***Merchandise https://my-store-5618003.creator-spring.com (https://my-store-5618003.creator-spring.com)Get my audiobooks at an insane deal. London Horror Stories https://mailchi.mp/tonywalker/london-horror-storiesBuy me a coffee to show appreciation: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker )You can get a free ebook and audiobook:https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire (https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire)Listen to audio only versions of my podcast:https://bit.ly/vurbl (https://bit.ly/vurbl)It is all greatly appreciated.#classicghoststories #classicstories #horrorpodcastSupport the show

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In the Backwoods, they do Bad Things. or "Be A Sport, Tessie!"My reading and analysis of The Lottery by Shirley JacksonJackson's 1948 masterpiece of naturalistic horror gone bad. Small town America shows its horrific side. Folk Horror before there was folk horror. The Purge before there was The Purge. Listen, enjoy, understand and come along with me on the journey. Meet Jack too.If you want to download my own audiobooks at an insanely discounted price that ensure no cut goes to the big boys (you know who they are) and you support my work, then check out Horror Stories For Halloween by Tony Walker: https://spirit.ghostpod.org/horror-stories-for-halloweenBy the by, if you want to sign up as a Patreon, that would be good. https://www.patreon.com/barcudIf you want to just buy me a coffee to keep me awake (though these days I don't need much help to do that) then hit here: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerGet a free audiobook and ebook here: https://bit.ly/dalstonvampireSupport the show

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Get a great discount on my Horror Stories For Halloween audiobook & ebook bundlehttps://spirit.ghostpod.org/horror-stories-for-halloween (https://spirit.ghostpod.org/horror-stories-for-halloween)The Pomegranate SeedThe pomegranate seed is a reference to the myth of Persephone and Demeter. Winter and Spring and the Lord of the Underworld. In a sense Mother and daughter are the same, and one aspect of the woman spends time in the world of the dead, while the other walks the world of the living.Kenneth disappears to see about ‘their passages.’ It is clear that it is his passage over the river Styx to the underworld that he finally arranges. He has been so attached to the ghost of his late wife, that he cannot escape her as she dominated him in life. He wants to escape, he wants to live with his new wife and have new experiences, but he is simply not strong enough to make it so.Charlotte represents the living, mortal world while Elise Ashby represents death. In that sense it is a story about a choice that all of us have to make: to live in this world and be of it and do what work it sets before us or spend our time dreaming of the underworld whence we came and to which we shall return. Deep for a Monday morning, I feel.However, Wharton’s skill as an observer of human behaviour also shines in this story, and for most of the time it is the skilful chronicle of that commonplace (sadly) or married life—the suspicion that our lover’s heart is tethered elsewhere. Trivial, but profoundly upsetting. Charlotte spends a lot of time arguing this when then that way that her husband is having an affair, trying to convince herself in a way that rings very true.Old Mrs Ashby plays the role of the mother goddess who loses her son in this case to the Underworld. This doesn’t totally fit. But she is on the side of life, despite her age, and she supports Charlotte and regrets her son’s attachment to his late wife.In construction there are four parts. We begin with a scene of Charlotte’s unsettledness, standing at the door. What had been her haven now disquiets her and she finds no comfort in modern New York or inside in her home that she once loved. She coveted the house when it was Elise’s and of course it has always remained Elises and again this is the story of the second wife who is dutiful and loving but is reminded by the possessions and moments and indeed children that she can never really supplant the first. Iff the first wife had been unfaithful then it would be easier, but by dying while he still loved her this has made the second wife’s job impossible. She can never win.Wharton raises questions throughout: what are the letters? Who are they from? Did he love this other woman? But she lays hints as the tension builds that these are not normal letters, they are grey, the handwriting is androgynous (perhaps because Elise is not a woman but a spirit? And therefore neither male nor female in that vague gray underworld?)But its a slow burn and the tension is that of a story about adultery, until it is revealed at the end to be a story about death’s hold on the living. Depressed now?She uses a lot of Britishisms: holiday for vacation, fortnight for two weeks —I don’t think Edith Wharton played Fortnite.The ending is ambiguous. Wharton prefers subtle hints rather than clear resolutions in her ghost stories, listen to Bewitched or Mr Jones on this channel for that.But it seems to me that both the Old Mrs Ashby and Charlotte are creatures of the daylight world and so they pretend that Kenneth’s disappearance is a daylight occurrence when they know that he has gone down into the night world. Still, they act as isSupport the show

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Towards the end of the American Civil War in north west Arkansas, an old woman is faced with a dilemma. Her son is dead after falling in battle, and her son's wife went missing in the woods on hearing the news. Something happened to her in the woods, something that means the old woman's precious grandson is sick. He's sick, and something is coming over the hill.This story is followed by an interview with the author of the story Dragoon.Get a great discount on my Horror Stories For Halloween audiobook & ebook bundlehttps://spirit.ghostpod.org/horror-stories-for-halloween (https://spirit.ghostpod.org/horror-stories-for-halloween)Support the show

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Well after midnight in a newsroom high up above the city, a strange story comes tip-tapping in down the night wire. John Morgan, the night wire expert, turns the morse code into words and the words reveal a mystery. A town no one has heard of is brought to a standstill by a weird fog. This weird fog rolls right out of the graveyard and in it are seen twisted wailing forms. But this tale is stranger even that that. But you'll have to listen to find out why. This pulp story from 1926 was a favourite of HP Lovecraft. Even its author is an enigma. Or is he? The story inspired Stephen King to write The Mist in 1981 which was made into the 2007 movie of the same name."H. F. Arnold was an American pulp-era writer who wrote only three published stories. Despite this low output, ‘The Night Wire’ (1926), first published in Weird Tales, is considered the most popular story from the first golden age of that magazine. Lovecraft is said to have loved this story. "Arnold’s only other published stories were The City of Iron Cubes in the March/April 1926 edition of Weird Tales, and When Atlantis Was in the October and December 1937 issues of Amazing Stories.  Who is who is an enigma. The content of The Night Wire suggests he was a newspaper man in a big city in the USA.We have dates for his life as 1902 until 1963, making him 61 at the time of his death, and 24 when The Night Wire was published. How we know  his dates, I’m not certain.If you read most anthologies, we don’t even know if he was really called H F Arnold.  But then someone called William Russo did some research and found out a lot about him.Here’s a link to the full storyhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18131763-the-night-wire (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18131763-the-night-wire)It turns out that he was Henry Ferris Arnold who graduated from the Mid-West and went to work in Hollywood working in publicity (we’d call it marketing now) for movies. He started at Goldwyn Studies and became Sam Goldwyn’s Director of Publicity. There’s something about that night radio DJ thing. Play Misty for me. Other associations are being on night shift.  Film noir. The Weird Anthologyhttps://amzn.to/3kF1LSr (https://amzn.to/3kF1LSr)The Night Wire read by by E F Frenchhttps://youtu.be/-SyT6Xga0Eo (YouTube)William Russo’s review on Good Readshttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18131763-the-night-wire (The Night Wire by H.F. Arnold)Story suggestions by email [email protected] You Appreciate The Work I’ve Put In Here https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become A Patreon) For Bonus StoriesOr  https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (buy me a coffee) , if you’d like to keep me working. https://bit.ly/somecomeback (Music)  by The Heartwood InstituteSupport the show

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The First Sheaf is a folk horror story set in the backwaters of rural England. A new vicar goes to a rural parish that has suffered a terrible drought. The local folk shun him and want nothing of his god. He fears they have other gods of their own. Then a young girl goes missing, and the vicar's son must search out the mystery of the round field and pay a terrible price for the knowledge he gains. Think The Wicker Man meets John Barleycorn. Folk horror before they invented the term 'folk horror'Download a my free audiobookhttps://bit.ly/dalstonvampire (https://bit.ly/dalstonvampire) https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become A Patreon) For Bonus StoriesOr https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (buy me a coffee) , if you’d like to keep me working. https://bit.ly/somecomeback (Music) by The Heartwood InstituteSupport the show

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In rural Pakistan, a rickshaw driver stops by a Peepal Tree and a beautiful bride steps out from the shadows. Of course, at first he thinks she must be a churail, but despite his mother's warnings, he knows he must help this distressed woman. How will his kindness be rewarded?A story by modern British author Iqbal Hussain. After the story I had the great pleasure of interviewing Iqbal and talking about this story and his writing in general.Iqbal HussainIqbal is one of seven writers chosen for the 2021/22 Megaphone scheme for YA/children’s writers. He is one of fifteen emerging writers to feature in the Mainstream anthology by Inkandescent, with his short story “The Reluctant Bride”, publication date mid-2021. His short story “A Home from Home” won gold prize in the Creative Future Writers’ Awards 2019. He is a recipient of the inaugural London Writers’ Awards 2018 and was shortlisted for the Penguin Random House WriteNow scheme 2017. Iqbal is working on his first novel, Northern Boy, about being a “butterfly among the bricks”. https://www.ihussainwriter.comIqbal's Twitter @ihussainwriter Mainstream by Ikandescent This collection brings thirty authors in from the margins to occupy centre-page. Queer storytellers. Working class wordsmiths. Chroniclers of colour. Writers whose life experiences give unique perspectives on universal challenges, whose voices must be heard. And read.Mainstream by Inkandescent is here: https://amzn.to/2XURiKZ (https://amzn.to/2XURiKZ) (my affiliate link)If You Appreciate The Work I’ve Put In Here https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become A Patreon) For Bonus StoriesOr  https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (buy me a coffee) , if you’d like to keep me working. https://bit.ly/somecomeback (Music)  by The Heartwood InstituteSupport the show

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Over in the Wild West of Wales, (despite him calling it England, the village is Croes y Ceiliog after all), strange signs appear, a girl disappears and it takes a man from London to work out the evil truth.This is the audio extracted from the edited version of my live reading of the Shining Pyramid by Arthur Machen.All the audio is there (some of the live cut out) and it is as polished as well as I can do. There are two microphones in this: the streamed version which is compressed and a little fuzzy and the camera microphone which is tinny.With those warnings, listen if you dare. PS. An end of summer bargain for you:You can still get my London Horror Stories Full Audiobook plus the Ebook at the insanely discounted price of £2.99, which is not much dollar, and if you buy from my directly, then we don’t give the non-tax paying giants (you know who I mean) their fat cut.https://mailchi.mp/tonywalker/london-horror-stories (https://mailchi.mp/tonywalker/london-horror-stories)Support the show

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In which a writer starts to receive mysterious and increasingly menacing postcards from an apparent stranger. He asks his friends what to do. He goes to the police. And then it all becomes clear.L P HartleyLeslie Poles Harltey was born in Cambridgeshire in England in 1895 and died aged 76 in London England.L P was  educated first at  home and then a Preparatory School before going to  Harrow School–— a private school in North London, where he had won a scholarship. His father was not particularly high class, he was a solicitor and owned a brickyard. After Harrow, L P went to Oxford to study (or ‘read’) as they say at Oxbridge, Modern History. This was in 1915. In 1917 he joined the army. I think he was conscripted. He was commissioned as an officer in the Norfolk Regiment but never saw active service due to having a weak heart.He was a famous hypochondriac in fact and had what we would call these days a health anxiety.  In 1922 he suffered a nervous breakdown and soon after this started spending long periods in Venice in Italy where he owned his own gondola.He had a particular male friend David Cecil. And this was in a time when being gay was illegal and punishable by time in prison so gay people did not come out. It was believed that he was gay. After the war he returned to complete his degree Oxford, and even at that time he had an ambition to be a writer.   His first published work was in Oxford Poetry.  And he became editor of Oxford Outlook. He was a lifelong friend of Cynthia Asquith who, as we know, was a famous author of ghost stories and editor of the Pan Horror series for a while. He mixed in aristocratic circles after graduation and worked as a book reviewer, but his own work did not initially find success and he was depressed. In 1924, his first volume Night Fears was published and it was well received critically and his work was supported by many influential writers including Cynthia Asquith.He had moderate to good success with later novels, but his major success was with The Go-Between.He was named after Virginia Woolf’s father. Hartley as a youngster was a fan of Edgar Allen Poe.  He named his influences as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James and Emily Bronte, but I find his straightforward style different from all of these. His most famous quote is possibly:The Past Is Another Country. They do things differently there.W SThis is a cracking little story and very simple in structure. We have a writer, and like all writers, he is neurotic about his work. He has had some success, but still harbours doubts. Then he starts getting postcards from someone with the same initials as himself, though he doesn’t notice the initials as being significant at first.The story uses the ticking clock technique of modern thrillers.  Danger is approaching step by step getting closer and closer: think Die Hard. Though if you didn’t know British geography you might not know that Forfar is distant and Coventry close to the West Country town where Walter Streeter lives.  Nevertheless, each postcard brings the doom closer.There is some nice foreshadowing.  The postcard writer keeps promising a hearty handshake and it is only at the end we are told the character William Stainsforth has only one hand.  The comment that the author doesn’t give any depth to his characters is also a piece of foreshadowing.We are told near the end that the character is a policeman in the story.  This is after the policeman has arrived outside to keep guard. The twist is in the phone call from the real police who apologise for not sending an officer. Who then is the policeman outside? I wonder if it would not have been more effSupport the show

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