Just Listen Podcast

Two things I find striking and worthy of special note in today’s selection by Willa Cather, “The Sculptor’s Funeral.” One is the sense of place that is keen in the story—that of a frozen, barren plains town in the throes of winter--which harkens back to her injunction, “Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.” The other is the great insight she displays in describing uneasy groups of men in this story—men gathered to receive a coffin in the frozen night and men gathered to mourn one not quite their own.

An English writer nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature four times, H.G. Wells was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, works of social commentary, satire, biography and autobiography, including even two books on war games. In “The Red Room,” an overly confident visitor seeks to square off against the powerful superstitions of an ancient hour by entering a room with a horrible reputation.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era.

"The Trial for Murder," written in 1865, is a short story by Charles Dickens. It is one of Dickens' ghost stories, and is perhaps the best known outside of "A Christmas Carol."

“The Judge’s House” is a classic ghost story by the Irish author Bram Stoker, of Dracula fame.

The story of Tom Walker is a variation on the legend of Faust, a 16th-century magician and astrologer who was said to have sold his soul to the devil for wisdom, money, and power. Washington Irving reinvented the tale, setting it in the 1720s in an area of New England settled by Quakers and Puritans. In Irving’s comic retelling of the legend, the writer satirizes people who present a pious public image as they “sell their souls” for money.

In “The Nightingale and the Rose,” the conflict between science and faith that so marked Oscar Wilde’s own era is mirrored in the conflict between love and philosophy as a young man tries to fulfill his dreams.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. The story, which is set during the American Civil War, is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode.

"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne about a doctor who claims to have been sent water from the Fountain of Youth.

"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne about a doctor who claims to have been sent water from the Fountain of Youth.