In this episode, Helena presents more scenes from literature with a bent towards sound, drawing this time from Edgar Allan Poe and Jane Austen.

First, Tyler James Nicol treats us to a dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Bells’, which he reads wonderfully in the style of Vincent Price.

Next, Helena reads the conclusion of ‘Loss of Breath’ by the same author (and does her best to handle Poe’s nesting sentence clauses and the pompous diction of his narrator). ‘Loss of Breath’ sends up sensationalist horror and metaphysical navel-gazing, in an all-too-familiar case of ‘dude won’t shut up–even when dead!

And finally, from public domain recordings, we sample two chapters from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, which also pokes fun at scary tropes and formulas. In this passage, the protagonist’s imagination runs away with her, aided and abetted by the suggestive powers of sound. Chapter 20 is read by Asaf Bartov and Chapter 21 by Kristen McQuillin.

The next two installments of Story Vibes Only will feature literature with dystopian or utopian atmospheres, then works using sound to explore romance and attraction.