As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.

A collection of classic works by Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

It was the eye. The dull, sightless, vulture's eye that shredded his final nerve. But the murder was done so carefully, so perfectly, that only one thing could reveal the whereabouts of the body. B. J. Harrison gives a masterful reading of the famous murder that wouldn't keep quiet. This audiobook was the #3 best-selling audiobook in 2008 at the iTunes Music Store!

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Edgar Allan Poe elevated the gothic story, developed the unreliable narrator, recast psychological terror, and reveled in both the horror and the supernal beauty of death. From Poe's rich, unrivaled imagination comes a collection of his most masterful works, including "The Black Cat", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and, of course, "The Tell-Tale Heart". Each story explores morbid themes of grief, greed, fear, and guilt, and together they embody Poe's grotesque obsessions...even the dread of being buried alive.

A collection featuring three classic horror stories, read by actor Earl Hammond: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado", and "The Black Cat".

One Voice Recordings presents amazingly versatile voice actor David Ian Davies performing three of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous short stories: "Oblong Box", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Black Cat".

"To inherit a great fortune. To inherit a great misfortune." These words, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's notebook, neatly encapsulate the theme of The House of the Seven Gables - that of a family whose fortunes are poisoned by its past misdeeds. The sins of the Pyncheon father are visited upon his children over a period of several generations, until such time as one of his descendants unites with a member of the family he has wronged. Love conquers hate, and new blood washes away the original crime.

This rousing sea adventure follows New England boy Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain’s son, Augustus. The two boys repeatedly find themselves on the brink of death or discovery and witness many terrifying events, including mutiny, cannibalism and frantic pursuits. Poe imbued this deliberately popular tale with such allegorical richness, biblical imagery and psychological insights that the tale has come to influence writers as various as Melville, James, Verne and Nabokov.

The grand-prize winner of a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, "The Gold-Bug" was one of Poe's most popular stories during his lifetime. Similar to his ratiocination tales - early versions of what we now call detective fiction - "The Gold-Bug" is full of mystery and adventure and includes a cryptogram, invisible ink, a scarab-like bug, and pirate treasure.

Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, written under the pseudonym Linda Brent, details her experiences as a slave in North Carolina, her escape to freedom in the north, and her ensuing struggles to free her children. The narrative was partly serialized in the New York Tribune, but was discontinued because Jacobs’ depictions of the sexual abuse of female slaves were considered too shocking. It was published in book form in 1861.

"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.

Acclaimed novelist Mat Johnson is the winner of the prestigious Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. After being sacked, American literature professor Chris Jaynes discovers a slave manuscript that seemingly confirms the existence of an “island of pure and utter blackness” as described in Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Soon Jaynes and a rag-tag crew embark on an epic adventure to discover the truth.

A predecessor to such monumental works such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Notes From Underground represents a turning point in Dostoyevsky's writing towards the more political side.

In this work, we follow the unnamed narrator of the story, who, disillusioned by the oppression and corruption of the society in which he lives, withdraws from that society into the underground.

Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition.

It was the eye. The dull, sightless, vulture's eye that shredded his final nerve. But the murder was done so carefully, so perfectly, that only one thing could reveal the whereabouts of the body. B. J. Harrison gives a masterful reading of the famous murder that wouldn't keep quiet. This audiobook was the #3 best-selling audiobook in 2008 at the iTunes Music Store!

Herman Melville is one of the greatest figures in literary history. His classic Moby Dick is generally considered the finest novel ever written by an American. Yet in Melville’s day, Typee was a far more popular book. Largely autobiographical, this classic adventure story is set in the South Seas, where a runaway sailor is captured by the Typees. Described as “a fierce and unrelenting tribe of savages," the islanders have no intention of letting their captive go.

Edgar Allan Poe elevated the gothic story, developed the unreliable narrator, recast psychological terror, and reveled in both the horror and the supernal beauty of death. From Poe's rich, unrivaled imagination comes a collection of his most masterful works, including "The Black Cat", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and, of course, "The Tell-Tale Heart". Each story explores morbid themes of grief, greed, fear, and guilt, and together they embody Poe's grotesque obsessions...even the dread of being buried alive.

A sixteenth-century cryptogram spurs modern geologist Otto Liedenbrock to embark on the most remarkable human quest ever taken. With his nephew and guide, he leads the descent from a dormant Icelandic volcano into the unexplored realm beneath their feet. There, a vast subterranean ocean, prehistoric creatures, and natural phenomena are but a few of the wonders hidden from all but the boldest eyes.

On one level...Melville’s tale is an historical adventure telling the story of life aboard ship shortly after the mutiny at Spithead in 1797. Billy is taken from a homeward bound merchantman to serve on the ‘Seventy Four’ HMS Indomitable. He falls foul of Claggart, the ‘Master at Arms’, and the final confrontation results in death. Billy becomes an unwilling martyr - what passes for justice must be implemented because of the rebellious climate of the time.

Word goes among the crew of the Pole Star that the captain is haunted by demons. And after the days turn into weeks in the frigid Arctic Ocean, stories begin to circulate of ghosts and midnight hauntings.

From the pen of one of the literary world’s finest explorers of the imagination, these classic tales of fantastical habitats and intrepid adventurers delve deep into every mysterious corner of planet Earth. Whether you’ve adventured with Verne before or are only just setting off on your maiden voyage, this collection encompasses the most extraordinary adventures the father of science fiction has to offer.

In "The Model Millionaire", the destiny of a young, ambitious, brilliant pauper changes with an act of his misplaced generosity. "The Happy Prince" is one of Oscar Wilde’s renowned fairy tales. From his vantage point, high above the city, the statue of The Happy Prince gives of himself in a way most astonishing. In "The Sphinx Without a Secret", we learn of an enigmatic woman who holds a secret so close, no suitor can win her.

One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.

Jack London worshiped strong and virtuous heroes, and his stories give great weight to the inevitable triumph of good over evil. His telling of the adventures of Humphrey van Weydon in The Sea Wolf is in keeping with this theme of moral man. His powerful and gripping saga of van Weydon's capture by a seal-hunting ship and the ensuing tangles with its dreaded captain, Wolf Larsen, makes this a classic American tale of peril and victory.

Written at the start of the Great War, when his son Borys was at the Western Front, The Shadow-Line is Conrad's supreme effort to open man's eyes to the meaning of war through the stimulus of art. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, this masterpiece of his final period relates the story of a young and inexperienced sea captain whose first command finds him with a ship becalmed in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever.

Young Jim Hawkins quiet life as the son of an innkeeper changes when an ancient sailor takes up lodging at the inn. When the old man dies without paying his bill, Jim must search the sailor's one possession, a large sea-chest, for payment. He finds a map that is the key to a fortune. This commences a Caribbean treasure hunt, with pirate Long John Silver only steps behind!

Young, impressionable Aubrey is fascinated by the enigmatic Lord Ruthven, and accompanies him on a tour to Europe. But Aubrey develops a growing distaste for Lord Ruthven’s sinister and grotesque conduct - especially as it concerns human blood. This novella, penned during that tempestuous night in Switzerland amongst such notables as Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, served as the great inspiration for Bram Stoker to create Dracula.

Merle Johnson has here gathered together in one volume all of the nineteenth-century author-artist's classic pirate stories that had been scattered through many magazines and books. Well researched and with richly drawn characters, Pyle's work will appeal to students of history and adventure lovers alike.

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave.