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Classic Ghost Stories

Tony Walker
  • 4.9 (553)
  • SCIENCE FICTION
  • WEEKLY SERIES

A weekly podcast that reads out ghost stories, horror stories, and weird tales every week. Classic stories from the pens of the masters Occasionally, we feature living authors, but the majority are dead. Some perhaps are undead. We go from cosy Edwardian ghost stories (E. F. Benson, Walter De La Mare) to Victorian supernatural mysteries (M. R. James, Elizabeth Gaskell, Bram Stoker, and Charles Dickens) to 20th-century Weird Tales (Robert Aickman, Fritz Lieber, Clark Ashton-Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft) and wander from the Gothic to the Odd, even to the Literary, and then back again. Each episode is followed by Tony's take on the story, its author, its content and any literary considerations, which may be useful to students!

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  1. The Beetle by Richard Marsh (Chapters 1-4)

    JAN 10 • SPECIAL EDITIONS ONLY

    The Beetle by Richard Marsh (Chapters 1-4)

    For Members: Your January Exclusive Story The Beetle by Richard Marsh - a sensation when published in 1897, outselling even Dracula in its day, yet mysteriously forgotten by modern readers. This is Victorian gothic horror at its most lurid and unsettling. When a destitute clerk stumbles into a decrepit house in London's West End, he encounters something that defies all natural law - a shape-shifting creature of ancient Egyptian origin, neither wholly male nor female, human nor insect. What follows is a tale of mesmerism, possession, and relentless pursuit through the fogbound streets of imperial London. Told through multiple narrators, each revealing another layer of mounting dread, The Beetle delivers everything the Victorians craved: forbidden knowledge, Oriental mysticism, psychological terror, and the ever-present threat that beneath civilisation's veneer lurks something far older and infinitely more malevolent. Book One (Chapters 1-4, just under an hour) is now available exclusively to members.

    51 min

  2. FEB 6

    The Occupant of the Room by Algernon Blackwood

    A schoolmaster arrives late at night in a remote Alpine village. The inn has no rooms. Then suddenly—there is one. A room that's occupied, yet empty. A room whose previous tenant, an Englishwoman, left two days before and hasn't returned. As he unpacks his few belongings, the atmosphere begins to press in. Something lingers here—in the faded flowers by the washstand, in the air itself. And when darkness falls, he feels it: a crushing weight of despair that doesn't belong to him. Thoughts that aren't his own. A blackness so complete it whispers of only one escape. The search party is still out on the mountains. But what if they're looking in the wrong place? Publication Details: "The Occupant of the Room" was first published in 1909 in Blackwood's collection John Silence: Physician Extraordinary, featuring the psychic detective Dr. John Silence. The story showcases Blackwood's mastery of psychological horror and the contagion of extreme emotional states. Author Biography: Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a British author, occultist, and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His work explored the boundaries between psychological experience and supernatural phenomena, establishing him as one of the most influential writers of weird fiction in the early twentieth century. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    58 min
  3. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas by M R James

    FEB 13

    The Treasure of Abbot Thomas by M R James

    A mediaeval abbot leaves behind a cipher—not in his will, but scratched into the glass of his own church. The treasure it guards has lain undisturbed for centuries. Mr. Somerton, a scholar with a taste for puzzles, believes he can solve what others have missed. The Latin is difficult, the clues are scattered, but gold is gold, and curiosity has its own momentum. What waits beneath the stone was put there deliberately. It has been patient. Some things, once disturbed, do not easily return to silence. "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" was first published in 1904 in M.R. James's second collection, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. The story has been widely anthologized and was adapted for television by the BBC in 1974. Montague Rhodes James was a distinguished mediaeval scholar and Provost of King's College, Cambridge, later of Eton College. He is regarded as one of the finest writers of supernatural fiction in the English language, and his ghost stories continue to define the antiquarian tradition of literary horror. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 8m
  4. Mezengerstein by Edgar Allan Poe

    FEB 20

    Mezengerstein by Edgar Allan Poe

    Two noble houses. Centuries of hatred. A prophecy that may mean nothing—or everything. In medieval Hungary, the young Baron Metzengerstein encounters a horse—gigantic, fiery-colored, unlike any creature in his stables. He rides it obsessively. Dawn and midnight. Sickness and health. Riveted to the saddle as if becoming one with the creature. It performs impossible feats. The servants whisper of things they cannot explain. Some souls dwell only once in flesh. After that—only the scarcely tangible resemblance. Publication Details: "Metzengerstein" first appeared anonymously in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier on January 14, 1832, making it Edgar Allan Poe's first published tale. It was later revised and included in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. Author Biography: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, and literary critic who pioneered the modern short story and detective fiction. His works of Gothic horror and psychological complexity remain among the most influential in world literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    54 min
  5. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

    BONUS • SPECIAL EDITIONS ONLY

    The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

    Members Story for February 2026: A swollen river, two tired men on a canoeing adventure, and an island that shouldn’t feel as watchful as it does. The willows lean closer than seems natural; the sounds in the dark don’t quite belong to wind or water. As the current eats at the shore and the sky presses low, the landscape itself begins to feel like there is someone there noticing them, weighing them. A story about how isolation can breed terror. First published in 1907 in the collection The Listener and Other Stories.Now widely regarded as a foundational work of early eco‑cosmic horror. Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) was an English writer, journalist, and occultist, celebrated as one of the great masters of weird fiction.His stories fuse landscape, mysticism, and terror, and profoundly shaped later cosmic horror, influencing writers including H. P. Lovecraft. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast

    1h 59m
  6. The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf

    BONUS • SPECIAL EDITIONS ONLY

    The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf

    Members Only Story: March 2026 The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf (1842), translated by Susan Bernofsky, is one of the most unsettling works of European gothic fiction. It opens with a christening feast in a peaceful Swiss valley, where an old farmhouse bears a strange blackened mark — and an even stranger story. From there unfolds a timeless parable of pride, desperation, and the terrible price of bargaining with darkness. Drawing on folklore, faith, and the fear that evil once unleashed can never truly die, Gotthelf weaves a tale that is both moral fable and supernatural horror. The novella is deeply Calvinist and moralistic in its worldview. Gotthelf uses the horror framework to explore the consequences of community selfishness, faithlessness, and the making of diabolical pacts for short-term gain. The spider represents sin itself — born from a moment of weakness, growing in the darkness of moral compromise, and erupting catastrophically when released. The contrast between the God-fearing, prosperous framing community and the endangered medieval one is deliberate. It also carries strong social commentary — the oppressive feudal lord is a catalyst for the community's moral failure, but Gotthelf ultimately places responsibility on the community itself for its choices. The Black Spider is a remarkable precursor to modern horror and dark fantasy. Its atmosphere of dread, the visceral body-horror of Christine's transformation, and its examination of collective guilt feel remarkably modern. It influenced later Swiss and German literature significantly and remains a staple of German-language literary curricula. Die schwarze Spinne — The Black Spider — was first published in 1842, in a collection of tales entitled Neue Bilder und Sagen. It is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of German-language literature, and one of the most unsettling novellas ever written. Jeremias Gotthelf was the pen name of Albert Bitzius, a Swiss Reformed pastor born in 1797, who wrote with fierce moral vision and an intimate knowledge of rural Swiss life. He died in 1854, leaving behind a body of work that remains quietly, persistently troubling.

    3h 27m
See All Season 7 (6)

4.9
out of 5
553 Ratings

About

A weekly podcast that reads out ghost stories, horror stories, and weird tales every week. Classic stories from the pens of the masters Occasionally, we feature living authors, but the majority are dead. Some perhaps are undead. We go from cosy Edwardian ghost stories (E. F. Benson, Walter De La Mare) to Victorian supernatural mysteries (M. R. James, Elizabeth Gaskell, Bram Stoker, and Charles Dickens) to 20th-century Weird Tales (Robert Aickman, Fritz Lieber, Clark Ashton-Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft) and wander from the Gothic to the Odd, even to the Literary, and then back again. Each episode is followed by Tony's take on the story, its author, its content and any literary considerations, which may be useful to students!

Information

  • Creator
    Tony Walker
  • Episodes
    432
  • Seasons
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2023 Classic Ghost Stories
  • Show Website
    Classic Ghost Stories
  • Provider
    The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast

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