Victorian Horror

Katherine O'Donnell was born with a disfiguring strawberry birthmark across the bottom of her face. In 1880s London, that was enough to discourage suitors. Love was something for which she yearned, but never found within her reach. Out of necessity, she became adept at hiding inside her home and behind makeups she formulated and applied herself. When tragedy upended her modest life and dumped her out onto the streets, she was bereft of options. She answered an advertisement for a mortuary assistant.

At their newly founded school, Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, promise a groundbreaking education for young women. But Caroline has grave misgivings. After all, her own unconventional education has left her unmarriageable and isolated, unsuited to the narrow roles afforded women in 19th-century New England. When a mysterious flock of red birds descends on the town, Caroline alone seems to find them unsettling. But it's not long before the assembled students begin to manifest bizarre symptoms: Rashes, seizures, headaches, verbal tics, night wanderings. One by one, they sicken.

A no-nonsense governess returns to the family home at Christmas to celebrate the season and an upcoming wedding but learns of a curse affecting the men of the family. 'At Chrighton Abbey' is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915), little known now, but a renowned writer in her time, gives us five tales of the "weird" as she might herself have said. Here we have five of her better known stories, peopled with jilted lovers, blood thirsty old ladies, and grand, old houses whose restless ancestors refuse to abandon them! The five tales: "The Cold Embrace", "The Shadow in the Corner", "At Chrighton Abbey", "Good Lady Ducayne", and "Eveline's Visitant".

The unnamed narrator of the story lives alone in a dark, ancient castle surrounded by a dense forest. He never sees sunlight, and he has no memory of human contact. One day, desperate to see the sun, the narrator decides to climb the ruined tower which is the only part of the castle taller than the trees. After the dangerous climb to the top room of the tower, the narrator is delighted to see the moon through a grating. Soon, however, he discovers the horrible truth behind his confinement.

Sullo sfondo della brughiera battuta dai venti, una ragazza umile ma volitiva trova lavoro come istitutrice nella casa di un uomo aspro e malinconico. Tra di loro nascerà inaspettata una grande passione, che dovrà però fare i conti con un segreto scabroso. Un capolavoro di una modernità dirompente, un cult che continua ad affascinare generazione dopo generazione.

Dive into a chilling tapestry of paranormal intrigue with Haunted Minds, a spine-tingling journey through the eerie Cornish moors and shadowy streets of London at the turn of the 20th century. This thrilling blend of horror and psychological suspense explores the mysterious interplay between the tangible brain and the intangible spirit, challenging the confines of materialist doctrine with tales of restless spirits and ghostly phenomena. Through detailed accounts and vivid storytelling, experience the eerie occurrences that lurk in the abandoned mines of Cornwall and the desolate corners of...

Lord Lacy’s daughter, Emily, is persuaded by her parents to marry the ageing Lord Dalrymple. After all, he has a title, Earl of Morpeth, and a mansion, Crookhill Abbey, that is even more extensive than Lord Lacy’s mansion in Buxton. However, when Emily gets to Northumberland, she finds that Crookhill Abbey is little better than a crumbling mausoleum. Crookhill Abbey is not quite a Jane Austen sequel – but there are echoes of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – also Eliza Parsons’, The Castle of Wolfenbach, and Ann Radcliffe’s, The Mysteries of Udolpho. However, there are also ...

Iseult Wince is a Victorian woman perilously close to spinsterhood whose distinctly unpleasant father is trying to marry her off. She is awkward, plain, and most pertinently, believes that her mother, who died in childbirth, lives in the scar on her neck. Iseult’s father parades a host of unsuitable candidates before her, the majority of whom Iseult wastes no time frightening away. When at last her father finds a suitor desperate enough to take Iseult off his hands - a man whose medical treatments have turned his skin silver - a true comedy of errors ensues.

‘The Signalman’ (1866) is a short story by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870). In the story, a practical-minded narrator meets a railway worker who has been seeing supernatural visions. The narrator doubts the man at first, but at the story’s conclusion a strange event makes him a believer.

Two of the darkest villains ever written by this author plague Holmes challenge Holmes in ways that would destroy the sanity of any ordinary man. THE BLEAK TREE AND THE HOLLOW HAND Mark Twain loses his best friend and desperate to find him, seeks the helpof Sherlock Holmes. IN TIMES OF DARKNESS Harry Houdini, the world's greatest wizard, is preparing his most dangerous act Unknown to Harry, an old enemy is also preparing to sabotage the act and murder Harry during what should be Harry's greatest act ever! Get this exciting new book now for hours of reading pleasure.

Private investigator Charles Maddox is surprised when he is approached by Edward Tulkinghorn for help. The feared and shadowy attorney offers Charles a handsome price he can't refuse to do some sleuthing for a client. Charles learns that Sir Julius Cremorne has been receiving threatening letters, and now Tulkinghorn wants him to find and stop whoever is responsible. But what starts as a simple open-and-shut case swiftly escalates into something bigger and much darker. As he cascades toward a collision with powerful forces, Charles will need all the assistance he can get…

The story's protagonist and narrator is an unnamed woman whose husband, a doctor named John, makes her spend the summer in the country for her health. The woman, her baby, John, John's sister and some servants stay in a large rented house. John chooses a bedroom for himself and his wife which is large and airy but otherwise quite unpleasant. The narrator takes an immediate dislike to the room's yellow wallpaper. She soon starts to see grotesque images in its pattern. After some time, the narrator becomes convinced that the wallpaper depicts a woman trapped behind a cage.

Almost always when we think of Ghost Stories, we first think of those written by the Victorians. When you consider the depth of literary talent available over the extraordinary length of Queen Victoria’s reign, allied to the fascination with their all things spiritual on ‘the other side’, then perhaps it’s simply right place, right time. Whatever the reasons given or proffered the reality and known facts are that if you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your listening pleasure.

A stay in Paris should be just the tonic for a distracted and insular German student. But it is the beginning of the French Revolution and the blood-stained guillotine is doing its grisly work every day. So when the student encounters a beautiful, distraught woman in need of comfort on its steps in the dead of night, he doesn’t consider this meeting perhaps as strange as he should. "The Adventure of the German Student" is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural.

Celeste struggles with finding her way from a dark past, until she gets a summer volunteer gig at the local historical fair. Enter: outrageous actors, dominating psychics, and ghosts stirred by a medium’s presence. With the help of the psychic’s son - who isn’t at all what her dream date would look like but rather endearing all the same - Celeste uncovers secrets about the village left hidden among the dilapidated buildings.

In India, Colvin used to be friends with an Englishman named Broughton. They both moved back to England, where Broughton settled down, married and moved into Thurnley Abbey, an ancient manor that was rumoured to be haunted. These rumours were fed by the previous owner, who hated people. Broughton doesn’t fully believe in the ghost, and even if it exists, he seems unworried.

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn't grown a single inch since she was five. Then at the age of 15 the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as 'Captain'. Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather. Resenting his grandson for his mother's death in childbirth, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name when he remarries, and a new heir is produced. Unable to train to be a doctor as he'd hoped, Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell's Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical 'family'.

Sometimes monsters are not just monsters - they are reflections of ourselves, mirrors of our own darkness and light. But do monsters only exist as a figment of our imagination, or are they real? In this late 19th-century crime fiction horror novel, Henry Blackshaw, the owner of a derelict manor, hires private detective Stephen Moore to investigate a series of strange disappearances on his property. As the detective and his team ponder who may be responsible for the missing victims, confronted with chilling evidence that makes their blood run cold, they come to a terrifying conclusion... ...

Before Twilight and True Blood, even before Buffy and Anne Rice and Bela Lugosi, vampires haunted the 19th century, when brilliant writers everywhere indulged their bloodthirsty imaginations, culminating in Bram Stoker's legendary 1897 novel, Dracula. Michael Sims brings together the very best vampire stories of the Victorian era - from England, America, France, Germany, Transylvania, and even Japan - into a unique collection that highlights their cultural variety.