Short Stories audiobooks

The Game Played in the Dark

By: Ernest Bramah

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) was an English author of 21 novels and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works have been ranked with Jerome K Jerome, and W.W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H.G. Wells and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood.

In his stories of detection,... Read more

The Dream

By: A. J. Alan

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 18 minutes

Abridged: No

A. J. Alan's curious story of a recurring dream. Possibly one of the strangest and creepiest tales ever told. Read more

The Cabmen's Shelter

By: A. J. Alan

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Leslie Harrison Lambert, who wrote under the name of A. J. Alan (1883-1941), was an English magician, intelligence officer, short story writer, and radio broadcaster. He kept his identity secret, while as a spinner of yarns, humorous, fantastic, or mysterious, he became ever-more popular, especially via his regular radio broadcasts.

The Cabmen's... Read more

The Murder of the Mandarin

By: Arnold Bennett

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A young wife in a quiet Midlands town, a new dress, a dance, an unimaginative husband. How could a mandarin's sudden death in far-away China have any connection with this homely situation? Read more

The Furnished Room

By: O. Henry

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 17 minutes

Abridged: No

O. Henry's poignant ghost story of a young man seeking his lost love in the city. When he rents a furnished room in the lower West Side, he senses from a mysterious and familiar scent that his lost love has recently stayed there. The ghostly essence of his lover exercises a very strange and sinister effect on him. Read more

The Smile of La Gioconda

By: Morley Roberts

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an adventurer who worked on railways, cattle, and sheep ranches all over Africa and the Americas and still found time to write a large number of very varied novels and stories with a zest that only real-life experience can give.

In "The Smile of La Gioconda" he is concerned with the subtle psychological aspects of... Read more

The Hammer of God

By: G. K. Chesterton

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 41 minutes

Abridged: No

The Colonel's body is discovered in the blacksmith's yard, the skull smashed like a crushed eggshell. No man for 40 miles around could have struck such a blow, except the giant of a blacksmith... and the blackmith has a cast-iron alibi.

Only the reticent catholic priest Father Brown can deduce the extraordinary truth behind this bizarre murder. Read more

Casting the Runes

By: M.R. James

Narrated by: B.J. Harrison

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Mystery surrounds a certain Mr. Karswell. He has purchased an old Abbey, is a known alchemist, and has written a ludicrous history of witchcraft. Are these mysterious behaviors those of an irascible eccentric, or a cold-hearted murderer? Read more

His Brother's Keeper

By: W. W. Jacobs

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 29 minutes

Abridged: No

W. W. Jacobs (1863-1941) is well known for humorous stories and for the most grisly of horror stories. His Brother's Keeper belongs firmly in the latter category. It tells the story of a man whose murdered enemy lies secretly buried at the bottom of the garden. It is the perfect crime. Nobody need ever know who has murdered him and where he... Read more

The Dancing Partner

By: Jerome K. Jerome

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Jerome K. Jerome's masterpiece of gruesome fantasy.

A German toymaker seeks to oblige his daughter's friends by building the perfect dancing partner. He can dance all night, never treads on your feet, always says the right thing. At the ball the dancing partner is a great success...at first. But the waltz gets faster and faster...and the scene... Read more

Necronomicon

By: H. P. Lovecraft

Narrated by: Richard Powers, Bronson Pinchot, Stephen R. Tho...

Length: 21 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

The only audio edition of Necronomicon authorized by the H. P. Lovecraft EstateOriginally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and ’30s, H. P. Lovecraft’s astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when first published. This tome brings together all of Lovecraft’s... Read more

Stories of the Golden West, Book 3

By: Jon Tuska, Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey & Max Brand

Narrated by: Christopher Lane & Tom Weiner

Length: 9 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

A collection of classic Western talesTappan's Burro by Zane GreyProspecting was lonely business for Tappan, but his burro Jenet was good company, and she knew the trails and waterholes better than Tappan. She tracked with him, faithful, his only friend. And he repays her with a final, supreme effort of heart, will, and spirit.Jargan by Max... Read more

Charles

By: A. J. Alan

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 19 minutes

Abridged: No

The story opens with the narrator on his way home from the theatre one evening, when his attention is drawn to a crowd gathered around a road accident in the West End of London. A taxi has hit a pedestrian. Out of the crowd emerges Charles, an old friend, supporting a fainting women. They had been the passengers in the taxi, and Charles now... Read more

The Shadow of the Shark

By: G. K. Chesterton

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 51 minutes

Abridged: No

When the body of the eccentric painter Sir Owen Cram is found on a deserted beach next to his easel, a murder enquiry is launched. It is clear that the injury which has killed him could not have been self-inflicted. Nor is the murder weapon anywhere to be found. But most mysterious of all, there is only one set of footprints in the sand leading... Read more

The Perfect Murder

By: Stacy Aumonier

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Stacy Aumonier was a British writer, best known for his outstanding short stories. Nobel Prize-winner John Galsworthy described Aumonier as "one of the best short story writers of all time" and predicted that he would "outlive all the writers of his day".

Aumonier wrote over 85 short stories in his lifetime. He has been described as the "British... Read more

The Magic Casket

By: R. Austin Freeman

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was a British writer of detective stories, often starring the forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. He is often credited with having invented the inverted detective story (a crime fiction in which the commission of the crime is described at the beginning, with the story then describing the detective's attempt to... Read more

Diamond Cut Diamond

By: F. Britten Austin

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 1 hour 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Frederick Britten Austin (1885 - 1941) was a popular British fiction writer, whose crime and mystery stories were very much influenced by his experiences as a soldier. He had enlisted in the London Rifle Brigade on 4 August, 1914, the day war was declared on Germany. By war's end he had reached the rank of captain.

In Diamond Cut Diamond, Britten... Read more

The Siege of Berlin

By: Alphonse Daudet

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 15 minutes

Abridged: No

The year is 1870. The elderly Colonel Jouve has suffered a medical collapse and is confined to his bed. It is uncertain whether or not he will pull through.

His granddaughter takes over his care. Then one day, news reaches Paris of military successes in the war against Prussia. Colonel Jouve senses the optimism in the air and his health begins to... Read more

The Singing Lesson

By: Katherine Mansfield

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 15 minutes

Abridged: No

Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

The Singing Lesson describes the turmoil of a young schoolmistress holding a singing lesson for years 4, 5 and 6 immediately after she has received a very disturbing letter from her fiancé. Her dismal... Read more

The Marionettes

By: O. Henry

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 31 minutes

Abridged: No

The Marionettes tells the story of two disreputable men. One, Dr. James, is a suave doctor and also an assassin and safe-breaker. The other, Mr. Chandler, is a consumate wastrel, gambler, and wife beater. Each of the two adheres to a strict code of conduct and despises the other for their lack of morals.

A chance encounter between the two of them... Read more

An August Bride

By: Debra Clopton

Narrated by: Amber Quick

Length: 3 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

A year’s worth of novellas from twelve inspirational romance authors. Happily ever after guaranteed.As far as Kelsey Wilcox is concerned, her last cowboy was the last cowboy. Kelsey Wilcox has had enough of cowboys. After the last one broke her heart, Kelsey traded in her boots for flip-flops, and the open range for a bistro on the beach.  Her... Read more

New Frontiers

By: Ben Bova

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cui...

Length: 9 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

New Frontiers offers fourteen startling visions of yesterday, today, and tomorrow from Ben Bova, six-time winner of the Hugo Award.Frontiers can be found in all directions—frontiers of time and space, as well as frontiers of courage, devotion, love, hate, and the outer limits of the human spirit. This outstanding collection of stories by one of... Read more

The Reverend Father Gaucher's Elixir

By: Alphonse Daudet

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was one of France's finest storytellers.

The Reverend Father Gaucher's Elixir is set in a dilapidated monastery in Provence. The order has fallen on hard times and the future of the entire monastery is in jeopardy. But the order's simpleton cow-herd, Brother Gaucher, has an unexpected idea. His old Auntie Bégon had in... Read more

An Episode of the Reign of Terror

By: Honoré de Balzac

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) is arguably the greatest European novelist in terms of the range and power of his writing. Most of his short stories predate his long novels and are written in a different style.

One of the earliest is An Episode of the Reign of Terror in which two nuns and a priest in hiding from the mob are visited by a stranger... Read more