Just Reads

"The Signal-Man" is a horror mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round. The story is told from a fictional first-person perspective. The railway signal-man of the title tells the narrator of an apparition that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on...

The Time Machine is an 1895 dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term "time machine", coined b...

Edith Nesbit’s supernatural masterpiece – “Man-Size in Marble” – was first published in 1887, one year after “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” and three years before The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was a period of intense revival for both popular and literary horror, one where the tropes of terror were regularly being reworked in surprising and unsettling ways, communicating completely differ...

The Diary of a Nobody is an 1892 English comic novel written by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, with illustrations by the latter. It originated as an intermittent serial in Punch magazine in 1888–89 and first appeared in book form, with extended text and added illustrations, in 1892. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please...

Just for a bit of a lark, I thought I'd record this. Whaddya think? It's only the intro. Interested to see if anyone likes it... The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was first published in hardcover in 1898 by Wi...

The Time Machine is an 1895 dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term "time machine", coined b...

Montague Rhodes James was an English medievalist scholar and author who served as provost of King's College, Cambridge, and of Eton College as well as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. James's scholarly work is still highly regarded, but he is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered by many critics and authors as the finest in the English language and widely influ...

Frank Norris's intriguing and atmospheric tale of an old forgotton crime, a tragedy, an ancient derelict ghost ship... and the very bizarre reaction of the modern tramp steamer whose bows she crosses. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Chapter Five of HG Wells, The Time Machine. Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Book of the week this week is the enchanting 'Romance of Leprosy' Buy it before it sells out here Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Morley Robers 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 the love triangle and the perils of repressed emotions. Become a s...

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment that involved putting it together with different body parts. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18 and staying in Bath, and the first edition w...

Chapter four of HG Wells, The Time Machine. Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Yesterday I put up a read of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and to be honest, it sucked. Bad levels, poor diction, a real nightmare. Everything it shouldn't have been. So here is a better version. I've left the original up because I think it's important and may be useful for someone to compare the two reads. You can find the previous version here .  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www....

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely in Dartmoor, Devon, in England's West Country and follows Holmes and Watson investigating the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. No...

A genuine amusing ad from epochs departed. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

"The Masque of the Red Death" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, hosts a masquerade ball in seven rooms of the abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mys...

Chapter three of HG Wells, The Time Machine. Chapter One Chapter Two Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Pamela Hansford-Johnson wrote so many good books, and this, a short story about a man who is invited to stay in a haunted house, who isn't told it's haunted until he can leave, is a light tale about a ghost which won't show its' face to the living. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good st...

A brief bio on the life and works of poet and author Walter De La Mare Walter John de la Mare was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for his psychological horror short fiction, including "Seaton's Aunt", "The Green Room" and "All Hallows". In 1921, his novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James...

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Y...

The second intallment of HG Wells classic story, The Time Machine. Part one here Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way. . . . Start here: It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it; I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent...

Cnarles Dickens was one of the greatest writers of his or any other time. His works examine the human condition, and deal with lust for power, arrogrance, kindness, the cruelty and triumphs of life. This is a brief outline of the man, his work and why his legacy is so important. Copyright beling to originators for all clips used  CONTENTS Excerpt - The Life and Times of David Copperfield Clips Har...

A srudent recieves an unexpected visitor. A message is conveyed, a promise is kept. H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of a...