Back of the Bookshelf

The city of Paris has captured the imagination of many writers over the years, so it was perhaps inevitable that we would end up journeying back there for another of our adaptations. This one is  The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective by Robert Louis Stevenson, originally published in London Magazine in October 1878. The story is part of The Rajah's Diamond cycle and is about a mysteriou...

It's time to fire up the Back of the Bookshelf time machine for another trip back into the literary past. Our story this time is an Edgar Wallace mystery called Circumstantial Evidence , which was originally published in 1929 along with seven of his other works in a collection called Circumstantial Evidence and Other Stories . The story is set in England in the 1920s and is about a young woman who...

Over the years, we at Back of the Bookshelf have carried our listeners to countries far and wide, to dizzying heights in the sky and deep underground, but we have never taken them beyond the bounds of the planet… until now. That's right, in this seventh episode of our second season, we'll be journeying to the stars courtesy of illustrious science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and his story, Beyond...

It's becoming a Back of the Bookshelf tradition that we release a horror themed episode on Halloween and 2022 is no exception. This time we've gone with a little known French story called La Torture Par L'Esp érance ( The Torture by Hope ) by Villiers de L'Isle Adam. The story was originally published in issue 3191 of the newspaper Gil Blas on 13 th August 1888 and was printed again later in the y...

It's taken a lot longer than we intended - for which we humbly apologise - but episode 5 of our second season is finally ready. It's another aeronautical adventure, this time from the pen of the great Jules Verne. It was first published in August 1851 under the title La Science En Famille. Un Voyage En Balloon , but is better known as  A Drama in the Air. The author needs no introduction, of cours...

Festive Greetings, You are cordially invited to join us for a sleigh ride back into the past courtesy of the Christmas episode of our second season. It's our version of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Fir Tree , which was originally published in 1844 in New Fairy Tales, Volume One, Collection Two (or to give it its Danish title, Nye Eventyr. Første Bind, Anden Samling ). Hans Christian An...

Halloween is here – that wonderful time of year when trick-or-treaters in colourful costumes roam the streets… along with other less wholesome things. In honour of the occasion, the third episode of our second season is a horror story by Robert W. Chambers. It's called In the Court of the Dragon and was originally published in Chambers' 1895 collection of short stories, The King in Yellow . The st...

Sword and sorcery fans should enjoy this second episode of our second season, Gods of the North (also known as The Frost Giant's Daughter and other similar titles). It's a tale of savage warriors and mystical beings by Robert E. Howard, a true pioneer of the genre, in whose fertile imagination the iconic character of Conan the Cimmerian was famously forged. Interestingly, Conan was the main protag...

Greetings listeners. After a long hiatus, Back of the Bookshelf has returned for its second season with more classic fiction from yesteryear.  If you thrill  at the clatter of carriage wheels on the road, yearn for astounding adventures in space, then you won't be disapp ointed (we hope). Kicking things off is a special feature length episode - our most ambitious undertaking to date. It's a Profes...

Welcome one and all to episode 12 of Back of the Bookshelf , the final episode of our opening season. That's right, everyone, this little podcast of ours has made it to the end of its first year of content and is still going strong. We've uncovered some true literary gems on the journey and we'd like to thank you all for joining us. This time we are proud to present Yei Theodora Ozaki's  How An Ol...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be immortal? Well in our eleventh episode we provide an answer, courtesy of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's The Mortal Immortal: A Tale. Commissioned in 1833 for literary annual,  The Keepsake , the story tells of a man who ceases to age when he drinks a strange concoction created by his master, Cornelius Agrippa. At first, he views his longevity as a...

After a short hiatus, we're back with our tenth episode. It's a mystery this time in the tradition of the Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot stories and was written by Baroness Emma Orczy of Scarlet Pimpernel fame. It's called The Liverpool Mystery , and as the title suggests, is set in the coastal city of Liverpool. Originally published in The Royal Magazine in June 1902, it was part of a series...

Some people say Christmas is over-commercialised, but for us, it never loses its sheen, so for our ninth episode, released at midnight on 25th December 2018, we have embraced the tradition of the Christmas ghost story. The story we've chosen is A Strange Christmas Game by Charlotte Riddell, which was first published in The Broadway Annual at the close of 1867. It's set at Christmas, was published...

Don your armour and saddle your horse, because in episode eight we're journeying back to the age of chivalry courtesy of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's classic Arthurian fantasy,  The Legend of Sir Dinar .  The story was originally published in  The Speaker  in 1891 under Quiller-Couch's pseudonym of Q. It is about the quest for the Holy Grail, but focuses on a lesser known knight called Sir Dinar, wh...

In honour of Halloween, our seventh episode is a ghost story by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Braddon is remembered chiefly for her sensation novel,  Lady Audley's Secret , a true classic of the genre, but left behind a considerable body of other work which is equally worthy of attention, as this story demonstrates. It's called  The Higher Life and was originally published in 1907 in an anthology called...

Few people have had a bigger impact on science fiction than the great H.G. Wells, who is our episode 6 author. His contributions to the genre are regularly adapted for stage and screen, and his debut novella The Time Machine  is widely regarded as one of the best ever written. His other work is less well known, though equally accomplished, and it is from this that our story comes. It's called The...

In this episode we return to 19th century Paris for Alexandre Dumas' A Masked Ball , which was originally published in 1833 in Scènes du Beau Monde . Dumas is loved the world over for his novels, which include classics like The Three Musketeers , The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask , but as he demonstrates here, he was equally adept at short stories. Intrigue, betrayal and heart...

Here at Back of the Bookshelf, we love a good ghost story, so for this week's episode we are giving you exactly that, courtesy of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, a true master of the genre. Le Fanu is most famous for his classic vampire novel, 'Carmilla', but in line with our mission statement, the story we have chosen is rather more obscure. It is called 'The White Cat of Drumgunniol' and was originally pub...

In episode three of the Back of the Bookshelf podcast, we whisk you away to 19th century San Francisco in Robert Duncan Milne's apocalyptic science fiction story, Into the Sun . Milne is a true Back of the Bookshelf author, whose work appeared primarily in local newspapers and magazines, so would very likely have been forgotten if Sam Moskowitz hadn't introduced it to a new audience with his 1980...

Episode two of the Back of the Bookshelf podcast, featuring a Guy de Maupassant story called The Jewels . As you might expect from the title, it's thematically similar to Maupassant's more famous The Necklace , but is arguably superior with its multifaceted approach. The characters and situations are easy to relate to and with our carefully selected sound effects you'll almost believe you've stepp...

Inaugural episode of the Back of the Bookshelf podcast, featuring a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle is best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, but here he writes about another memorable character, Professor Challenger, in a thrilling science fiction adventure. The story is narrated by author and actor, C.J. Carter-Stephenson,  with music by Kevin MacLeod  and an immersive soundscape....