The Classic Tales Podcasts and Audiobooks

What better way to cap a Halloween Scare Fest than with a strange murder confession from Edgar Allan Poe , as B.J. Harrison brings us " The Cask of Amontillado ," a tale of murder by wine. Or rather, the promise of wine. As you may remember, this was the first story B.J. recorded for The Classic Tales Podcast . If you still have your old audio copy , it should be fun to compare it to today's production so you can see how far B.J. has come. " The Cask of Amontillado " is one of Poe's most popular stories, published in 1846 in the magazine Godey's Lady's Book , which was at the time, the most widely read magazine.  Many critics consider this a 'perfect' story.  It may well be the perfect crime, unless the whomever Monrtesor is telling this story to goes to the authorities! In looking around the web for interesting takes on this story, I ran into two different productions.  One of them is a rap song , evidently produced to get school...

 This week, B.J. and  The Classic Tales continue their spooky story Halloween fest with M.R. James ' ghost story "Casting The Runes." English writer M.R. James broke the mold of the Gothic ghost story by making the settings and devices much more realistic.  The stories took place in small villages, and there was often an item of ancient power (often a book) that set the story rolling.  This use of ancient objects led James' stories to be called "antiquarian ghost stories." Montague Rhodes James was a scholar and provost of King's College in Cambridge and then of Eaton College.  His academic life revolved around the medieval era.  It was through his studies that he came to choose that time period as a setting for his stories, and how he became fascinated by evil and magical objects which he would then  feature in his ghost stories. As I mentioned earlier, James wanted his stories to be believable. He said he wanted to "put the reader into th...

The Phantom Unmasked - Lon Chaney, Sr as the Phantom The Phantom of the Opera , by Gaston Leroux is now available for purchase at www.thebestaudiobooks.com . It is a premium podcast, and two - hour long episodes are released every week. The voices are coming along splendidly. I hope you like it. In the English-speaking world, Gaston Leroux is best known for creating The Phantom of the Opera . However, he is most noted in his own country for his splendid contribution to detective fiction. He is held as the French version of Arthur Conan Doyle. The most widely known of his detective novels is The Mystery of the Yellow Room , in which his protagonist, Joseph Rouletabille, solves one of the first "sealed room" mysteries. Here a crime is committed without anyone apparently able to do it. It really is quite a wonderful novel, and I'm planning on adding it to the Classic Tales Library in 2013. Another novel that I'm particularly fond of from Leroux i...