The Classic Tales Podcast
Designed to make classic literature less intimidating, The Classic Tales Podcast has been showcasing the greatest literary authors for years. Narrating with gusto, BJ Harrison performs each word of the classic texts, elevating them with character voices, sharp accents and bridled emotion. Adventure, Mystery, Horror, Humor and more - The Classic Tales Podcast has something for everybody. It really is The Cure for the Common Commute. Winner - Outstanding Podcast Host: Arts and Entertainment , Society of Voice Arts and Sciences- 2022 Winner of w3 Silver Award by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts-2022 Winner of w3 Gold Award by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts-2021 Winner of Independent Audiobook Award for "Scaramouche", by Raphael Sabatini - 2021

What happens when a person hears the tolling of the bell that still hangs in the ruins of St. Sépulcre? M.P. Shiel, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.

Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening.

The Classic Tales Podcast is listener supported. The monthly donation really helps us to create a support flow we can count on. If you can step up with $5/month, that really helps us out. Go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a monthly supporter. You’ll get a monthly ‘thank you’ code for any digital download. It’s a great deal, and a great feeling. Thank you so much.

You can also purchase t-shirts and stuff at our merchandise store, and check out the Hybrid Audiobook - the audiobook that’s embedded in a printed book that I’ve invented and patented. Links can be found in the episode’s details.

And for those of you with the Classic Tales App, check out your special features for more Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - just enough to wet your whistle. In the app, tap on the box with a bow on the left when you play the episode. That’s the special features area.

Today we finish our journey into the purveyors of the ghost story. Next week, we will begin a multipart series of The Hand of Fu-Manchu, book three in the Fu-Manchu series by Sax Roemer. I tell you this now, so you can get caught up if you need to, and listen to the first two books. I’ve priced both The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, and The Return of Fu-Manchu at 7.99 each. So you can use a coupon code to pick them up, if you haven’t already done so.

In case you can’t tell, I’m a little under the weather today. But fear not, I have another short story I recorded earlier from M.P. Shiel, which fits the bill nicely.

And now, The Bell of St. Sépulcre, by M.P. Shiel.

 

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Tap here to purchase Huckleberry Finn – the first Hybrid Audiobook

  

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Direct download: CT_620_BellofStSepulcre.mp3
Category:Literature -- posted at: 12:30am MDT

Why are the dead suddenly restless in a quiet graveyard in Brittany? Gertrude Atherton, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.

Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening. 

The Classic Tales Podcast is listener supported. The monthly donation really helps us to create a support flow we can count on. If you can step up with $5/month, that really helps us out. Go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a monthly supporter. You’ll get a monthly ‘thank you’ code for any digital download. It’s a great deal, and a great feeling. Thank you so much.

You can also purchase t-shirts and stuff at our merchandise store, and check out the Hybrid Audiobook - the audiobook that’s embedded in a printed book that I’ve invented and patented. Links can be found in the episode’s details.

And for those of you with the Classic Tales App, check out your special features for more Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - just enough to wet your whistle. In the app, tap on the box with a bow on the left when you play the episode. That’s the special features area.

Today we continue our theme highlighting some of the masters of the ghost story.

Gertrude Atherton was a prolific American author, who lived from 1857 to 1948, and frequently set her novels in her home state of California.

She wrote novels as well as short stories, supernatural horror stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers on such issues as feminism, war, and politics. Today’s story is elegant in so many ways. I hesitate to say more than that. I was thrilled when I discovered Gertrude Atherton. If this is your first introduction into her work, I hope you enjoy it.

And now, The Dead and the Countess, by Gertrude Atherton.

 

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Tap here to purchase Huckleberry Finn – the first Hybrid Audiobook

 

Tap here to go the The Classic Tales Merchandise store! 

 

Hear us on roku:

 

 

Direct download: CT_619_TheDeadandtheCountess.mp3
Category:Literature -- posted at: 12:54am MDT

Who is the mysterious woman who bewitches our hero? Has she enchanted him before? M.P. Shiel, today on The Classic Tales Podcast. 

Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening.

The Classic Tales Podcast is listener supported. The monthly donation really helps us to create a support flow we can count on. If you can step up with $5/month, that really helps us out. Go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a monthly supporter. You’ll get a monthly ‘thank you’ code toward any digital download. It’s a great deal, and a great feeling. Thank you so much.

You can also purchase t-shirts and stuff at our merchandise store, and check out the Hybrid Audiobook - the audiobook that’s embedded in a printed book that I’ve invented and patented. Links can be found in the episode’s details.

And for those of you with the Classic Tales App, check out your special features for more Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - just enough to wet your whistle.

Now, during the month of March, we continue to explore the masters of the ghost story.

Matthew Phipps Shiel , who lived from 1865-1947, was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His work was lauded by both H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft as essential to the development of weird fiction. Shiel’s dark imagination continues to influence writers of supernatural fiction to this day. I hope you enjoy today’s story of a courtesan who returns to torment her tormentor.

And now, Xélucha, by M.P. Shiel

 

Tap here to go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a financial supporter!

 

Tap here to purchase Huckleberry Finn – the first Hybrid Audiobook

 

Tap here to go the The Classic Tales Merchandise store!

 

Hear us on roku:

 

 

Direct download: CT_618_Xelucha.mp3
Category:Literature -- posted at: 12:38am MDT

Duels, death and chicanery all cavort with cynical discipline in two stories by the devil’s lexicographer. Ambrose Bierce, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.

Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening.

The Classic Tales Podcast is listener supported. The monthly donation really helps us to create a support flow we can count on. If you can step up with $5/month, that really helps us out. Go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a monthly supporter. You’ll get a monthly ‘thank you’ code for any digital download. It’s a great deal, and a great feeling. Thank you so much.

You can also purchase t-shirts and stuff at our merchandise store, and check out the Hybrid Audiobook - the audiobook that’s embedded in a printed book that I’ve invented and patented. Links can be found in the episode’s details.

And for those of you with the Classic Tales App, check out your special features for more Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - just enough to wet your whistle. 

And finally, we are now on the Roku network. If you have a Roku, which is kind of like Chromecast, where you plug it into your tv, and can stream media, you can now listen to The Classic Tales through your Roku. We are on the Audiobooks Network Channel. A link is also in the show details. Alice in Wonderland is available to stream for free on The Audiobook Networks.

And now for something completely different. Ambrose Bierce is kind of like Mark Twain without a filter. His gift for writing is undeniable, but his stories always have a biting wit that sometimes can bite pretty deep.

For the month of March, we’ll be having Moonlight March, where we’ll be featuring writers who have a distinct proficiency in the medium of the ghost story. Today we’ll have first a bit of a jocular tale called “The City of the Gone Away”, followed by the chiller, “The Middle Toe of the Right Foot”.

H.P. Lovecraft said of Bierce, “Virtually all of Bierce’s tales are tales of horror; and whilst many of them treat only of the physical and psychological horrors within Nature, a substantial proportion admit the malignly supernatural and form a leading element in America’s fund of weird literature”. 

And now, The City of the Gone Away, and The Middle Toe of the Right Foot, by Ambrose Bierce.

 

Tap here to go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a financial supporter!

 

Tap here to check out The Hybrid Audiobook - Developed and Patented by B.J. Harrison

 

Tap here to go the The Classic Tales Merchandise store!

 

Listen to us on Roku:

 

 

Direct download: CT_617_Middle_Toe_of_the_Right_Foot.mp3
Category:Literature -- posted at: 12:30am MDT

Bertie and Bingo both find themselves knee deep in the proverbial consommé, and Jeeves must rally round before we come to our ripping finish. P.G. Wodehouse, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.

Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening.

The Classic Tales Podcast is listener supported. Thank you so very much to all of you who have gone to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become financial supporters. There are several options to support the podcast, starting at $5 a month. Each of your offers of support comes with a monthly “thank-you” code. Use the codes for any audiobook download, and watch your library of classics bloom and grow. Everybody wins! And we get to keep the podcast going strong. Thanks again for your generous support.

You can also purchase t-shirts, tote bags and other merchandise with your favorite Classic Tales covers on them at our merchandise store.

And finally, we have the hybrid audiobook: a creation of my own invention, where an audiobook is embedded within the pages of a printed book. Links can be found in the description for this episode.

We have had a few developments at The Classic Tales this last week. I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the Roku technology, but I may have some news about this in the up and coming weeks. Should be fun.

Also, I’m going to begin producing regularly special content for those who have the Classic Tales App. In the special features, you’ll find every week, a brief audio segment of a longer poetical or philosophical work.

I’ve noticed that there is something about hearing poetry or listening to the amazing scholars from the past that really hits a special note deep down inside. Now, the problem is, they can wear out their welcome pretty quickly. And so, we’re going to have just a smattering of the good stuff on the reg, as it were. We are going to start with The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius was one of the stoic philosophers, as was Epictetus who penned the most famous Enchiridion. Now, the thing that really struck me about the Meditations is when I discovered that these incredible, uplifting and memorable words were not written for the annals of history. They weren’t written for his contemporaries, or even his family’s perusal. These meditations were written for Aurelius and Aurelius himself. These are the intimate innerworkings of an incredible mind, written as he travelled from battlefield to battlefield. And through his triumphs and his losses, he records his meditations for his own later contemplation.

Enough’s as good as a feast. So if you have the app, check out your special features. I hope you like it.

 

And now, The Inimitable Jeeves, part 9 of 9, by P.G. Wodehouse

 

Tap here to go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a financial supporter!

 

Tap here to purchase Huckleberry Finn – the first Hybrid Audiobook

 

Tap here to go the The Classic Tales Merchandise store!

 

 

Direct download: CT_616_Inimitable_Jeeves_Part9of9.mp3
Category:Literature -- posted at: 12:38am MDT