"...teach vegetarianism to cannibals..". One of the best lines of a story I've heard in a long while. I simply love your splendid reading of these terrific tales.
I really hope people appreciate the time and effort that goes into delivering these stories. We should all try to, at least, 'buy a coffee', or get a membership if it's affordable. Thank you again, Simon, for so very many hours of listening pleasure.
I do. This channel and his narration is vastly superior to a ghost tale I had the misfortune to attempt to listen to recently. This narrator enunciates clearly, while the other channel's narrator had such a thick accent I couldn't distinguish six words out of twenty.
I agree, and I think joining is within most budgets. We should all show Simon just how much we appreciate the time and effort he puts in to deliver these stories to us.
incredible reading. . . i believed each character was a living person as you read. magical. very well written story, also. and i just realized, the whole reading had no music, no noises off, just you reading. thank you, Simon. please keep safe and have a great day. 🌷
Thanks Alexa, you too - and thank you also for the coffee (I'm not sure if you see my replies on that site?), I really appreciate your support. Best wishes
your channel is the absolute best of the best, especially when you have the dreaded lurgy and have been listening to the stories all day, best medicine ever, thanks Simon
This must be the second or third time I hear this story since I first encountered it and it is excellent ! Just excellent ! Just as is your interpretation, as usual .
I thought I'd read most of the horror/ghost fiction from this era, and E. Nesbit is a favorite; how you keep finding these stories I've missed is a mystery to me, but a great enjoyment. Another excellent performance.
Thanks Scout Rifle; yes this story does seem somewhat overlooked compared to Nesbit's better known work, but I think it's one of her best. I do especially enjoy digging up the (unjustly) neglected ones....
@@AJBoneChain of course, In Poland for example almost everything is closed, so you don't have many options to enjoy your free time outside your home;-)
We began one week lockdown at 6pm yesterday Tue 20 July. We are in Adelaide Australia. Hope it is only the week but we have been incredibly lucky so far. I wish everyone well. From down under 👇💜🙃
You do so very much more than read these stories. You bring them to absolute chilling life! I am working my way through them--just enjoying them immensely. I am subscribed and a member. Take care and keep up the marvelous work. Pat in New Jersey
I'd never read this story (and I've read hundreds of Victorian ghost stories) and both it and your narration were superb. Genuinely chilling and quite sad. Poor Haldane!
There is something quite special about this story. Seemed you particularly enjoyed reading it. You invest it with so much enthusiasm. It’s a shame the author could not hear his story presented with such great craft. As others point out, one person alone can create amazing theatre.
This is another story I read decades ago and had forgotten even existed. As always your reading is excellent and spot-on in tone for the content. I've said it before, but your uploads are good listening when I'm writing, and have entertained me over many an hour of lockdown, long drives, insomnia, etc. Thank you!
Thanks Bob. I like "peculiar", a good word for this tale; it's very cleverly structured, I think, with all the clues there... Appreciate your kind comments as always, best wishes to you
I love this channel to start with, but it's always an especially good treat to find a story I've been previously unaware of. Thanks for your efforts, Simon.
Great story! - it reminded me of the ending of a film called The body snatcher (1945) which was also based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson I think.
Great choice of story, I thought at first it was familiar and I did in fact ready it many, many years ago. Your voice is such a pleasure to listen to you. Magnificent performance Simon. Thank you.
You're very kind, thank you! Yes, Nesbit is such a good writer and I think this story is rather unjustly overlooked amidst her output (possibly as it was first published under her married name of E. Bland)
I haven't felt so uncomfortable listening to a story since I was a child when my mum would read me stories from The Pan Book of Horror. You 'act' the tales rather than just read them, making me feel as though I'm there. Thank you for taking the time and putting so much effort into what you do.
Very kind of you to say so, thank you! Actually, I do have a couple of books available on Audible (some of them are re-recordings of my earlier stories from this channel, but some aren't available here), and I hope to add more in the near future. Thanks for listening, and for your kind comments
Ha! If that guy just took the time to look at the faces of all those bodies he’d be a lot happier! Thank you for sharing. This is another one I listened too in the daytime. I really shouldn’t waste these during the day.
Hello, dear Simon and thank you very much! Nice to meet you again. Love this novel "In the dark" by Edith Nesbit. In the nutshell, you've made my Sunday's evening. Hello from Moscow.
Just fantastic! I'm really loving this channel. What a great story. Hope to hear from other great female writers in the future. I really like the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. hint hint😉
Thanks Shannon. Yes, I've recorded several stories so far by some of the great female writers of the Victorian era, and have lots still on my "to-do" list, including more Nesbit, as well as more Amelia Edwards, Charlotte Riddell, L. T. Meade, and several others I've not covered yet, many of them very unjustly neglected. I shall certainly keep Charlotte Perkins Gilman in mind for the future!
What a talented writer she was! I loved Edith Nesbit's books for children, too. I still have copies of 'The Treasure Seekers' and 'The Wouldbegoods', which I was given as a child. I still re-read them from time to time. My favourite character was Alice, the tomboy sister of Oswald, the narrator of the stories. I was a tomboy, too. And don't forget 'The Railway Children', which was beautifully filmed twice. Later as an adult I discovered the 'Five Children And It' stories about the 'Psammead', the Sand Fairy. What a powerful imagination Edith had!
I was listening to this last night and typing you a message at the same time and I kept falling asleep and making mistakes and dropping the phone! I literally got shit sleep last night because, (excuse my French) I was trying to portray my gratitude, and when I woke up I looked at it and I thank my lucky stars that I hadn’t pressed send it was lots of Babbling from my Subconscious mind! My point is I love this author now, is she the same person that wrote the railway children? You don’t have to reply, it’s the same name anyway! Thank you so much I love your channel it’s like definitely one of my top favourite channels on UA-cam and I seriously love UA-cam! More than television, I have given television actually, maybe not forever but definitely until Covid is well gone because that is my vaccination! When we focus on this negative stuff we attract it into our lives, and that’s just my belief I’m not saying it’s true! Thank you so much for what you do and for your beautiful voice and sharing it with us! You should be so proud of yourself! 💜☯️☮️💜 This bit is edited, forgive my grammatical and other mistakes!
Hello Maria, thank you for your kind words. I see you did post a comment on this story last night, but it was by no means babbling, only a very interesting observation. Yes, you're right, this is the same author who wrote The Railway Children, Five Children and It and so on - she's best remembered today as a children's author really, but I do consider her one of the very best of the Victorian and Edwardian ghost story authors (John Charrington's Wedding is one of my personal favourites). Glad to know you enjoyed this one. Best wishes
@@BitesizedAudio sorry I must’ve pressed send, thank God I didn’t send you the whole thing but it was her intuition about suffering awakening a sixth sense, Which is amazing because it has been proven now that suffering does get you to the point where you can’t live with yourself anymore and if you don’t commit suicide, like they say it’s always darkest before the Dawn! So that’s when in this unlimited universe, the only limit is activated and that is a pain! Einstein posed the question; Is this a friendly universe and he knew what he was doing because if you think about it in a universe that is entirely limitless in every way the only thing that is limited is pain because when you take so much of it the ego cracks open and that’s when people start to experience what they called the peace that passes all understanding and this happens to people in the most unusual conditions for example there’s been an earthquake and a man we talk about this feeling of peace, when in actual fact, he has lost his house, all his possessions and world leaders as well as his family in a lot of cases! And it’s too much for someone to bear, And it can overwhelm them so much, That they cannot stand it so this is what causes the ego to fall away! And they talked about this a lot in Zen Buddhism and other eastern religions, I would never stick to a Dogmatic religion however I do you believe in spirituality after my near death experience after which I have experienced life very differently and I notice things, with a completely different perspective and colours stand out more, music sounds amazing, even something simple like the sound of leaves with the wind blowing through them in the trees, the biggest difference is that I think a lot less, and when I do you think there is a lot more Control over whether I speak negatively or positively and I have overcome anger, very quickly I realised it wasn’t a pleasant emotion and that our feelings are dramatically affected by our thoughts! Yes I know this is what a lot of spiritual books say, and I Now realise that people who write these books have had similar experiences, either through meditation or from some kind of spiritual experience and mine was amazing and I checked with the hospital and for the 4 minutes that I was dead, There was no brain activity, and I checked that for a reason because as well as their not being a heartbeat it proved that it couldn’t have been any kind of hallucination! Yes I was in life-support for three days and yes they were the best three days ever experienced by me or anybody else I feel! Although I have no way of knowing that, it was a miracle and before that I was going through a phase in my life where I would have needed to see smell taste and touch something to believe it! The thing is that people need to believe it before they Ever can see it! And that is what is called faith, not needing proof but what I experience is very different to what religion describes, there is absolutely no judgement, we learn from our mistakes so there is no such thing as hell! Just the most powerful force of love that you can even begin to imagine! There is no such thing as death! The spirit world is our home and it’s also a state of mind that we can all experience if we choose to! Lots of people have out of body experiences! It’s not quite the same as going home but it gives you a sense of “you are not your body” And suffering isn’t the only way to spiritually awaken, you can read the book or listen to it on UA-cam it’s called the power of NOW by Eckhart Tolley and if you read the first chapter, after that you will know if it is for you! But you have to ask yourself what are we doing here on this rock that is spinning at 64,000 in perfect proximity To the Sun so that we’re not burned At all and it’s the perfect temperature to ripen our tomatoes! Everything has a designer, even a book has an intelligent designer, what about the book of life - DNA, it has to have a designer because how can something so intelligent that we haven’t even discovered all the life forms Here on Earth yet! How can something come from nothing?? 15 billion years ago the big bang happened, and now here we are! Can you honestly tell yourself that we are just lumps of meat walking around and that it’s an accident that were on this rock called planet Earth?!? We are all energy, I believe you’re physically extensions of source energy and that energy is the energy creates wealth and when we tap into it that’s when we write artists paint it’s a creative part of us that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent which without the human brain I experienced everybody’s thoughts in the hospital all at once including all of the doctors trying to bring me back and my mother getting on a plane to come to London to say goodbye I was aware of everything all at once! I wasn’t allowed to remember everything when I came back but I did come back with the increased intuition and the ability to see images including the human aura! And at the time my intuition was screaming at me not to tell the nurses what I was seeing, And I found out years later that I would have been locked up in the psych ward! All that is needed is a bit more presence rather than thinking thinking thinking all the time so that your thoughts start thinking you and you have no control anymore! That is what we are addicted to! Starting with listening to that book I released the first chapter, I would love to know even though I will never approach this subject again with you! And that’s a promise and I’m sorry this message is too long! I would be very surprised if you had read this far! I am risking coming across as a nutter because I know did you joy that people experience once they get to know their higher selves and to realise that there is no such thing as judgement from the non-physical vantage point which is that which man calls God!🙏
@@BitesizedAudio thank you for that recommendation! I risked coming across as a nut because I wanted you to know of something that might possibly bring you great joy, so I wrote you a very long message and part of me wishes I didn’t but that part of me is my ego, the part of us that is concerned about coming across a certain way! Maybe someday you will have time to make a cup of tea and read it because maybe if you listen to the chapter of the book I recommended, it might bring you great joy! Maybe not but I thought you were worth taking the risk for because you have brought me so much Pleasure and escapism during a very uncertain time! Thank you for all the all that you do and for doing it so well!🕊💛🕊
I don’t know if I was supposed to laugh but I did , like a drain 😂 you are superb at story telling . It was one of the best I’ve listened to and you do the characters perfectly. Without spoiling it , the candle and matches and the whole conversation really ticked me 😊Thank you so much , keep them coming please 😊
Splendidly spooky! I was able to picture both characters distinctly-your narration is so wonderful that it could very well have been 2 readers! Marvellous!
I love these presentations. The cadence and tone suit the subject matter PERFECTLY. This one amused me, though, because of the differences in culture and legal matters. I won't go further because of spoilers other than to say that I don't think Winston's well-meaning "jolly holiday" would satisfy our modern legal system.
Really an impeccable work of short fiction and THEN beautifully read. Simon, your rendering of Haldane 's nervous state through inflection sets it so distinctly apart from the narrator, you sound like two men!
Oooohhh! I liked this one! I know I read some of E N in my younger years but not sure what at the moment. Excellent job Simon! If it isn’t a trade secret, do you find these stories in books, or do you have to dig up old copies of magazines in which they were originally printed? It’s sad to think of stories lost to us due to magazines turning to dust in an age prior to the digital one...
Thanks @grimtt No, not a trade secret... I've long loved trawling through second hand/antiquarian bookshops (back in the days when they were open! ... hopefully they will be again soon) and have picked up various old volumes over the years. A few years ago I picked up an old bound copy of collected editions of The Strand Magazine from 1895-99. Browsing through it I was delighted to discover so many stories I'd never heard of, despite being by favourite authors such as Conan Doyle, plus great tales by writers I'd never heard of. Then I realised that there were so many periodicals at the time, equal or greater in popularity to The Strand, and that there would doubtless be many lost treasures there too. That's what really started me off. The best known stories tend to be in some anthology or other, and those were my starting point, but on researching more into the authors I came across references to their other stories with intriguing titles, and was prompted to look them up... and one thing often leads to another. You're right it's a shame to think of all the lost stories which may have been lost, though a surprising number of periodicals have been scanned and digitized, although it's very patchy. For the purposes of reading for this channel I usually work from an online script, e.g. from Project Gutenberg, for convenience (no awkward and noisy page turning, for example!), but I always check against the printed text where possible as some of the online texts can be very inaccurate. Gutenberg as a source is excellent, highly recommended, although I must say I do prefer reading (for pleasure, as opposed to into a mic) a physical printed book rather than on screen. Thanks for asking! Best wishes
@@BitesizedAudio I envy you having used and antiquarian bookshops to peruse! Time stops in such places... I used to have to go to Boston, Mass. sometimes and that city had wonderful cellars of bookstalls to go through. Used bookstores have so much personality.... Where I live there are no antiquarian ones but in listening to your narrations I feel as though I visit them secondhand, if that makes sense! Thank you for sharing how your story began. I hope you are able to continue your researches in the not too distant future!
Edith Nesbitt, Was so tuned in, this was obviously what she was born to do because when somebody is they don’t write the story, the channel it if you like, they are the vessel and the story just comes through them.... what she said in the open statement in this short story is only now been fully appreciated by psychotherapists and everyone from people who research mindfulness which increases serotonin, oxytocin, brain opiates, dopamine and reduces the Stress hormone called cortisol
@@jacqui7672 No it does not! The word "Gay" has always referred to someone who is cheerful, happy and elated. The opposite to "Gay" is "Morose", meaning miserable, sad, dejected. The word "Straight" has two definitions, 1)Geometric: without curves, bends or angles. 2)Ethical: honest, sincere, genuine, trustworthy. The opposites of these definitions are obvious enough as to not need explanation. The word "Lesbian" applies *ONLY* to a person's origin as being born on the Greek island os Lesbos, whether male or female. Being Lesbian(no "ism" attached) is the same as being Liverpudlian, Californian, Tasmanian, Jamaican, etc. It is a *Regional Identity* and nothing more! But the homosexual/bisexual/transexual community have *hijacked* the words, Gay, Straight and Lesbian and thoroughly *corrupted* their meanings and intents as to make these words virtually "off limits" to heterosexual people so that we can no longer use these words in normal conversation to describe ourselves lest people look sideways at us and think we're strange. The homosexual/bisexual/ transexual community had also commandeered the rainbow colour scheme so we can't even use it anymore in graphic design lest we be labeled as homosexual, bisexual or transexual. Why can't these people be honest and just call themselves homosexuals, bisexuals or transexuals? There is *NOTHING* derisive, abusive or derogatory in these terms. All I'm trying to do is *reclaim* the words, Gay, Straight and Lesbian and give them back their *rightful* meanings and intents. Times may have moved on but words should never lose meanings to be corrupted by communities who are "outside the norm".
This is so uncanny it's scary. I just listened to a video from CreepMcPasta that has almost this same story timeline set in modern day times. This is weird.
Enjoyable, though it reminds me, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".....and seems to be one of the many characteristic representations of 'Flighty' ,men, who seem to be so unable to deal with 'Cosmic reality' of things that go Bump-in-the-Night. But an enjoyable read.
Thanks Alexa. I'm not completely certain what you're referring to by "whatchamacallits"! I'm guessing you mean the (*SPOILER ALERT* for those who haven't listened) salesman prone to fits, and the suicide found by the railway? They refer back to two of the experiences Haldane relates to Winston earlier in the story, on the hearth-rug in his apartment, and in the train... (18:57 onwards) I hope that helps?
Simon is usually restrained in his narrations, but in this one, the end scene was brilliant and nerve-wracking acting, enough the make one's blood run cold. 😬
What was the relevance of the haberdasher that committed suicide? Advice, pls 🤷🏼♀️. That was enthralling, E Nesbitt underrated, as are You. Exceptional narration, thanks so much. Good wishes to you, all you love and followers Worldwide Xxx 🙏🏼 ❤️ 🗺️ 🍀 🏴
Thanks for your kind words Janet! Re your question, that's a reference back to this point earlier in the story: 21:25 (I'm trying to avoid giving spoilers for those who haven't listened yet...) I hope that helps!
".....we grew up to be men, Visgard grew up to be a prig, a vegetarian, a teetotaller, an allwooler and Christian Scientist and all things that prigs are….." 😂😂. The more things change, the more they stay the same
I have listened to the story three times and found it online and read it. Try as I might.. I do not understand the ending. I'm generally not this dense, but it has me stumped. Anyone care to help me out, please?
Hello Debra, I'll have a go ... (*Warning of spoilers ahead* for anyone who hasn't listened yet) After he kills Visger, Haldane keeps "seeing" the body, so we assume he is haunted (by Visger, or the guilt of killing him). Haldane relates two incidents to the narrator to illustrate this (from 18:57 onwards), firstly finding the body again on the hearth rug, a year after the event, and then on a later occasion waking up on a train to find the body in his carriage. In the first case, he moves the body to the same place he hid Visger's body (hence he tells the narrator "there are two of him now", which seems to make no sense); in the second, he pushes the body out of the carriage onto the track in Redhill tunnel. The narrator doesn't believe any of this, and thinks Haldane is deluded. However, at the end of the story, he discovers that a body was in fact discovered in Redhill tunnel, a haberdasher who had committed suicide by drinking poison. Then, when Haldane's big metal box is opened, after his death, two bodies are discovered inside - one is Visger, and the other a pen salesman who was prone to fits, and who had presumably died of one on the hearth rug in Haldane's room. But the story is cleverly written, so there is room for doubt as to whether or not Haldane is really haunted, or whether he is projecting his guilt onto these co-incidences... I hope this makes sense, and is useful!
@@BitesizedAudio this makes absolute sense and I appreciate you going to the trouble to explain it to me. I love your channel and fall asleep each night listening to your narration. Thanks for doing uou so well. ❤
"...teach vegetarianism to cannibals..". One of the best lines of a story I've heard in a long while.
I simply love your splendid reading of these terrific tales.
Yes, that line made me smile too. Thanks Jacee K
I really hope people appreciate the time and effort that goes into delivering these stories. We should all try to, at least, 'buy a coffee', or get a membership if it's affordable. Thank you again, Simon, for so very many hours of listening pleasure.
Appreciated Michael, thank you!
I do. This channel and his narration is vastly superior to a ghost tale I had the misfortune to attempt to listen to recently. This narrator enunciates clearly, while the other channel's narrator had such a thick accent I couldn't distinguish six words out of twenty.
I do so much :)
I agree, and I think joining is within most budgets. We should all show Simon just how much we appreciate the time and effort he puts in to deliver these stories to us.
"Walk into your grandmother" 😂 Oh Edith, what a character.
Some people seem crafted to torment you, yet none are so proficient as oneself. That was enjoyable, thanks very much.
Very true! Glad you enjoyed it, thanks William
Will I am...so very true, and very well put.
I am a living example to be sure.
incredible reading. . . i believed each character was a living person as you read. magical.
very well written story, also. and i just realized, the whole reading had no music, no noises off, just you reading.
thank you, Simon. please keep safe and have a great day. 🌷
Thanks Alexa, you too - and thank you also for the coffee (I'm not sure if you see my replies on that site?), I really appreciate your support. Best wishes
Doggie and I were quite spooked by this reading. So well done; and your vocal expression of fear is chilling.
I agree
So glad you enjoyed it, thank you!
I enjoy your reading of these little audio books. It makes my days go a lot easier. Thank you for sharing....
your channel is the absolute best of the best, especially when you have the dreaded lurgy and have been listening to the stories all day, best medicine ever, thanks Simon
Wonderful story....very spooky!! I loved it!! Your channel has become one of my favorite "happy places" to visit. Thank you!!
Wonderful, thank you Lisa
Tuned in to be 'taken away ' for a story or two. Thanks much for bringing me to the past. Good show. Good job.
This must be the second or third time I hear this story since I first encountered it and it is excellent ! Just excellent !
Just as is your interpretation, as usual .
Thank you, Simon, for a absolutely brilliant reading of a subtly terrifying story.
I always like the way you act the voices in these readings, but here you did an especially excellent job of conveying the character's fear, I think.
I thought I'd read most of the horror/ghost fiction from this era, and E. Nesbit is a favorite; how you keep finding these stories I've missed is a mystery to me, but a great enjoyment. Another excellent performance.
Thanks Scout Rifle; yes this story does seem somewhat overlooked compared to Nesbit's better known work, but I think it's one of her best. I do especially enjoy digging up the (unjustly) neglected ones....
This channel and stories have kept me going through lockdown, thank you so much
Glad to help! Thanks for listening Ian
Lockdown? Are people still locked down
@@AJBoneChain of course, In Poland for example almost everything is closed, so you don't have many options to enjoy your free time outside your home;-)
Amen !
We began one week lockdown at 6pm yesterday Tue 20 July. We are in Adelaide Australia. Hope it is only the week but we have been incredibly lucky so far. I wish everyone well. From down under 👇💜🙃
Your voice is SO perfect for these. Reminds me so much of the Michael Horden readings of MR James.
Thank you Alison, I'm greatly flattered by the comparison! Best wishes and thanks for your kind support
Just gave me the shivers raining in sheets wind howling good show!
Thank goodness we have light switches now!! Thanks Simon. Enjoyed this.
Yes indeed. Electric light may have spoiled this story somewhat.... Thanks Barbara
@@BitesizedAudioI often have thought of that, how much magic was lost when electricity abolished the dark.
Oh, boy… This looks like a good one!
Intriguing and engrossing story. Excellent as always Simon. Thanks for your wonderful stories.
Much appreciated, thanks Victoria
You do so very much more than read these stories. You bring them to absolute chilling life! I am working my way through them--just enjoying them immensely. I am subscribed and a member. Take care and keep up the marvelous work. Pat in New Jersey
Thanks Pat, much appreciated!
Wonderfully read as usual Simon and an excellent story indeed!
So glad you enjoyed it, thanks Catharine
Nice! Perfect cold, dim morning for such a tale. Thank you.
That was quite a story. Well written and very enjoyable.
I'd never read this story (and I've read hundreds of Victorian ghost stories) and both it and your narration were superb. Genuinely chilling and quite sad. Poor Haldane!
Yes indeed. I do like this story, very cleverly structured and keeps you guessing. Thanks for listening and taking the time to comment
There is something quite special about this story. Seemed you particularly enjoyed reading it. You invest it with so much enthusiasm. It’s a shame the author could not hear his story presented with such great craft. As others point out, one person alone can create amazing theatre.
*her story
As always a superb performance , Thanks for my Sunday treat . RNK
Happy Sunday evening Bob, glad you enjoyed it
The image of that 'beastly' chap preaching vegetarianism to cannibals cracks me up!
Another Gem Simon, Thank you
This is another story I read decades ago and had forgotten even existed. As always your reading is excellent and spot-on in tone for the content. I've said it before, but your uploads are good listening when I'm writing, and have entertained me over many an hour of lockdown, long drives, insomnia, etc. Thank you!
Wonderful! Thanks for your support
This story just broke my heart.
Chilling. What a terribly bleak story, beautifully acted.
Thank you
That was delicious. Your voice and this peculiar tale combined to create an utter treat. You never fail to delight. ❤
Thanks Bob. I like "peculiar", a good word for this tale; it's very cleverly structured, I think, with all the clues there... Appreciate your kind comments as always, best wishes to you
I love this channel to start with, but it's always an especially good treat to find a story I've been previously unaware of. Thanks for your efforts, Simon.
Thanks Chris! Yes, I do particularly enjoy rediscovering the more obscure / forgotten pieces...
Your spontaneous yelp made me spill my tea...!!!!!!! A wonderful treat of a story..........,Thank You .......!!!!!
I give you my word; it’s always fascinating to hear the stories you upload. Grateful ✨✨✨
Glad to know you enjoy them, thank you Giliola!
Great story! - it reminded me of the ending of a film called The body snatcher (1945) which was also based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson I think.
Love these stories. Revisited after so many years
Thanks for listening, and taking the time to comment, glad to know you enjoy them
Great choice of story, I thought at first it was familiar and I did in fact ready it many, many years ago. Your voice is such a pleasure to listen to you. Magnificent performance Simon. Thank you.
You're very kind, thank you! Yes, Nesbit is such a good writer and I think this story is rather unjustly overlooked amidst her output (possibly as it was first published under her married name of E. Bland)
Thank you so much. I love this story.💝
So in bed early and listening....Thank you always❤
I haven't felt so uncomfortable listening to a story since I was a child when my mum would read me stories from The Pan Book of Horror. You 'act' the tales rather than just read them, making me feel as though I'm there. Thank you for taking the time and putting so much effort into what you do.
You're most welcome, Hannah - thank you for your kind comments. Your mum sounds fun!
Absolutely fantastic narrator. Better even than most on Audible. Love the stories, too!! Thank you so much.
Very kind of you to say so, thank you! Actually, I do have a couple of books available on Audible (some of them are re-recordings of my earlier stories from this channel, but some aren't available here), and I hope to add more in the near future. Thanks for listening, and for your kind comments
Excellent unnerving short story done full justice by the quality of your narration, sir!
Thank you Graham!
Ha! If that guy just took the time to look at the faces of all those bodies he’d be a lot happier!
Thank you for sharing. This is another one I listened too in the daytime. I really shouldn’t waste these during the day.
My favorite story now, It was unsettling... In a good way ☺️
Wonderful! Thanks Carolyn
I love listening to this while cooking dinner. Thank you!
Glad to know that, thanks Marin!
Whatever you re cooking smells Gooooddddd…
" my man.... he wore a smooth face over his wriggling curiosity". That's terrific.
This was great. It’s a very spooky story and you read it perfectly! Now I’m scared to turn the light out 😱
So glad to know you enjoyed it, thanks GradKat!
Hello, dear Simon and thank you very much!
Nice to meet you again.
Love this novel
"In the dark" by Edith Nesbit.
In the nutshell, you've made my Sunday's evening.
Hello from Moscow.
Hello from England Natalya!🇬🇧x
Thouraghly enjoyed this one. Thankyou.
Just fantastic! I'm really loving this channel. What a great story. Hope to hear from other great female writers in the future. I really like the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. hint hint😉
Thanks Shannon. Yes, I've recorded several stories so far by some of the great female writers of the Victorian era, and have lots still on my "to-do" list, including more Nesbit, as well as more Amelia Edwards, Charlotte Riddell, L. T. Meade, and several others I've not covered yet, many of them very unjustly neglected. I shall certainly keep Charlotte Perkins Gilman in mind for the future!
Love... Thank you!
You are most welcome! Thanks KiKi
Smashing! Many thanks.
You're most welcome! Thanks so much for your support
Beautifully read as always. Thank you Simon. 🙏🏻
Thanks Karen, appreciated
excellent narration, great job, full of suspense
I always want to say, if someone says to you “ You are crazy” and you show him what craziness is, then you just prove him right.
Absolutely brilliant! Thank you🤗
Thanks Rheinhart, appreciated!
That is absolutely the best tale and performed beyond my highest expectations! And when it's Simon reading they are high.
Thank you Jen, very kind of you to say so, glad to know you enjoyed it!
Another great old tale - thank you.
You're welcome, thanks for listening!
Great story and reading!
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for listening
Very humorous. Live it. Love the one telling this tale. This character is after my
own heart! After all, a prig is a Prig. Lol
"Rot. Walk into your grandmother" is a sentence I want to have used by the end of this year!
Great story! Great reading!
Thanks!
You're welcome, thanks for listening!
there is a lot of humour in this story.....
What a talented writer she was! I loved Edith Nesbit's books for children, too. I still have copies of 'The Treasure Seekers' and 'The Wouldbegoods', which I was given as a child. I still re-read them from time to time. My favourite character was Alice, the tomboy sister of Oswald, the narrator of the stories. I was a tomboy, too. And don't forget 'The Railway Children', which was beautifully filmed twice. Later as an adult I discovered the 'Five Children And It' stories about the 'Psammead', the Sand Fairy. What a powerful imagination Edith had!
I get so excited when other people remember her - she had the most amazing imagination and I think she was a genius.
Absolutely chilling amazing story she was a genius and your rendering gave me chills
Thanks Denis, appreciated
@@BitesizedAudio always looking for something else from you
Learning never exhausts the mind
Leonardo da Vinci.
Wise words. Thank you Natalya
Bitesized Audio Classics (Natalya) I like that quote - it’s so true.
Wonderful stories x
Holy shit! This legit had me clutching my pillow closer, goosebumps on my skin. Damn.
Also, an absolutely stunning performance! Thank you ^^
I was listening to this last night and typing you a message at the same time and I kept falling asleep and making mistakes and dropping the phone! I literally got shit sleep last night because, (excuse my French) I was trying to portray my gratitude, and when I woke up I looked at it and I thank my lucky stars that I hadn’t pressed send it was lots of Babbling from my Subconscious mind! My point is I love this author now, is she the same person that wrote the railway children? You don’t have to reply, it’s the same name anyway! Thank you so much I love your channel it’s like definitely one of my top favourite channels on UA-cam and I seriously love UA-cam! More than television, I have given television actually, maybe not forever but definitely until Covid is well gone because that is my vaccination! When we focus on this negative stuff we attract it into our lives, and that’s just my belief I’m not saying it’s true! Thank you so much for what you do and for your beautiful voice and sharing it with us! You should be so proud of yourself!
💜☯️☮️💜
This bit is edited, forgive my grammatical and other mistakes!
Hello Maria, thank you for your kind words. I see you did post a comment on this story last night, but it was by no means babbling, only a very interesting observation. Yes, you're right, this is the same author who wrote The Railway Children, Five Children and It and so on - she's best remembered today as a children's author really, but I do consider her one of the very best of the Victorian and Edwardian ghost story authors (John Charrington's Wedding is one of my personal favourites). Glad to know you enjoyed this one. Best wishes
@@BitesizedAudio sorry I must’ve pressed send, thank God I didn’t send you the whole thing but it was her intuition about suffering awakening a sixth sense, Which is amazing because it has been proven now that suffering does get you to the point where you can’t live with yourself anymore and if you don’t commit suicide, like they say it’s always darkest before the Dawn! So that’s when in this unlimited universe, the only limit is activated and that is a pain! Einstein posed the question; Is this a friendly universe and he knew what he was doing because if you think about it in a universe that is entirely limitless in every way the only thing that is limited is pain because when you take so much of it the ego cracks open and that’s when people start to experience what they called the peace that passes all understanding and this happens to people in the most unusual conditions for example there’s been an earthquake and a man we talk about this feeling of peace, when in actual fact, he has lost his house, all his possessions and world leaders as well as his family in a lot of cases! And it’s too much for someone to bear, And it can overwhelm them so much, That they cannot stand it so this is what causes the ego to fall away! And they talked about this a lot in Zen Buddhism and other eastern religions, I would never stick to a Dogmatic religion however I do you believe in spirituality after my near death experience after which I have experienced life very differently and I notice things, with a completely different perspective and colours stand out more, music sounds amazing, even something simple like the sound of leaves with the wind blowing through them in the trees, the biggest difference is that I think a lot less, and when I do you think there is a lot more Control over whether I speak negatively or positively and I have overcome anger, very quickly I realised it wasn’t a pleasant emotion and that our feelings are dramatically affected by our thoughts! Yes I know this is what a lot of spiritual books say, and I Now realise that people who write these books have had similar experiences, either through meditation or from some kind of spiritual experience and mine was amazing and I checked with the hospital and for the 4 minutes that I was dead, There was no brain activity, and I checked that for a reason because as well as their not being a heartbeat it proved that it couldn’t have been any kind of hallucination! Yes I was in life-support for three days and yes they were the best three days ever experienced by me or anybody else I feel! Although I have no way of knowing that, it was a miracle and before that I was going through a phase in my life where I would have needed to see smell taste and touch something to believe it! The thing is that people need to believe it before they Ever can see it! And that is what is called faith, not needing proof but what I experience is very different to what religion describes, there is absolutely no judgement, we learn from our mistakes so there is no such thing as hell! Just the most powerful force of love that you can even begin to imagine! There is no such thing as death! The spirit world is our home and it’s also a state of mind that we can all experience if we choose to! Lots of people have out of body experiences! It’s not quite the same as going home but it gives you a sense of “you are not your body” And suffering isn’t the only way to spiritually awaken, you can read the book or listen to it on UA-cam it’s called the power of NOW by Eckhart Tolley and if you read the first chapter, after that you will know if it is for you! But you have to ask yourself what are we doing here on this rock that is spinning at 64,000 in perfect proximity To the Sun so that we’re not burned At all and it’s the perfect temperature to ripen our tomatoes! Everything has a designer, even a book has an intelligent designer, what about the book of life - DNA, it has to have a designer because how can something so intelligent that we haven’t even discovered all the life forms Here on Earth yet! How can something come from nothing?? 15 billion years ago the big bang happened, and now here we are! Can you honestly tell yourself that we are just lumps of meat walking around and that it’s an accident that were on this rock called planet Earth?!? We are all energy, I believe you’re physically extensions of source energy and that energy is the energy creates wealth and when we tap into it that’s when we write artists paint it’s a creative part of us that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent which without the human brain I experienced everybody’s thoughts in the hospital all at once including all of the doctors trying to bring me back and my mother getting on a plane to come to London to say goodbye I was aware of everything all at once! I wasn’t allowed to remember everything when I came back but I did come back with the increased intuition and the ability to see images including the human aura! And at the time my intuition was screaming at me not to tell the nurses what I was seeing, And I found out years later that I would have been locked up in the psych ward! All that is needed is a bit more presence rather than thinking thinking thinking all the time so that your thoughts start thinking you and you have no control anymore! That is what we are addicted to! Starting with listening to that book I released the first chapter, I would love to know even though I will never approach this subject again with you! And that’s a promise and I’m sorry this message is too long! I would be very surprised if you had read this far! I am risking coming across as a nutter because I know did you joy that people experience once they get to know their higher selves and to realise that there is no such thing as judgement from the non-physical vantage point which is that which man calls God!🙏
@@BitesizedAudio thank you for that recommendation! I risked coming across as a nut because I wanted you to know of something that might possibly bring you great joy, so I wrote you a very long message and part of me wishes I didn’t but that part of me is my ego, the part of us that is concerned about coming across a certain way! Maybe someday you will have time to make a cup of tea and read it because maybe if you listen to the chapter of the book I recommended, it might bring you great joy! Maybe not but I thought you were worth taking the risk for because you have brought me so much Pleasure and escapism during a very uncertain time! Thank you for all the all that you do and for doing it so well!🕊💛🕊
I don’t know if I was supposed to laugh but I did , like a drain 😂 you are superb at story telling . It was one of the best I’ve listened to and you do the characters perfectly. Without spoiling it , the candle and matches and the whole conversation really ticked me 😊Thank you so much , keep them coming please 😊
Splendidly spooky!
I was able to picture both characters distinctly-your narration is so wonderful that it could very well have been 2 readers!
Marvellous!
Very kind of you to say, thank you Nicky!
O I enjoyed this one, didn't see that ending coming
Brilliant narration ! As always the story comes alive.
I love these presentations. The cadence and tone suit the subject matter PERFECTLY. This one amused me, though, because of the differences in culture and legal matters. I won't go further because of spoilers other than to say that I don't think Winston's well-meaning "jolly holiday" would satisfy our modern legal system.
Glad you like them! Thank you for your kind comments
Listen to this before bed later. Thanks.
I hope it doesn't keep you up! Thanks Neil
Bitesized Audio Classics 😂
Really an impeccable work of short fiction and THEN beautifully read. Simon, your rendering of Haldane 's nervous state through inflection sets it so distinctly apart from the narrator, you sound like two men!
Oooohhh! I liked this one! I know I read some of E N in my younger years but not sure what at the moment. Excellent job Simon! If it isn’t a trade secret, do you find these stories in books, or do you have to dig up old copies of magazines in which they were originally printed? It’s sad to think of stories lost to us due to magazines turning to dust in an age prior to the digital one...
Thanks @grimtt No, not a trade secret... I've long loved trawling through second hand/antiquarian bookshops (back in the days when they were open! ... hopefully they will be again soon) and have picked up various old volumes over the years. A few years ago I picked up an old bound copy of collected editions of The Strand Magazine from 1895-99. Browsing through it I was delighted to discover so many stories I'd never heard of, despite being by favourite authors such as Conan Doyle, plus great tales by writers I'd never heard of. Then I realised that there were so many periodicals at the time, equal or greater in popularity to The Strand, and that there would doubtless be many lost treasures there too. That's what really started me off. The best known stories tend to be in some anthology or other, and those were my starting point, but on researching more into the authors I came across references to their other stories with intriguing titles, and was prompted to look them up... and one thing often leads to another. You're right it's a shame to think of all the lost stories which may have been lost, though a surprising number of periodicals have been scanned and digitized, although it's very patchy. For the purposes of reading for this channel I usually work from an online script, e.g. from Project Gutenberg, for convenience (no awkward and noisy page turning, for example!), but I always check against the printed text where possible as some of the online texts can be very inaccurate. Gutenberg as a source is excellent, highly recommended, although I must say I do prefer reading (for pleasure, as opposed to into a mic) a physical printed book rather than on screen. Thanks for asking! Best wishes
@@BitesizedAudio I envy you having used and antiquarian bookshops to peruse! Time stops in such places... I used to have to go to Boston, Mass. sometimes and that city had wonderful cellars of bookstalls to go through. Used bookstores have so much personality.... Where I live there are no antiquarian ones but in listening to your narrations I feel as though I visit them secondhand, if that makes sense! Thank you for sharing how your story began. I hope you are able to continue your researches in the not too distant future!
Amazing reading with a great accent.
Edith Nesbitt, Was so tuned in, this was obviously what she was born to do because when somebody is they don’t write the story, the channel it if you like, they are the vessel and the story just comes through them.... what she said in the open statement in this short story is only now been fully appreciated by psychotherapists and everyone from people who research mindfulness which increases serotonin, oxytocin, brain opiates, dopamine and reduces the Stress hormone called cortisol
Oh Simon! You are just so fabulous!
Thank you Barbara!
Fantastic! Love this creepy strange story. Happy Halloween 🎃💀🎃💀👹
Thank you Shari, same to you
What a good story!! Thank you!
Chilling.
Chilling!!
Yes!
Glad you enjoyed it Frank!
The character, Haldane being described as "gay", where the word is used in its *CORRECT* sense, of being happy and cheerful.
Times have changed and the word gay now also, correctly, refers to the homosexual community.
@@jacqui7672 No it does not! The word "Gay" has always referred to someone who is cheerful, happy and elated. The opposite to "Gay" is "Morose", meaning miserable, sad, dejected. The word "Straight" has two definitions, 1)Geometric: without curves, bends or angles. 2)Ethical: honest, sincere, genuine, trustworthy. The opposites of these definitions are obvious enough as to not need explanation. The word "Lesbian" applies *ONLY* to a person's origin as being born on the Greek island os Lesbos, whether male or female. Being Lesbian(no "ism" attached) is the same as being Liverpudlian, Californian, Tasmanian, Jamaican, etc. It is a *Regional Identity* and nothing more! But the homosexual/bisexual/transexual community have *hijacked* the words, Gay, Straight and Lesbian and thoroughly *corrupted* their meanings and intents as to make these words virtually "off limits" to heterosexual people so that we can no longer use these words in normal conversation to describe ourselves lest people look sideways at us and think we're strange. The homosexual/bisexual/ transexual community had also commandeered the rainbow colour scheme so we can't even use it anymore in graphic design lest we be labeled as homosexual, bisexual or transexual. Why can't these people be honest and just call themselves homosexuals, bisexuals or transexuals? There is *NOTHING* derisive, abusive or derogatory in these terms. All I'm trying to do is *reclaim* the words, Gay, Straight and Lesbian and give them back their *rightful* meanings and intents. Times may have moved on but words should never lose meanings to be corrupted by communities who are "outside the norm".
@@neilforbes416 On the spectrum?
@@cathrynward4617 I consider that question to be insulting in the extreme!
This is so uncanny it's scary. I just listened to a video from CreepMcPasta that has almost this same story timeline set in modern day times. This is weird.
Brilliant performance 👏
Thank you, and thanks for listening
Enjoyable, though it reminds me, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".....and seems to be one of the many characteristic representations of 'Flighty' ,men, who seem to be so unable to deal with 'Cosmic reality' of things that go Bump-in-the-Night. But an enjoyable read.
a good one! again :) thanks much. . .
but - i don't get the two whatchamacallit's at the end ? i must've missed something. . .
Thanks Alexa. I'm not completely certain what you're referring to by "whatchamacallits"!
I'm guessing you mean the
(*SPOILER ALERT* for those who haven't listened)
salesman prone to fits, and the suicide found by the railway? They refer back to two of the experiences Haldane relates to Winston earlier in the story, on the hearth-rug in his apartment, and in the train... (18:57 onwards) I hope that helps?
This one is creepy; TY
Simon is usually restrained in his narrations, but in this one, the end scene was brilliant and nerve-wracking acting, enough the make one's blood run cold. 😬
I thought it was an AI voice for awhile.
Thanks
Thanks so much for your support Maree
What was the relevance of the haberdasher that committed suicide?
Advice, pls 🤷🏼♀️.
That was enthralling, E Nesbitt underrated, as are You.
Exceptional narration, thanks so much.
Good wishes to you, all you love and followers Worldwide Xxx 🙏🏼 ❤️ 🗺️ 🍀 🏴
Thanks for your kind words Janet!
Re your question, that's a reference back to this point earlier in the story: 21:25 (I'm trying to avoid giving spoilers for those who haven't listened yet...) I hope that helps!
".....we grew up to be men, Visgard grew up to be a prig, a vegetarian, a teetotaller, an allwooler and Christian Scientist and all things that prigs are….." 😂😂. The more things change, the more they stay the same
I have listened to the story three times and found it online and read it. Try as I might.. I do not understand the ending. I'm generally not this dense, but it has me stumped. Anyone care to help me out, please?
Hello Debra, I'll have a go ...
(*Warning of spoilers ahead* for anyone who hasn't listened yet)
After he kills Visger, Haldane keeps "seeing" the body, so we assume he is haunted (by Visger, or the guilt of killing him). Haldane relates two incidents to the narrator to illustrate this (from 18:57 onwards), firstly finding the body again on the hearth rug, a year after the event, and then on a later occasion waking up on a train to find the body in his carriage. In the first case, he moves the body to the same place he hid Visger's body (hence he tells the narrator "there are two of him now", which seems to make no sense); in the second, he pushes the body out of the carriage onto the track in Redhill tunnel. The narrator doesn't believe any of this, and thinks Haldane is deluded. However, at the end of the story, he discovers that a body was in fact discovered in Redhill tunnel, a haberdasher who had committed suicide by drinking poison. Then, when Haldane's big metal box is opened, after his death, two bodies are discovered inside - one is Visger, and the other a pen salesman who was prone to fits, and who had presumably died of one on the hearth rug in Haldane's room.
But the story is cleverly written, so there is room for doubt as to whether or not Haldane is really haunted, or whether he is projecting his guilt onto these co-incidences...
I hope this makes sense, and is useful!
@@BitesizedAudio this makes absolute sense and I appreciate you going to the trouble to explain it to me.
I love your channel and fall asleep each night listening to your narration. Thanks for doing uou so well. ❤
This guy has been coming across accidental corpses more often than Agatha Christie‘s miss Marple always comes about sophisticated murder!
Not the best run of luck, I must admit...
second listen - there are worse things you can do things to people than killing them outright!