173 free-to-read stories tagged “Historical Europe”
"I will always remember the view of Paris from his window. Snow, pure and untouched, softens the outline of the buildings and covers the grime of the streets. White, the color of beginnings. His canvas is primed and ready to be painted, and stark winter...
death-of-a-loved-onewar
Sylvain de Guilherand secretly uses a captive water spirit to provide indoor plumbing to Louis XV's Versailles, but the spirit is childish, playful, and getting bored.
"My parents taught me to lie as soon as I could speak. Before I knew the meaning of the words, before I understood heat or fire, and long before I felt the pain of singed flesh, I learned to tell strangers that I burned myself by grasping a hot iron pot."
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
In this spell-binding tale, a Pakistani storyteller captivates a group of wide-eyed tourists with a nesting doll of interlocked stories about a trickster and a hidden city ruled by the Queen of Red Midnight.
abusebody-horrorchild-deathviolence
In 1888 a woman suffering a hideous deformity was murdered in London. Today, her descendent wants to find the culprit.
deathviolence
An orphan recruit on a Turkish airship tends the brainwashed monkeys that constitute one of their principle weapons. He fears them deeply, but the ones with mechanical parts he fears the worst.
deathgoreviolencewar
Two people from a secret, underwater House try to infiltrate a troublesome surface House that rules much of a Paris still recovering from long-ago magical wars.
violence
"When I met the young Mr. Turing, I had not yet ascended as Autumn’s King. Nowadays it has become fashionable for the sons and daughters of the lesser fey gentry to improve their position in the shifting hierarchy of the Courts by virtue of intrigue,...
deathsexual-contentsexual-violence
As Lily dies from tuberculosis, she relives fantasies from “Through the Looking Glass,” by Lewis Carroll
child-abusedeathillness-and-pandemic
Helen comes to Meersee in Germany to be a governess for her friend’s nephew. The child is young and peculiar, the staff are old and peculiar, and more peculiar things turn up by the minute.
body-horrorviolence
A whaling ship conducts an experiment in generating whale song to try to make it easier to attract whales to kill.
animal-harmbody-horrordeathgoreviolence
Sister Nadine sits in her cell at the church and offers wisdom to any of the townspeople who come by. But she’s starting to see things that suggest the world isn’t quite what it seems to be.
Male fairies often seduce maidens, but Rose actually seeks them out.
sexual-content
A young apprentice at making magic gloves considers breaking the rules to make a special pair to control his sister’s epilepsy.
deathillness-and-pandemicviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathsexual-violenceviolence
Vincent lost his mom on one of the first Mars missions. He’s had a career as a successful author, but he’s always refused to talk about his mother. Fifty years later, he tells us how he decided to end his silence and write a book about her.
death-of-a-loved-one
In 12th-Century England, six-year-old Ada flees the vicious reptilian wastoures who swam the countryside eating people and animals alike.
body-horrorchild-abusedeathviolence
The soprano playing Liù keeps trying to change the opera’s gruesome plot, starting with her own death scene.
deathsexual-violenceviolence
In Eastern Europe between the wars, Klara works as a kitchen maid. One night she admits a woman she thinks is a lost fairy-tale princesses into the castle.
Author : E. M. Linden Narrator : Louise Hewitt Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums PodCastle 879: The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead is a PodCastle original. Content warnings for grief, infant death, and a reference...
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
The sister of an abducted child is haunted by a sinister figure who may or may not be real…
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathmental-illnesswar
"INTERVIEWER We’ve spoken about your use of the “weird” in your stories, but have you personally ever experienced anything akin to something that might happen to one of Lovecraft’s characters? BOEKNER Yes — despite all evidence to the contrary, I remain...
On a cold October midnight, teenage Susanna takes her dog and a musket and sneaks away into the woods. Things happened ten years ago when she got the dog. Bad things. And now the reckoning is due.
animal-harmchild-deathviolence
Meant to clear plastic from the sea, the artificial “squids” have put the oceans off-limits to humanity. Not everyone takes that lying down.
death
"Kwayask nātohta. Listen carefully. There once was a woman who sewed clothes so powerful they made you become the person you needed to be. Children’s feet wrapped in her flower-beaded moccasins never stumbled. Otipēyimisowak orators, backs held straight by...
"I’ve got a signal,” Cora said. “Elena, come look!” I rushed to Cora’s bank of computers. For six long, working-into-the-evening days, we’d gotten only the faintest of quantum signals, nothing usable. Our grant only gave us three weeks on the TU Delft...
deathsuicide
No vampire is ever innocent… The wandering Judge Dee serves as judge, jury, and executioner for any vampire who breaks the laws designed to safeguard their kind’s survival. This new case in particular puts his mandate to the test.
Judith takes a job as companion to a young man who appears to be terminally ill and has retired to a family estate by the sea.
Sa races in dangerous places throughout time and space, but she’s getting old, the challengers are ruthless, and there are a lot of ways to get hurt in this sport.
The narrator, a young regenitrix in Victorian London, tries to help an older one have her baby. For a regenitrix swiftly regrows any lost body parts, but childbirth is always fatal.
deathsexual-violence
PseudoPod 963: Mavka is a PseudoPod original. CW: cannibalism, suicide, starvation, use of second person perspective You pray to forget this. You pray to forget the cold. Even under two wool blankets you’re always cold now. Skin and bones, you. A February...
cannibalismchild-deathsuicide
Unknown forces attempt to stop Judge Dee and Jonathan from transporting a mysterious and possibly dangerous prisoner, who holds a secret about the Judge, to an executioner in France…
"Your payment first. The Badchen Yankel is too aged, too well-traveled, and too experienced to extend credit to an audience. Now pinch your lips and listen. It was the year of their lord 1618, and we’re two days outside Grodne when we run into the demons....
"The first time I saw her, she stood in the arch of the gate, a black spindle against the open stretch of road. I looked up from where I was kneeling in the garden and couldn’t look away. Head to toe in black, her face veiled. The air smelled like new...
"When Golem opened her eyes for the first time, she saw Magda. “You are Golem,” Magda whispered, her oil-stained fingers prodding Golem’s metal joints. “Golem,” the machine repeated, the rust along the two half-tin cans forming her jaw chipping onto...
deathviolencewar
"I was told I must swear fealty to William the Bastard. He had taken England, made himself king, fealty was required. But I did not swear and none could make me. He could kill me, or rather order his men to kill me. But he would not, because he wanted to...
violence
Sorrow Farregon is a master perfumer, but the Queen wants something to make her conceive a child—which is challenging when the King is a clockwork automaton.
deathsuicide
An occult detective and a creature work and love together across multiple lifetimes.
deathsexual-contentviolence
In a storm, in an alternate 1890s South Pacific, their airship crashes on a Pacific Island occupied by surprisingly high-tech natives.
From childhood, Flora, painted disturbing paintings, and her nurse fears the young lady carried this obsession into adulthood.
deathillness-and-pandemic
"Dear Francesca, First off: I know that’s not your name. I haven’t gone and mistaken you for another woman—one of my many conquests, I imagine you imagine (what must imaginary you think of imaginary me?). You’ll notice, if you glance ahead, that I’ve...
sexual-content
"Wendy knew it wouldn’t be long now before her daughter was taken. She had put the idea from her mind as long as she could, but now Jane was days away from turning thirteen. From the window of the nursery, Wendy saw Jane wobbling her way down Kensington...
death-of-a-loved-oneviolencewar
"I spent my first summer as an orphan watching cicadas fuck, scream, and molt. Wasn’t long before I plucked one of the cicada skins from the dry village soil. I brushed it clean against my secondhand clothes I was already beginning to outgrow. Dappled by...
body-horrorgoresexual-content
In celebration of the 50th World Fantasy Convention’s Toastmaster, Michael Swanwick, Reactor presents a new Mongolian Wizard story about a battle to save Paris from an unexpected new enemy.
goreviolencewar
On a trip to Italy, a woman stuck in a crumbling relationship discovers the city she loves holds a secret that could change her life…
"You are an exile.” “Yes. And no.” Confined in the narrow neck of the vase, Asmidiske’s voice was tiny and metallic. “An oracle is ambiguous.” They considered and rejected terminology: galaxy, light speed, time warp, circumpolar orbit. “There are not words...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
racism
A Russian émigré poet living in Paris is visited by a mysterious bear with an agenda…
In this raucous, steampunk tale a sacred order of scientist nuns battle against vicious Invaders from Mars and their murderous machines in an ongoing conflict that has lasted centuries.
"I have heard it on the rumors that when the tale-spinner’s guild gathers in their secret places, a full half of them are sworn to never tell the truth, and the other half to never tell a lie, even if it mean their life. Being one of that trade myself, I...
violence
"Pick me up, girl. I’m such a pretty, delicate thing, hidden behind the gondola’s cushion. You feel me before you see me: the soft velvet of the cushions suddenly replaced by the roughness of my lace and the cool touch of my silk. Your fingers are smooth...
"Marlowe is going to outlive him. Of this, he is sure. He has seen him on the streets of Blackfriars, of Southwark, in Bladder Lane, near Aldgate… He can pretend to be anything, young Kit. Not so young Kit. The two men are of an age: born the same year...
"For as long as I can remember, I have always been two people. My earliest recollection is of myself as a three year-old boy, Danny—and at the same time as a girl of the same age, Cristina. Another early memory is of playing in the rubble of the...
"And I am a curious thing. “Are you broken?” they asked by way of hello, in the direct way children have. I shook my head, neck creaking and scraping with the movement. “No, child. Just old.” “Oh.” The child looked me up and down, trying to decide whether...
"We learn to live without sweet berry jam, cabbage cooked with apples, and wine. We train ourselves not to miss the flowers, and we toe the line. We always toe the line. When the soldiers ransack our homes, collecting any purple item of clothing, we hand...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"In the winter of 19–, having newly arrived in England, and still recovering from the nervous indisposition which had afflicted me greatly ever since my circumstances during the war, I responded to an advertisement placed in the Yorkshire Post, for the...
"Through chaos and old night, the three brothers journeyed. Sometimes they rode and sometimes they strode. When they rode, their steeds snorted cold steam from their nostrils and obsidian hooves struck sparks from the rock. When they strode, their feet...
deathviolence
When Lady Mary marries the mysterious Mr. Fox, a jealous suitor follows them to their castle.
deathgoreviolence
Benedetto makes his living running a calligramancy shop, where he makes magic via writing. Today, he snapped, closed the shop, and started an elaborate spell of unknown purpose.
child-death
Someone from our era look back to 1888 London and the Jack-the-Ripper murders.
deathgoreviolence
This is the story of Seonag and how she crossed the waves ahead of the hunters and how she found the wolves and what happened then.
deathviolence
The Pro-Am All-Bohemian Invitational competition for the best skinwalkers is just starting, but there’s an unexpected extra contestant at the last minute.
deathgoreviolence
Rielle accepts an offer from her husband’s rival to play accompaniment for his daughter in a competition. They need the money, but there’s something too perfect about this daughter.
As a prostitute in Liverpool in 1763, Lolly has a hard life. She steals from a well-dressed corpse she finds in the river, with unexpected results.
child-deathsexual-contentviolence
In 1880s London, Sir Arthur's "Illogic Engine" has gone missing, so he seeks help from Mycroft Holmes.
In Elizabethan London, an entrepreneur skilled in identifying legitimate antiquities ends up with a bottle that happens to have a demon in it.
"Right,” I said. “Well, it’s a letter to the parents of the girl I love with all my heart and soul, telling them how I’ve just watched their daughter being dragged away screaming by soldiers and loaded on a ship to be taken as a sacrifice to the Black...
violence
Night Soil, of course, is human feces, but the salvagers to more than just collect that; they deliver other things too—if you’re willing to deal with them, that is.
A man sets out on a voyage accompanied by his fiancée's right arm. Content warnings: Violence (graphic), threat of bodily harm, covert misogyny Copyright © 2026 khōréō magazine. Story by Natalia Theodoridou, edited by Isabella Kestermann. Audio edition...
body-horrormisogyny
Content note (click for details) Threatened harm to women and children; non-graphic mentions of death by drowning; poverty edited by Ziv Wities The monster came out perfectly. The head of an ass. A human left arm, delicate in comparison to the elephant’s...
death-of-a-loved-one
The guillotine was conceived as swifter, painless, more humane. You touch your throat. You wonder.
self-harmsexual-contentsuicide
Author : Natalie Zutter Narrator : Valerie Valdes Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 930: Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar is a PodCastle original. content notes for pregnancy loss, post-natal depression, and...
body-horrormental-illnesspregnancy-loss
Author : Anna Kahn Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 932: Carina is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Carina by Anna Kahn “I’ve had a baby. Still feels strange that you don’t know that — I’ve been looking...
Author : C. J. Lavigne Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Tarver Nova Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 951: TALES FROM THE VAULTS: ‘Til Death is a PodCastle original. Content note for grief Rated PG-13 ‘Til Death by C. J. Lavigne My dear Clarinda, They...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Aimee Ogden's 'Because I Held His Name Like a Key' read by Jenna Hanchey. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
deathhomophobiasuicide
“Tailpiece” first appeared in More Ruthless Rhymes, 1930, and “The Second Awakening of a Magician” first appeared in The London Mercury, November 1930 C/W: fire My son Augustus, in the street, one day, Was feeling quite exceptionally merry. A stranger...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
“The Book” was first published in 1930 in The London Mercury and later collected in The Weird (Tor Books, 2012) CW: harm to child/animal, reference to suicide On a foggy night in November, Mr. Corbett, having guessed the murderer by the third chapter of...
animal-harmchild-abusesuicide
“The End Of The Story” was originally published in Weird Tales, vol. 15, no. 5 (May 1930). Link: Weird Tales original text Original layout from Weird Tales The Emperor of Dreams documentary Best collection of Smith’s poetry The following narrative was...
“Witchcraft” was first printed in Ornaments in Jade, 1924 “How I Turned My Little Brother Human” was first published in Shaky Pictures of Vanished Faces, edited by Eric Raglin, in September 2025 “Visit Seahaven” was first published in Factor Four magazine...
child-deathpregnancy-losssubstance-use
PseudoPod 1030: Keeping Up With the Conan Doyles is a PseudoPod original. C/W: disordered eating, fat-shaming May 22nd is Conan Doyle’s birthday and Sherlock Holmes Day Jess Whitecroft’s Patreon Cautionary Tales: Photographing Fairies From the Journals of...
body-horrordeathmisogyny
You’re eighteen. Your fairy godmother just fired you, because after three balls, the prince has grown bored with you. Tonight you stepped on his foot during a gavotte. “If you’d been cleverer,” the fairy godmother says—her words silver chimes girded with...
A year of living in the ground had not accustomed Moyer to the smell. He wondered how the French, who’d been at this business so much longer, could stand it. But if the officers who had trained his unit in the intricacies of trench life were any...
deathwar
In the last blush of autumn, the King of the Forest requested an audience with the King. The King was so delighted that he agreed at once. The audience was held in the King’s hall, the burnished tile laid in gold and green, the fire stoked high with ash...
Author : Mimi Mondal Narrator : Elizabeth Green Host : Kaitlyn Zivanovich Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Originally published as PodCastle 349 Content warnings for violence and disturbing imagery Rated R This Sullied Earth, Our Home by...
deathviolence
Author : L. S. Johnson Narrators : Nicola Chapman, Matt Dovey and Peter Seaton-Clark Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by G Is for Ghosts, Poise and Pen Publishing Content warning for era-specific...
deathhomophobiasuicide
Author : L. S. Johnson Narrators : Nicola Chapman, Matt Dovey and Peter Seaton-Clark Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by G Is for Ghosts, Poise and Pen Publishing Content warning for era-specific...
deathhomophobiawar
Author : Christine Lucas Narrator : Kat Kourbeti Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Abyss & Apex Content warnings for ableist slurs and attitudes, violence, and misogyny Rated PG-13 Moths in a...
misogynyviolencewar
“Novel of the White Powder” first appeared in The Three Impostors in 1895. C/W: drug abuse, delusions The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War by Arthur Machen The Angel of Mons Jess Nevins on The Novel of The White Powder White Lines by...
body-horrordeathsubstance-use
‘Christmas Eve at Beach House’ was first published in Routledge’s Christmas Annual, 1870. C/W murder, intimate partner violence To support us during our year-end campaign, go to https://escapeartists.net/support-ea The Oldhammer Fiction Podcast Eliza Lynn...
abusedeathviolence
“The Old Lady” first appeared in the 1929 collection of ghost stories, Randall’s Round Penda’s Fen Void Merch Hot Singles In Your Area Adela Young must have come up to Oxford at the same time as myself; but no one, in a way, knew that she had. She was one...
child-deathdeathviolence
“Dead Mabelle” first appeared in the 1929 collection Joining Charles and Other Stories CW: Allusions to suicide The sudden and horrible end of Mabelle Pacey gave her a publicity with the European press worth millions to J. and Z. Gohigh of Gohigh Films...
deathmental-illnesssuicide
“The Shout” was first published in a limited edition chapbook, The Woburn Books #16, 1929. Jamie Oliver’s controversial children’s book has shone a spotlight on the importance of sensitivity readers Jamie Oliver pulls ‘offensive’ children’s book from sale...
deathmental-illnessracism
“The Darkness Carried by the Beasts” was originally published in The Sunday Morning Transport in 2023. CW: cancer, death of a family member From the author: This story came to me, at first, with the image of a man and his dog in the woods, somewhere in...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
PseudoPod 973: Flash on the Borderlands LXXIII: Perpetuation is a PseudoPod original. Shallow Fangs: C/W for second-person PoV “The First Mrs. Edward Rochester Would Like a Word”- From the author: “Many readers want better for the attic wife from Jane...
abuseanimal-harmviolence
My entry into her apartments teeters entirely on this precarious pair of facts; one, I am small; and two, I am armed with Mother’s message.
animal-harmbody-horrorchild-abuse
Author : Kelsey Hutton Narrator : Samantha Loney Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies Content warning for racism and racial slurs Rated PG-13 Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea...
racism
Author : Kelsey Hutton Narrator : Samantha Loney Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies Content warning for racism and racial slurs Rated PG-13 Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea...
racism
Author : Rebecca Buchanan Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Previously published by Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives 1 (Belanger Press) Rated PG The Adventure of the Faerie Coffin: Being...
Author : Rebecca Buchanan Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Previously published by Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives 1 (Belanger Press) Rated PG ~ Five ~ Dinner was not silent. While we sat...
violence
Author : Eleanna Castroianni Narrator : Kat Kourbeti Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums PodCastle 833: This Wooden Heart is a PodCastle original. Content warnings for death and references to war and genocide. Rated PG-13 This...
deathracismwar
Author : E. F. Benson Narrator : Devin Martin Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Originally published by Hutchinson’s Magazine, October 1928 Content warning for references to grief Rated PG Pirates by E.F. Benson For many...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Author : J.H. Siegal Narrator : Rebecca Fraimow Host : Eleanor R. Wood Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums PodCastle 847: The Golem Lover is a PodCastle original. Content warnings for the death of a spouse and for sexually explicit themes and...
death-of-a-loved-onesexual-contentviolence
Author : Matt Dovey Narrator : Matthew James Hamblin Host : Eleanor R. Wood Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums PodCastle 856: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Clouds in a Clear Blue Sky is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Clouds in a Clear Blue Sky By...
death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Oliver Onions Narrator : Matt Dovey Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Originally published in The London Magazine, August 1928. Content warnings for the off-screen deaths of a spouse and sons Rated PG John Gladwin...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
Author : S.B. Divya Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny Content warnings for fire, violence (including domestic violence), references to rape, and parental deaths....
abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Author : S.B. Divya Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny Content warnings for fire, violence (including domestic violence), references to rape, and parental deaths....
abusedeathviolence
Author : S.B. Divya Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny Content warnings for fire, violence (including domestic violence), references to rape, and parental deaths....
abusesexual-violenceviolence
“The Red Lodge” originally published in the 1928 collection They Return at Evening. I am writing this from an imperative sense of duty, for I consider The Red Lodge is a foul death-trap and utterly unfit to be a human habitation — it has its own proper...
child-deathdeath
“The Shadowy Escort” was first published in The London Magazine, May 1928 Seigfried Sassoon Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon Almost everybody has at one time or another wanted to write a detective story, but, for the greater well-being of publishers and...
deathviolencewar
“The Ghost” was first published in The Windsor Magazine, May 1928. “Half-Past Two” was first published in the August 15, 1928 edition of The Daily Mail. She was a girl of fourteen, and she sat propped up with pillows in an old four-poster bed, coughing a...
deathgoreviolence
“Skule Skerry” was originally published in the 1928 collection The Runagates Club The Excavation of Hobs Barrow The Stone Tape The Woman in Black It happened a good many years ago, when I was quite a young man. I wasn’t the cold scientist then that I fancy...
“The Cask of Amontillado” originally appeared in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, November 1846 The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul,...
body-horrordeathviolence
“Masks” originally appeared in Forbidden Futures and was reprinted in the 2022 collection How to See Ghosts & Other Figments “The Machete at the End of the World” appeared in the collection Nightfall & Other Danger “The Tale of Belette” previously appeared...
deathgoreviolence
“Henry” was originally published in the collection Strange Fruit in 1928 For four hours every morning and for twenty minutes before a large audience at night Fletcher was locked up with murder. It glared at him from twelve pairs of amber eyes ; it clawed...
animal-harmdeathviolence
“Bonesoup” originally published in Strange Horizons, July 2022 From the author: “My initial idea was a Hansel and Gretel retelling where the Evil Witch actually has children of her own. It became a story about Greece’s intergenerational trauma, called...
body-horrorchild-deathdeath
“The Dabblers” appeared in the 1928 collection The Beast with Five Fingers It was a wet July evening. The three friends sat around the peat fire in Harborough’s den, pleasantly weary after their long tramp across the moors. Scott, the ironmaster, had been...
animal-harm
“Sea Curse” was originally published in Weird Tales, May 1928 The Soul Cages And some return by the failing light And some in the waking dream. For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts That ride the rough roofbeam. —Kipling THEY were the brawlers and...
deathmisogynyviolence
CW: Ableist slur This material originally appeared in The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Henry L. Herz published by Blackstone Publishing (©2023) I didn’t join in as my surviving family members conversed over...
animal-harmgoreviolence
Murder or a Duck By Beth Goder George called out, “Mrs. Whitman, you have a visitor.” Mrs. Whitman strode from her workroom, her white hair skipping out of its hairpins. She straightened her work skirt, massaged her bad knee, then hurried down the hall....
violence
"There isn’t a more resilient thing than a small flower. Your great-great-grandmother was a yellow daffodil. Where she was born people called her narcissus. Her many heads blossomed from a loamy opening in the forest on a particularly chill spring day....
deathwar
Author : Maria Haskins Narrator : Eleanor R. Wood Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Previously published by The Deadlands #12 Content Warning for the death of a child Rated PG-13 The Morthouse by Maria Haskins In her...
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Author : Matt Dovey Narrator : Louise Ratcliffe Hosts : Matt Dovey and Graeme Dunlop Audio Producers : Devin Martin and Pria Wood Discuss on Forums First published in Writers of the Future volume 32, May 2016 Originally aired as PodCastle 427 Originally...
child-abusedeathviolence
Authors : C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner Narrator : Kaitlyn Zivanovich Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Previously published by Weird Tales, November 1937 PG-13 Quest of the Starstone by C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner Jirel...
violence
Author : Sam W. Pisciotta Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Matt Dovey Discuss on Forums PodCastle 805: The Somnambulant is a PodCastle original. Content warning for assault Rated PG-13 The Somnambulant by Sam W. Pisciotta The moon sits plump within a...
abusebody-horrorviolence
Author : Dorothy Quick Narrator : Valerie Valdes Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Weird Tales Content warnings for murder and references to torture Rated PG-13 The Woman on the Balcony by Dorothy...
deathviolence
Author : Natalia Theodoridou Narrator : Tanja Milojevic Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producers : Devin Martin and Pria Wood Discuss on Forums Originally published in KROnline. Also published as PodCastle 508. Rated PG-13 The Ravens’ Sister by Natalia...
deathsuicidewar
“Ye Goode Olde Ghoste Storie” originally appeared in Weird Tales, January 1927 under the pen name William A. P. White Derek Delgaudio Excellent and IMMENSELY spoiler-y piece about In & Of Itself ‘‘But there ain’t no sech thing!” said Jed Hoskins’ old man...
The original version was first published in “Ghost Stories Magazine” April, 1927, “On the Isle of Blue Men” was an atmospheric, Lovecraftian thriller -almost certainly inspired by the real world 1900 Flannan Isles lighthouse crew disappearance. This story...
deathgoreviolence
“Browdean Farm” originally appeared in the 1927 collection Some Ghost Stories Check out ll the amazing things W.J. Walton is working on at AWKWARD LABS (http://www.awkward-labs.com) ? Most people with limited vocabularies such as mine would describe the...
deathsuicide
“The Curious Story of Susan Styles” was originally published in 1893 The Society for Psychical Research was formed in 1882, 11 years before this story was written “Susan Styles,” the name is not a romantic one, and yet it is associated in my mind with a...
child-deathdeath
Both “Coincidence” and “The Dream” originally appeared in The London Magazine, April 1927 and June 1927 respectively This is the story of a coincidence. At any rate I call it a coincidence. The road where I live is very long and very straight. It’s paved...
death
“Litany In The Heart Of Exorcism” originally appeared in Flash Fiction Online, and is due to appear in Dutch translation in Speculatief “He’s Just Like You” is a PseudoPod Original — “‘He’s Just Like You’ stems from the anxieties of being a father and the...
animal-harmdeath
“The Dancing Partner” is excerpted from Jerome’s non-genre novel Novel Notes where it is the second half of Chapter 11. The serialization of that chapter first appeared in the March 1893 issue of The Idler. “This story,” commenced MacShaughnassy, “comes...
deathgoreviolence
This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is...
deathviolence
This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is...
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“The Belsnickel” has previously appeared on the online platforms Vocal and Patreon. From the author: ”I loved the stories my German great-grandmother shared about belsnickels – friends and neighbors who dressed in big fur coats and frightful masks and went...
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“The Red Lady” was originally published in the 2023 anthology Collage Macabre presented by the Future Dead Collective SHOW NOTES The Whoniverse The Full Lid ‘Art is never finished, only abandoned.’ – This week’s closing quote has a fascinating, and very...
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Author : Kameron Hurley Narrator : Alethea Kontis Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Citizens of Elsewhen originally appeared in Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology in October 2020. Contains graphic description of...
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Author : Eleanna Castroianni Narrator : Alethea Kontis Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh Discuss on Forums Previously published by Fireside Content warnings for war, imprisonment, and torture Rated PG-13 An Incomplete Account of the...
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Author : M. E. Bronstein Narrators : Rachael K. Jones and Dave Thompson Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh Discuss on Forums PodCastle 736: The Gorgon’s Glass is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 The Gorgon’s Glass by M.E. Bronstein...
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Author : C. J. Lavigne Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums PodCastle 739: ‘Til Death is a PodCastle original. Content warnings for grief Rated PG-13 ‘Til Death by C. J. Lavigne My dear Clarinda, They...
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Author : Caroline M. Yoachim Narrator : Miyuki Jane Pinckard Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producers : Devin Martin and Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny Magazine Rated R The music for the promotion intro is “Sneaky Snitch” Kevin...
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Author : Caroline M. Yoachim Narrator : Miyuki Jane Pinckard Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producers : Devin Martin and Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums Previously published by Uncanny Magazine Rated R “The Traveler’s Guide to the Goblin Fells is an expansion book...
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Authors : Samantha Murray, Lindsey Godfrey Eccles and Stewart C Baker Narrators : Emma Osborne, Dave Robison and Eleanor R. Wood Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums “On the Corner of Fulton and West” is a PodCastle Original!...
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Author : Saki (the pen name of H. H. Munro) Narrator : Kat Day Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums First published in 1911 in “The Chronicles of Clovis” Content Warning for an outdated racial term Rated PG-13 “Traveler’s Guide...
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“The Rocking-Horse Winner” was first published in Harper’s Bazaar, July 1926. There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she...
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“And No Bird Sings” was first published in the magazine Woman, December 1926. “Birdsong & Elemental Slug” soundbed by Shawn M. Garrett, dedicated to Adi Newton & The Anti-Group (TAGC) The red chimneys of the house for which I was bound were visible from...
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‘The Last Seance’ was first published in Ghost Stories, November 1926 Raoul Daubreuil crossed the Seine humming a little tune to himself. He was a good-looking young Frenchman of about thirty-two, with a fresh-coloured face and a little black moustache. By...
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“The Horse Leech Has Two Maws” was originally published in The Jewish Book of Horror This story deals with the Holocaust. This story has an academic frame and that the text on the website has a number of scholarly footnotes that provide additional context....
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“The Parricide’s Tale” is an excerpt from a larger work, the notorious Gothic Novel Melmoth The Wanderer (1820) Wikipedia article on Melmoth The Wanderer This week’s quote It was in the midst of one of his most licentious songs, that my companion suddenly...
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“The Fifteenth Green” was first published in Nights of the Round Table, 1926. Yard Act-Land of the Blind If You Build It, They Will Move: The Los Angeles Freeway System and the Displacement of Mexican East Los Angeles, 1944-1972 Another night at...
“The Green Scarf” originally appeared in The London Magazine, August 1926 When the Wellingford family became extinct the days of Wellingford Hall as one of the great country homes of England were already numbered. The estate passed into the hands of...
Proverbs 16:31 – Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. I suggest you don’t try to struggle, my dear. I’m sure you thought this would be easy. What danger is an old woman, all alone? In and out, simple. Help yourself to the purse...
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“Cockcrow Inn” was first published in the collection Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales in 1926 Cockcrow Inn stands defiantly facing the sea. For countless years it has stood thus, holding at naught the greatest strength of wind and water,...
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“Palette” originally appeared in the anthology Howls From the Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror. All of the ingredients for the woman’s makeup recipes are accurate for medieval Austria. The line etched across her forehead, deep as a vein, as if a...
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“The Oval Portrait” was published in the April 26, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal. “Not More Lovely than Full of Glee” originally appeared in A Winter’s Tale: Horror Stories for the Yuletide The chateau into which my valet had ventured to make...
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"The shoes are leather with delicate lines and pointy toes. Elegant shoes for elegant feet. They might have suited her too if she had yesterday’s feet. Chicken’s feet. But today her feet are that of an otter’s, stubby and covered in wet, glistening fur....
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Author : Hamilton Perez Narrator : Karen Menzel (née Bovenmyer) Host : Summer Fletcher Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh Discuss on Forums Previously published by The Dark. Rated R. Our Mortal Undressing by Hamilton Perez I. Discovery I suppose I’m...
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Author : Rebecca Fraimow Narrator : Barbara Krasnoff Host : Benjamin C. Kinney Audio Producers : Peter Adrian Behravesh and Jim Freund Discuss on Forums PodCastle 689: Gitl Schneiderman Learns to Live With Her In-Laws is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13...
Author : Gary McKay Narrator : Sarah McGowan Host : Shingai Njeri Kagunda Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh Discuss on Forums Originally published in Underneath the Tree: Twelve Christmas stories from Writers in Northern Ireland Rated PG Candy Canes,...
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“Notes on a Resurrection” was originally published in Strange Horizons (July 2019). The Feast Day of Lazarus is March 17 for the Eastern Orthodox Church. the reporter I heard about the story from the friend of a friend of an acquaintance, and didn’t put...
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“The Artist and the Door” was first published in Weird Tales in November 1952 The advent of the artist and the door was almost simultaneous. I have always wondered if the one would have been as sinister without the other. Of course, the evil was in the...
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“The Withered Heart” was originally published in the November 1939 issue of Weird Tales As this was originally published as a novelette and a bit long for an episode of PseudoPod, staff turned this into an abridgement project to see if we could trim out...
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“Charged” was first published in Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells (Tor Books, 2011) The reader, Joe Williams, would like to dedicate the reading to their Father who recently passed away: “Allan Williams was Joe’s hero. Never short of experiences to share or...
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“The Family” was first Published in Weird Tales in January 1950 This is an abridged version of “The Devil’s Graveyard” which first appeared in First published in Hutchinson’s Mystery Story Magazine, December 1924 and was reprinted in Weird Tales in August...
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“On Seas of Blood and Salt” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror This is what Reb Palache does when he finds a ship crewed by the dead. He does not know it is crewed by the dead, not at first. He is in his cabin, discoursing with the nameless...
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PseudoPod 790: The Humbug is a PseudoPod original. Joshua caught it in a glass jar with holes poked in the lid. He came running up to the cabin with it, shouting, “I found a bug! I found a bug!” “There aren’t any bugs in winter,” Amanda said crossly,...
“Feast for Small Pieces” was originally published in The Bronzeville Bee in 2019 and reprinted in the collection Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy. “MeeMee” first saw print in the anthology Georgia Gothic. “The Shimmer of Trees” was originally published...
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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A young American in the early 20th Century visits a remote principality and is shocked at their notion of justice.
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In France in 1699, a magical fighter comes to Caen to duel with creatures from faery.
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Part six of the Mongolian Wizard, in which Ritter goes to Krakow in disguise to find evidence of atrocities so grave that London cannot believe them.
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