This week on Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra Harold concludes her narration of the novella The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions. We thank our listener again for the wonderful suggestion of this story. If you have a short story (that’s in the public domain) that you would like Cassandra to perform, please let us know by…
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This week on Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra Harold continues narrating the novella The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions. In her introduction this week, Cassandra gives us a mini lesson on “Free Indirect Discourse” and how it is used in this story. Stay tuned next week for the conclusion of the story and please tell your…
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This week on Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra Harold begins narrating the novella The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions. First published in 1911, The Beckoning Fair One is a classic psychological horror novella about a writer, Paul Oleron, who moves into an old, abandoned house to work on his novel. This week Cassandra shares with us…
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On this episode of Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra entertains us with the short story The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkens Freeman, published in 1903 and in the public domain. The Shadows on the Wall is a chilling tale of grief, guilt, and supernatural vengeance. After the sudden death of Henry Glynn, his sisters…
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Cassandra Harold is back on Unpleasant Dreams this week narrating the short story “The Dead Valley” by Ralph Adams Cram. Cram’s reputation as a writer stems solely from six stories published in Black Spirits and White: A Book of Ghost Stories. “The Dead Valley” is his most well-known and frequently reprinted tale, which H.P. Lovecraft…
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This week on Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra Harold is on vocal rest—doctor’s orders—so we’re revisiting her first Unpleasant Dreams reading from 2023: The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs. This chilling tale is one of Jim Harold’s favorite short stories, and its haunting moral remains timeless—be careful what you wish for. Originally published in Harper’s Monthly in…
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In this chilling episode of Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra brings to life Thurnley Abbey, a masterful ghost story by Perceval Landon. First published in 1908 and in the public domain, this unsettling tale follows a skeptical traveler who dismisses superstitions—until he finds himself spending the night in a cursed abbey with a horrifying secret. Thanks for…
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In this spine-chilling episode of Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra Harold takes on the eerie tale Caterpillars by E.F. Benson, first published in 1912 and is in the public domain. A short story that twists the innocence of nature into something far more sinister. For Cassandra, this episode is a particularly unsettling one, as she has a…
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On this episode of Unpleasant Dreams, Cassandra reads the supernatural horror short story, The Body Snatcher by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. William Burke and William Hare gained notoriety for allegedly carrying out at least sixteen “anatomy murders”—murders committed for the purpose of providing fresh cadavers for medical study—over the course of roughly ten months…
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This week Cassandra reads H.G. Wells’ The Red Room. The narrator of The Red Room is a 28-year-old who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He comes to Lorraine Castle with the intention of spending the night in the Red Room, a place rumored to be haunted. As Cassandra explains it, the story “intertwines the psychological…
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