A man hoping to help a bereaved friend is met with the most frightening event of his lifetime.

The Irish author Bram Stoker is perhaps best known to us for the story of Dracula, a vampire with a thirst for both blood and vengeance.

We shall only spend a brief moment introducing the controversy over the attribution of tonight’s story to Daniel Defoe.  The reason for this question of attribution lies in two facts: Daniel Defoe was well known to publish many works anonymously, and many anonymously-published works were casually attributed to him.  Because of those two reasons, literary scholars have found endless ways to argue this matter, none of which matter much to us.  But there you have it.

Tonight, we join William Faulkner on a trip back to the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi.

This evening’s author, Frederick George Loring, was an English naval officer and writer, and an early expert in wireless telegraphy.

Our old friend Henry James, as well as being a chronicler of the Gilded Age, is no stranger to the Gothic, or the ghostly tale.

It’s always a little disconcerting when inanimate objects become, of themselves, animate.

The characters in Kate Chopin’s stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana, a region where she lived.