Oct 31, 2022

It’s becoming a Back of the Bookshelf tradition that we release a horror themed episode on Halloween and 2022 is no exception. This time we’ve gone with a little known French story called La Torture Par L’Espérance (The Torture by Hope) by Villiers de L’Isle Adam.

The story was originally published in issue...

Oct 31, 2021

Halloween is here – that wonderful time of year when trick-or-treaters in colourful costumes roam the streets… along with other less wholesome things. In honour of the occasion, the third episode of our second season is a horror story by Robert W. Chambers. It’s called In the Court of the Dragon and was originally...

Dec 25, 2018

Some people say Christmas is over-commercialised, but for us, it never loses its sheen, so for our ninth episode, released at midnight on 25th December 2018, we have embraced the tradition of the Christmas ghost story. The story we've chosen is A Strange Christmas Game by Charlotte Riddell, which was first published in...

Oct 30, 2018

In honour of Halloween, our seventh episode is a ghost story by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Braddon is remembered chiefly for her sensation novel, Lady Audley's Secret, a true classic of the genre, but left behind a considerable body of other work which is equally worthy of attention, as this story demonstrates....

Aug 1, 2018

Here at Back of the Bookshelf, we love a good ghost story, so for this week's episode we are giving you exactly that, courtesy of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, a true master of the genre. Le Fanu is most famous for his classic vampire novel, 'Carmilla', but in line with our mission statement, the story we have chosen is rather...