Classic Ghost Stories

Latest Episodes:

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas by M R James Feb 13, 2026

Show notes

A mediaeval abbot leaves behind a cipher—not in his will, but scratched into the glass of his own church. The treasure it guards has lain undisturbed for centuries. Mr. Somerton, a scholar with a taste for puzzles, believes he can solve what others have missed. The Latin is difficult, the clues are scattered, but gold is gold, and curiosity has its own momentum. What waits beneath the stone was put there deliberately. It has been patient. Some things, once disturbed, do not easily return to silence.

"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" was first published in 1904 in M.R. James's second collection, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. The story has been widely anthologized and was adapted for television by the BBC in 1974.

Montague Rhodes James was a distinguished mediaeval scholar and Provost of King's College, Cambridge, later of Eton College. He is regarded as one of the finest writers of supernatural fiction in the English language, and his ghost stories continue to define the antiquarian tradition of literary horror.

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The Occupant of the Room by Algernon Blackwood Feb 06, 2026

Show notes

A schoolmaster arrives late at night in a remote Alpine village. The inn has no rooms. Then suddenly—there is one. A room that's occupied, yet empty. A room whose previous tenant, an Englishwoman, left two days before and hasn't returned.

As he unpacks his few belongings, the atmosphere begins to press in. Something lingers here—in the faded flowers by the washstand, in the air itself. And when darkness falls, he feels it: a crushing weight of despair that doesn't belong to him. Thoughts that aren't his own. A blackness so complete it whispers of only one escape.

The search party is still out on the mountains. But what if they're looking in the wrong place?

Publication Details:

"The Occupant of the Room" was first published in 1909 in Blackwood's collection John Silence: Physician Extraordinary, featuring the psychic detective Dr. John Silence. The story showcases Blackwood's mastery of psychological horror and the contagion of extreme emotional states.

Author Biography:

Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a British author, occultist, and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His work explored the boundaries between psychological experience and supernatural phenomena, establishing him as one of the most influential writers of weird fiction in the early twentieth century.

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Cwm Garon by L T C Rolt Jan 30, 2026

Show notes

Sponsored by the generosity of Gavin Critchley. Thanks, Gavin!

The valley of Cwm Garon is a place of ancient ruins and emerald meadows, tucked deep within the Welsh Borderland. When John Carfax first arrives, it seems a sanctuary, far from the grime of the city. But the stillness here is deceptive; it is a silence that watches. As the mountain shadows lengthen, the beauty of the landscape begins to distort into something more sinister4 Among the brooding crags and shifting mists, a feeling of unwelcome intrusion takes hold In Cwm Garon, the land itself remembers, and the shadows have never truly been empty.

Publication Details

"Cwm Garon" was first published in 1948 as part of L.T.C. Rolt’s landmark supernatural collection, Sleep No More.

It is frequently anthologized as a masterclass in the "antiquarian" ghost story tradition.

Author Biography

L.T.C. Rolt (1910–1974) was a prolific English writer and engineer who co-founded the Inland Waterways Association to preserve Britain's canal heritage.

While famous for his biographies of industrial icons, he is equally celebrated for his atmospheric weird fiction, often set in the isolated landscapes he encountered during his travels.

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The Playfellow by Lady Cynthia Asquith Jan 23, 2026

Show notes

Lichen Hall is the perfect English country mansion, a veritable rural paradise—a Tudor house of mellow beauty that has been carefully restored after the fire that claimed a child's life twelve years ago. For Claude Halyard, it is an earthly paradise reclaimed. For his wife Laura, it is a home that seems to cast a spell—lovely, peaceful, and somehow waiting.

Their daughter Hyacinth finds the old day nursery and makes it her own. She plays alone there for hours, running invisible races, laughing at jokes only she can hear. She is never lonely, she insists. She has a friend.

Laura begins to notice small impossibilities: a rocking horse galloping in an empty room, its stirrups held forward. Candles lit on a Christmas tree when no one has been near. The faint sound of a child's gramophone playing "Boys and Girls Come Out to Play."

Claude grows tense, strained, building walls of silence his wife cannot penetrate. He speaks of leaving. He cannot say why.

But Hyacinth has made a promise to her playmate. And some promises, once given, cannot be broken—even when the one who waits to claim them has been dead for twelve years.

"The Playfellow" by Lady Cynthia Asquith was first published in This Mortal Coil (Arkham House, 1947), later reissued in the UK as What Dreams May Come (Rich & Cowan, 1951).

Lady Cynthia Asquith (1887–1960) was J. M. Barrie's secretary, a distinguished memoirist and biographer, and editor of the influential Ghost Book series. Her own supernatural fiction is characterized by restraint, psychological insight, and civilized unease.

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The Skeleton Count or The Vampire Mistress by Elizabeth Grey Jan 16, 2026

Show notes

Let's go Gothick. Get your pitchfork. Get your burning brand. We're off to the castle to see the count.

The Skeleton Count; or, The Vampire Mistress

In the shadowed corridors of a remote castle, Count Rodolph has made a bargain that no mortal should contemplate. The price of eternal life is high, and the methods by which it is secured are terrible beyond imagining.

When the corpse of the beautiful Bertha is carried from her grave to his study, something moves beneath the burial shroud. Eyes that had closed in death open once more, fixed upon the Count with a gaze both empty and aware. She will be his companion through the centuries—but what hungers might stir in one recalled from the tomb? What thoughts take root in a mind that has crossed the threshold between this world and the next?

The villagers whisper of strange lights in the tower. A child is found pale and trembling in the night. And in the castle, two beings who should not exist learn what it means to be neither living nor dead.

First published in 1828 in the English periodical The Casket, this early vampire tale predates both Carmilla and Dracula, exploring the dark territory between necromancy and vampirism.

The story has been attributed to Elizabeth Caroline Grey, though both the authorship and original publication remain subjects of scholarly dispute. If the attribution holds, it represents the first vampire story written and published by a woman.

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A Message for Julia by R A Sunter Jan 13, 2026

Show notes

Jean-Pierre Ducharme and Ms. Esmeralda Spinoza are experts in the delicate architecture of the séance.

Inside the stillness of Julia Silverman’s game room, they prepare to reach across the divide for a daughter lost four months prior. It is a space of flickering candles, soft whispers, and the heavy weight of a mother’s grief.

But as the circle joins hands, the atmosphere begins to curdle. The familiar rituals start to feel unpredictable, and a coldness settles that no draft can explain.

They have spent years navigating the boundaries of the unknown, but tonight, those boundaries are no longer holding.

"A Message for Julia" was first broadcast on The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast in January 2025.

Roy Sunter is a New Hampshire-based author.

Roy Sunter’s primary body of work can be found at Studio 8, with earlier archives located at ArcanumCafe. He writes under the handle "sasha"—the Russian diminutive of his middle name, Alexander.

His ongoing "chapbook" at Studio 8 features a collection of spontaneous prose, much of it in the zuihitsu style, alongside his photography.

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The Frost Fair by Tony Walker Jan 09, 2026

Show notes

One of my own stories. The River Thames freezes and a Frost Fair is held for the first time since 1814. Two friends meet for a pint of Dark Ale in the ancient London riverside pub, the Water Witch. What could go wrong?

If you've never listened to one of my stories, give this one a try. Many people find them splendid.

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The Demon King by J B Priestley Jan 02, 2026

Show notes

It's Boxing Night in Bruddersford and the pantomime's a disaster waiting to happen. The company's second-rate, the theatre's half empty, and the actor playing the Demon King hasn't turned up. Then he does—and suddenly everything changes. The performance takes on an authority it never had in rehearsal. The comedy gets sharper, the villain more convincing, and by the end something has happened that nobody can quite explain.

Priestley wrote this in 1931, drawing on his Bradford theatre days and the tradition of the pantomime devil who enters from stage left. The BBC adapted it for radio in 1962 with Ian Wallace, adding Radiophonic Workshop effects to a story that's as much about provincial theatre life as it is about the supernatural.

First published 1931. BBC Home Service radio adaptation December 1962.

Author: J. B. Priestley (1894–1984), Bradford-born novelist and playwright. Best known for The Good Companions, Angel Pavement, and An Inspector Calls. During the war his BBC radio talks reached audiences of 16 million.

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Boxing Night by E F Benson Dec 26, 2025

Show notes

On Christmas Day, two sisters in a remote farmhouse in the middle of the Romney Marshes, have a dream. The snow begins to fall heavily and they are isolated miles away from any help. But a dream is just a dream, isn't it?

Written by E F Benson

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Lucky's Grove by H Russell Wakefield Dec 19, 2025

Show notes

Teaser Script

Christmas at Abingdale Hall. The great house decked in festive greenery, servants bustling, family gathering from across the country. And in the entrance hall, a magnificent Scots Pine—ten feet of perfect symmetry, branches heavy with the promise of celebration.

But the tree came from Lucky's Grove.

The estate manager is new. He doesn't know the local warnings. He doesn't know that some groves have been sacred since before Christianity reached these shores. He doesn't know that when you take a tree from such a place, something comes with it.

The guests arrive. The children play in the snow. The fires are lit, the table laid. Everything proceeds as it should. Almost.

There are accidents. Small things at first. A workman injured. Strange dreams that leave everyone unsettled at breakfast. A boy builds a snowman with a wolf's head and cannot explain why.

The gods of Lucky's Grove are patient. They have waited centuries. They can wait until Christmas Day.

Publication Details

"Lucky's Grove" by H. Russell Wakefield was first published in The Clock Strikes Twelve (Herbert Jenkins, 1940), later expanded by Arkham House in 1946.

Author Biography

Herbert Russell Wakefield (1888–1964) was an English writer whose atmospheric ghost stories earned him comparison to M. R. James. His fiction insisted on the reality of the supernatural, presenting hauntings with clinical precision and iron control over dread.

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