The HorrorBabble Podcast

"The Red Brain" is a short story by Donald Wandrei, written when he was just 16. It first appeared in the October 1927 edition of Weird Tales Magazine, and tells of a strange, menacing cosmic dust that engulfs the universe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Occupant of the Room" is a short story by English writer Algernon Blackwood. The tale tells of a Englishman on vacation in the Swiss Alps, who attempts to reserve a room at a quiet village inn, only to discover there are no vacancies. He is later offered a room that is 'in a sense engaged', and the rumours voiced by the inn's porter regarding the possible fate of the previous occupant excite his imagination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"A Dream of Red Hands" is a short story by British writer, Bram Stoker. The story was first published in the London weekly, THE SKETCH, in 1894, and tells the sad tale of a man plagued by terrible nightmares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard" is a short story by British author, M. R. James. The tale tells of a man whose wandering gaze often falls upon the nightly funerals that take place next to his lonely house by the cemetery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Opener of the Way" is a work of horror fiction by American writer, Robert Bloch. Originally published in the October 1936 edition of Weird Tales, the magazine described the story as, "A tremendous tale about the dread doom that overtook an archaeologist in that forgotten tomb beneath the desert sands of Egypt…" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Dig Me No Grave" is a horror story by American author, Robert E. Howard. The tale was first published in Weird Tales in February 1937. It is sometimes known by the title, "John Grimlan's Debt". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Black Cat" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Riddle" was written by Walter de la Mare, and was included in his Collected Stories for Children (1947). The story tells of seven children who go to live with their grandmother. They are free to live without rules, as long as they steer clear of a certain chest in the spare bedroom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Night Must Not Come" is a short story by Allison V. Harding. It was first published in Weird Tales in September 1943, and was given the following description: “Ever since the birth of time, fires have been kept at night, and man has never allowed complete darkness, for evil things are waiting out there beyond the light.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Table for Two" is a short story by Arthur Leo Zagat. First appearing in Weird Tales in its January 1941 edition, the story was described as follows: “Thought you heard something? Don’t be silly. It was just the sea you heard—just the foam on the ebb tide…” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Ghost-Writer" first appeared in Weird Tales in May 1940, and tells of an ambitious weird fiction writer, whose insatiable desire for success leads to his doom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Glass Labyrinth" is a short story by the Californian author, Stanton A. Coblentz. It’s a tale of time and dimensions, a true Weird Tale, having appeared in the magazine in its May 1943 edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"What Waits in Darkness" by Loretta Burrough first appeared in Weird Tales in March 1935. The magazine described the tale as: "A grim story of a woman’s happiness that was menaced by a dreadful recurrent dream.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Outsider" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious man who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact and light. "The Outsider" is one of Lovecraft's most commonly reprinted works and is also one of the most popular stories ever to be published in Weird Tales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Strange Island of Doctor Nork" first appeared in Weird Tales in March 1949. A parody of H. G. Wells' "The Island of Doctor Moreau", the story tells of an eccentric doctor, and his 'comically' odd experiments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Drowned Argosies" by American author and teacher Jay Wilmer Benjamin, first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in July 1934. The magazine described the tale in the following simple terms: “A weird tale of the sea.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Tree's Wife" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman (Weird Tales, March 1950). A curious yarn involving a tryst, and a tree. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Ye Goode Olde Ghoste Storie" by William A. P. White first appeared in Weird Tales in January 1927. The magazine described the tale as: "The Chilling Chamber of Fantomheath Fields; or, The Winning of Alicia, the Beautiful." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Mandarin's Canaries" first appeared in Weird Tales in its September 1938 edition. The story tells of a torture-mad Chinese ruler, and his aptly named Garden of Pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Epiphany of Death" (also known as 'Who Are the Living?') is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith. The tale, which first appeared in The Fantasy Fan in its July 1934 edition, tells of a shocking revelation in the catacombs of Ptolemides. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Horror in the Hold" by American author Frank Belknap Long, first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in February 1932. The magazine described the tale as follows: "A tale of the old adventurous days when Spain and England fought for the supremacy of the seas.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Mommy" is a short story by American writer, Mary Elizabeth Counselman. The story tells of a little girl in an orphanage, who claims to have been visited by her dead mother. It first appeared in Weird Tales in April 1939. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Tree-Men of M'Bwa" by Donald Wandrei first appeared in Weird Tales in February 1932. The magazine described the tale as: "A startling story of Africa, strange monstrosities, and the weird power of the Whirling Flux." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Vallisneria Madness” by Ralph Milne Farley, first crawled up out of the earth in the May 1937 edition of Weird Tales Magazine. The tale was described as follows: “A strange and curious little story, about the moonlight mating of flowers.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The City of Lost Souls" by Genevieve Larsson first appeared in Weird Tales in October 1928. This is how the magazine described the tale: "Weirdly terrible was the punishment of the twelve who avenged a brutal murder in a spectacular way." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Seed from the Sepulchre" is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales in October 1933, was described by the magazine as follows: “A horror tale of the Venezuelan jungle, and a diabolical plant that lived on human life.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Drone" is a short story by Abraham Merritt. The tale explores two rather unusual cases of metamorphosis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Spirits' Mountain" is a story by Spanish author, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, included as part of his collection, "Romantic Legends of Spain." In the tale, a young man is tasked with the retrieval of a scarf from a haunted mountain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Transgressor" is a short story by Henry Kuttner. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in its February 1939 edition, tells of an individual whose curious invention proves to be terribly successful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The House of Living Music" is a short story by the regular Weird Tales author, Edmond Hamilton. The story, which first appeared in Weird Tales in January 1938, was described as follows: “A strange weird-scientific story with a tragic denouement—about a great composer who could re-create all living things in sound.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Pale Man" is a short story by American writer, Julius Long. The story tells of the eccentric behavior of a strange guest in a country hotel. It first appeared in Weird Tales in September 1934. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Glamour of the Snow" is a short story by British author, Algernon Blackwood. It tells of a writer who falls in love with a ghostly ice-skater in the Valais Alps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The House of the Worm" is a Cthulhu Mythos story by the American author, Mearle Prout. It first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in October 1933. The story tells of two men, and their struggle against an otherworldly blight that originated in a bleak forest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I, the Vampire" is a horror short story by American author, Henry Kuttner. The story first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in February of 1937. It tells of a vampire loose in Hollywood, feasting on the stars of the silver screen. But is there more to this vampire than simple bloodlust? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Smee" by British author, A. M. Burrage, is a classic ghost story, in which a group of youngsters decide to play a game of hide and seek in an old, haunted house. It was first published in Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, in December 1929. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The House of Shadows" is a short story by Mary Elizabeth Counselman. First published in Weird Tales Magazine in April 1933, the story tells of a family whose images would not reflect in the mirror. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"A Terribly Strange Bed" is a short story by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1852 in Household Words, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens. It was written near the beginning of his writing career, his first published book having appeared in 1848. Collins met Dickens in 1851, and this story was the first contribution by Collins to Dickens's magazine Household Words. After several more pieces for the magazine, he became a paid member of staff in 1856. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Red God Laughed" by American author Thorp McClusky, first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in April 1939. The story tells of the extinction of the human race, and of he who came to survey the Earth following our demise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“When the Flame-Flowers Blossomed” by Leslie F. Stone, first sought sunlight in the November 1935 edition of Weird Tales Magazine. The tale was described as follows: “A bizarre fantasy about strange life found on Venus by two explorers from Earth.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Till A’ the Seas” is a post-apocalyptic short story by H. P. Lovecraft and R. H. Barlow. The story, which describes a dying world, was first published in The Californian in 1935. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Evening Primrose" is a short story by British-born author, John Collier. It tells of a poet who seeks solace and privacy in the forgotten corners of a department store. To his horror, he discovers that he is not alone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Space-Eaters" is a short story by American writer, Frank Belknap Long. It first appeared in the July 1928 edition of Weird Tales. The story explores the concept of the 'ultimate horror', as viewed from the perspective of a short story writer, and his closest friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Three Marked Pennies" is a classic horror story by Mary Elizabeth Counselman, first published in Weird Tales in August 1934. The magazine provided the following synopsis: “A strange destiny awaited the holders of the pennies, with doom for one and weal for the others.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Ninth Skeleton" is an early work by the American author, Clark Ashton Smith. In the story, which debuted in Weird Tales in September 1928, a man has a bizarre encounter with a procession of skeletons in an otherwise familiar setting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Fire Vampires" is a short story by American writer Donald Wandrei. It first appeared in Weird Tales in February 1933, and was described by the magazine: "Out of the sky struck a dread electric scourge that burned the life out of countless thousands and left charred skeletons to mark its passing." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Creeping Fingers" is a short story by American author, Loretta Burrough. It was Burrough's first published story, appearing in Christine Campbell Thomson’s 1931 collection, AT DEAD OF NIGHT. The tale tells of a weary guest, left with no choice but to spend the night in a hotel room with a questionable reputation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Bell-Tower" is a short story by American author, Herman Melville. It tells of an enigmatic architect whose unconventional aspirations result in tragedy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Picture in the House" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft. It was written on December 12, 1920, and first published in the July issue of The National Amateur, 1921. In the tale, a genealogist seeks shelter from an approaching storm in an apparently abandoned house. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Corpse Light" is a short story by British writer Dick Donovan (aka J. E. Preston Muddock). It's the tale of a sceptical physician, and a windmill known as 'The Haunted Mill'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Mark on the Wall" is a short story by British author, Virginia Woolf, in which a trivial observation triggers a tidal wave of introspection, and self-reflection. The story first appeared in 1917 as part of the collection, Two Stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices