検索キーワード： 制作 "MuseumAudiobooks.com" 選集・短編小説

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, was an Irish writer known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. His book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, comprises two parts, the first being the "Kwaidan Proper" and the second, "Insect-Studies", which consists of an essay each on ants, butterflies and mosquitos. According to the author, most of the folk tales and ghost stories in the first part were translated from old Japanese texts. The themes encompass resurrection, sacrifice, magic, and the realm of dreams.

A ghost story about a non-existent room 13 in an inn. The occupant of room 12 and the inn-keep hear noises next door, but it’s not coming from room 14. When they do discover the door to number 13, strange things start happening....

"Ligeia" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. An unnamed narrator’s beautiful and gifted wife Ligeia, falls ill and dies. After her death, the narrator marries Lady Rowena Trevanion, to whom the same thing happens. As the grief-stricken narrator keeps vigil overnight, he sees Rowena showing signs of life, in a sequence of violent revivals and relapses. When the shrouded Rowena gets up, he recognizes Ligeia, his strange and brilliant first wife. There is, however, a possibility that the narrator experienced a hallucination induced by opium.

"The Middle Toe of the Right Foot", a ghost story by the writer and Civil War soldier Ambrose Bierce, was first published in The San Francisco Examiner in 1890. A man named Manton had murdered his children, and his wife who lacked the middle toe of her right foot. A decade later, he returns to the area; and having been recognized, is provoked to a duel in the dark, to be held at the scene of the crime. When the time of the duel comes, no antagonist appears, and Manton stands alone in the haunted darkness. The next day, they found his corpse, throttled by terror, crouching in a corner.

"Mother Sauvage" by Guy de Maupassant is a short horror story of the Franco-Prussian War. The four young Prussian soldiers quartered in the house of Mother Sauvage do chores around the house as if it were their own. Mother Savage continually asks them about the French 23rd Regiment of the Line in which her son is serving, but they know nothing. When she hears of her son’s death, Mother Sauvage exacts revenge on the young soldiers. The story subtly explores the theme of revenge from the perspective of the narrator, and from the perspective of his friend Serval, who tells him the Mother Savage story.

What is considered an autographical piece, the story centers around a young couple in love in a wonderful and isolated valley of beauty, until illness changes everything and the valley, too, begins to lose its luster.

"The Domain of Arnheim" is a short tale about a man of great means named Ellison who builds a castle with a garden of breathtaking beauty called Arnheim. In "The Domain of Arnheim", Poe delves deep into the human mind, creative imagination, the soul, and the nature of beauty.

Two drunken sailors, Hugh and Legs, find themselves in a part of London quarantined due to the plague. Passing by one of the buildings, they are lured inside by loud noises and discover a party of people around a table and a cellar full of liquor. A quarrel ensues, a barrel of punch is knocked over, and everyone but the sailors and two of the women drown in the deluge of liquor.