In print, Edgar Allan Poe was never one of my favourite authors; his style of writing could be tough to wade through at times. However, this Textbook Stuff releases of five Poe stories on audio - all of which are presented in unabridged form with narration by David Soul - are extremely enjoyable to listen to. Each tale is a superb reading from end to end. If you like Edgar Allan Poe, do take some time to seek out this excellent reading of some of his best tales...

This first release of the Textbook Stuff 'Horror' range has John Sessions reading Dickens in to a microphone. Sounds boring huh? Not a bit of it! An excellent collection of some short stories of the macabre by the great Charles Dickens, including the unfamiliar - and very chilling - tale, 'A Confession Found In A Prison In The Time Of Charles II'. These Charles Dickens stories are wonderfully brought to life by John Sessions and the atmospheric background music of Howard Carter. This collection of unabridged readings are produced to a high standard that makes other audio-book readings sound rather flat by comparison.

'The Signalman & Other Ghostly Tales' is an excellent introduction to the Textbook Stuff range of audio-books and is a nice sample of some ghostly Charles Dickens tales. Highly recommended.

This Textbook Stuff release of three M.R.James short stories has been out for a while now and I recently decided to re-listen to these stories. I was really impressed at how good they still are. This collection of tales by M.R. James is an excellent choice for late night listening. They are not horrific ghost stories by today's standards, they are a more subtle take on supernatural 'happenings' that anyone familiar with the works of M.R.James would be used to. Andrew Sachs does a really wonderful job at reading these three short stories, each of which has it's own merits, while the sound design - like the rest of the Textbook Stuff range - only adds to the atmosphere to create three brilliant tales of the unknown that should be listened to with the lights on. 'Casting The Runes & Other Uncanny Tales' would serve as a good introduction to the works of M.R. James for anybody unfamiliar with his style of story telling.