About Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1848) transformed the American literary landscape with his innovations in the short story genre and his haunting lyrical poetry, and he is credited with inventing American gothic horror and detective fiction.
About Lafcadio Hearn
The improbable life story of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) included a peculiarly gothic childhood in Ireland during which he was successively abandoned by his mother, his father and his guardian; two decades in the United States, where he worked as a journalist and was sacked for marrying a former slave; and a long period in Japan, where he married a Japanese woman and wrote about Japanese society and aesthetics for a Western readership. His ghost stories, which were drawn from Japanese folklore and influenced by Buddhist beliefs, appeared in collections throughout the 1890s and 1900s. He is a much celebrated figure in Japan.
About Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) led a
rich and varied life. Storyteller, mystic, adventurer, and radio and television
personality, he is best remembered for his two superlative horror stories, “The
Willows” and “The Wendigo.” But in his lifetime he wrote over 150 stories, at
least a dozen novels, two plays, and quite a few children’s books as well. By
the time of his death, he had become one of the greatest writers of
supernatural fiction in the twentieth century.
About Jack London
Jack London (1876–1916) was an American author, journalist, and
social activist. Before making a living at his writing, he spent time as an
oyster pirate, a sailor, a cannery worker, a gold miner, and a journalist. He
was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and
was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large
fortune from his fiction writing. He is best known for his novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set during the Klondike
gold rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire,” “An Odyssey of the
North,” and “Love of Life.” He also
wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The
Heathen.” He was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the
rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics,
including The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.
About Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce (1842–ca. 1914) was an American journalist, short-story writer, and poet. Born in Ohio, he served in the Civil War and then settled in San Francisco. He wrote for Hearst’s Examiner, his wit and satire making him the literary dictator of the Pacific coast and strongly influencing many writers. He disappeared into war-torn Mexico in 1913.
About Joseph Lewis French
Joseph Lewis French (1858–1936) was an author and anthologist, with a particular interest in literature dealing with the supernatural.
About Amy Soakes
Amy Soakes is an Australian voice actor with over twenty years of experience both in performing and production. She has produced over eight hundred video segments and voiced over a thousand television shows, corporate videos, training programs, and commercials. An expert in utilizing accents, she has been narrating audiobooks for more than four years.
About Dorothy Scarborough
Dorothy Scarborough (1878–1935) was an author and anthologist, with a particular interest in literature dealing with the supernatural.
