“I'm delighted to announce a new series of ghost story readings from E F Benson and other authors. Search YouTube for Ghost Stories read by Richard Crowest.”Par Richard Crowest

“I woke again with the sense that there was something creeping up to the house, like the fog that was now thick outside my window, and seeking admittance.”Par Richard Crowest

“With a sudden sinking of his heart, he heard behind him the step which he thought he had silenced for ever.”Par Richard Crowest

“I went to sleep at once, and from dreamlessness awoke suddenly to a consciousness of terror and imminent peril.”Par Richard Crowest

“Terror, that was slowly becoming a little more definite, terror of some dark and violent deed that was momently drawing nearer to me held me in its vice.”Par Richard Crowest

“At that moment I saw the face of Fear; my mouth went dry, and I heard my heart leaping and cracking in my throat.”Par Richard Crowest

“All was not well with the house: in some strange manner the shadow that had come between her closed eyes and the sun as she sat on the garden-bench had entered, and was establishing itself more firmly day by day.”Par Richard Crowest

“I could not stir, I could not speak. I could only strain my ears for the inaudible and my eyes for the unseen, while the cold wind from the very valley of the shadow of death streamed over me.” (Note: this story features a suicide.)Par Richard Crowest

“Then suddenly I saw something black move in the dimness in front of me, and against the grey foam rose up first the head, then the shoulders, and finally the whole figure of a woman…”Par Richard Crowest

“I am sure that no phantom of the dead that die not could have evoked so unnerving a terror.”Par Richard Crowest

“I tell you that vampirism is by no means extinct now. An outbreak of it certainly occurred in India a year or two ago.”Par Richard Crowest

“Every guest on his arrival in the house is told that the long gallery must not be entered after nightfall on any pretext whatever.”Par Richard Crowest

“In the shadows in the corner of my room there sits something more substantial than a shadow.”Par Richard Crowest

“Then the sense of nightmare began, for his two companions, gripping him tightly, pulled him along towards it, and he struggled with them knowing there was something terrible within.”Par Richard Crowest

“An odd uneasiness came over me, for I had been so certain that the house was uninhabited.”Par Richard Crowest

“At that moment the memory of the séance the evening before, about which up till now I had somehow felt distrustful and suspicious, passed into the realm of sober fact…”Par Richard Crowest

“Soft as the fall of a single snow-flake, fear settled on his heart…”Par Richard Crowest

“Find it and have it buried, and then I shall be free from its dreadful presence.”Par Richard Crowest

“The only live thing that lurked here was that monstrous, mysterious creature of evil.”Par Richard Crowest

“Just room for one inside, sir…”Par Richard Crowest

“A-pen-ara curses any who desecrates or meddles with her bones…”Par Richard Crowest

“Jack will show you your room. I have given you… the room in the tower…”Par Richard Crowest

“In the paralysis of that fear I tried to scream, but not a sound could I utter.”Par Richard Crowest

“The thing seemed scarcely human at all; it was a monster from which he had delivered himself...”Par Richard Crowest

“A dream hasn’t anything real about it, has it? It doesn’t mean anything?”Par Richard Crowest

“I think that before I opened the pill-box I expected something of the sort which I found in it.”Par Richard Crowest

“I knew I was not alone in the room. There was something there, something silent as yet, and as yet invisible. But it was there.”Par Richard Crowest

“One of the things invisible, of the dark powers, leaped into light, and I saw it with my eyes…”Par Richard Crowest

Recorded in front of an audience at E F Benson’s home, Lamb House in Rye.Par Richard Crowest

"I can't go back now. I wouldn't if I could; not a step would I retrace…"Par Richard Crowest

It is not only the dead who haunt the living.Par Richard Crowest

“Surely this is the strangest manner of song ever yet heard on the earth, this melody from the brain of the dead...”Par Richard Crowest

Something has come in to the house. Come in out of the rain...Par Richard Crowest