The Mystery of the Gables

By: Elsie Norris

Narrated by: John Telfer

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Glimpses of the Unknown.

When Carstone visits his old friend, Brendan, one night, he is intrigued by the empty house next door, which is said to be haunted. Despite his host telling him many of the spooky tales that surround the old house, he accepts a dare to spend the night at The Gables, but his bravado soon falters....

Public Domain (P)2022 Isis Publishing Ltd

Avoid if you love or even mildly like animals

This started out as a great haunted house story, and the reader is excellent, I wish he read all the selections in this series. The story quickly takes a turn into the absolutely ghastly, and I truly wish the guy who was staying in the house had gotten eaten by the ghosts. This could have been something like E. F. Bensons "How Fear Departed From the Long Gallery", (which I still find terribly difficult because the setup to the ghosts being where they are in that story is appalling, but at least it goes somewhere good) but this story elects to just stay with the appalling part and build on it. It's horrible, it offers nothing, and I do not recommend it to anyone at all. Of all the Elsie Norris stories, why did they have to choose THIS one to make into an audio book? I hated it, and I now also loath Elsie Norris for writing it and will actively avoid anything by her in the future. I will say it's still, sadly, quite relevant to the state of animals and how they are treated to this very day, which makes it even worse.