Search our Shop

    FREE UK Shipping on orders over £75 | Every purchase supports the British Library

    New snacks on sale now for a limited time! Use code NEW for 15% off.

    Spectral Sounds: Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird

    This collection pairs a selection of stories from lost authors with notes on the case recognising the importance of the auditory sense on our whole experience of the horror medium. Editor Manon Burz-Labrande’s research is treading new ground, and is presented in the collection in an engaging and exciting way alongside each tale which brings a new understanding to the concept.


    Darkness now was around me – and sound. I seemed to stand in the centre of some yelling planet, the row resembling the resounding of many thousands of cannon, punctuated by strange crashing.

    The violent peals of a disconnected bell in the night; a trudging footfall in the hush of an abandoned manor; the whisper of a deathly voice in the ear: uncanny sounds remain the most frightening heralds of danger and terror in supernatural fiction. Gathered here are fourteen tales which resonate with the unique note of fear struck by weird happenings experienced through the aural sense.

    Divided into four sections exploring noises from invisible presences, ghostly voices, possessed technology and the power of extreme levels of sound or silence, this collection pulses with pioneering pieces from B. M. Croker, Algernon Blackwood, Edith Wharton and M. P. Shiel alongside haunting obscurities from the British Library collections.

    Publication date: 22/09/22

    Author: Edited by Manon Burz-Labrande

    Brand: British Library Publishing

    Number of pages: 320

    Binding: Paperback

    Dimensions: 190 x 130 mm