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Audiobooks Narrated by Simon Hester
Browse audiobooks narrated by Simon Hester, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
"Though he is most often remembered as the architect of the modern tale of terror, Edgar Allan Poe's short fiction ranges far beyond the confines of the macabre. In these 13 selected stories, he deals not merely with fear, but with consciousness itself: its obsessions, its perversities, its fragile hold upon identity, memory, and reason.
Ligeia – A meditation on beauty, intellect, and the terrifying possibility that the will may conquer death itself.
Berenice – A stark study of monomania, in which intellectual obsession descends into horror.
Eleonora – A gentle tale, exploring idealised love, memory, and the redemptive power of beauty.
Morella – A dark philosophical romance concerning the persistence of the self beyond death.
Three Sundays in a Week – A playful tale of ingenuity and deception.
The Imp of the Perverse – Poe’s chilling exploration of the irrational impulse that drives us toward self-destruction.
The Assignation – A tale of passion and fatalism, set against a decaying aristocratic world .
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar – A disturbing experiment at the border of life and death, told with clinical precision.
The Cask of Amontillado – A masterclass in cool revenge, where pride, cruelty, and calculation lead to perfect atrocity.
Silence – A Fable – A haunting parable about the terror of absolute stillness.
Shadow – A Parable – A solemn meditation on death and inevitability.
The Man of the Crowd – An early exploration of urban alienation and the unsettling mystery of the unknowable individual.
Some Words with a Mummy – A sharp satire skewering modern arrogance through an encounter with the ancient past."
"First published in 1912, The Unbearable Bassington stands as Saki’s most substantial venture into longer fiction, and perhaps his most poignant. Known primarily for his razor-edged short stories—where wit, mischief, and a certain cool cruelty dance in quick succession—Saki (H. H. Munro) brings those same gifts to this novel, but with a deeper, darker resonance.
At the centre of the story is Comus Bassington: charming, feckless, brilliant, and disastrously ill-suited to the demands of the polite Edwardian world that surrounds him. His mother, the formidable Francesca, hopes to guide him toward a respectable life, but her ambitions collide with his temperament at every turn. What begins as social comedy gradually shades into tragedy, revealing Saki’s acute understanding of human frailty—and his sense that society’s expectations can crush as easily as they refine."
"Charles Dickens’s The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848) was the last of his five Christmas books, following A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, and The Battle of Life. Like its predecessors, it is not a simple tale of the festive season but a moral study that uses the supernatural to explore human sympathy, memory, and redemption."
"First published in 1858, Phantastes stands as one of the earliest and most influential works of modern fantasy. In this dreamlike tale, George MacDonald leads his readers through the mysterious “Fairy Land,” where the boundaries between reality and imagination dissolve. Beneath its enchanted forests and shifting shadows lies a profound spiritual allegory—a journey of the soul toward self-knowledge, purity, and love.
Though often whimsical and strange, Phantastes speaks to the deepest human longing for transformation and transcendence. Its influence echoes through the works of later writers such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, who both regarded MacDonald as a master of mythic storytelling."
"Charles Dickens’s The Battle of Life is a tender tale of love, sacrifice, and the quiet struggles of the human heart. When two devoted sisters face choices that could change their futures forever, they discover that life’s true “battle” is not fought with swords, but with selflessness and compassion. Though one of Dickens’s lesser-known Christmas Books, this charming story carries his timeless message of hope, generosity, and the triumph of love over hardship."
"The four tales gathered here reveal Oscar Wilde’s gift for blending wit, irony, and moral reflection within the form of the short story.
- Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime is a darkly comic exploration of fate and free will, where polite society collides with the absurd.
- The Canterville Ghost playfully turns the traditional ghost story on its head, offering satire as sharp as it is humorous.
- In The Sphinx Without a Secret, Wilde meditates on mystery and illusion, showing how beauty and enigma may dissolve under the scrutiny of truth.
- Finally, The Model Millionaire provides a tender moral fable, reminding us that generosity and kindness carry more value than wealth or charm.
Head Stories Audio presents 'Oscar Wilde - Four Stories', with narration and original music by Simon Hester."
"First published in 1846, The Double: A Petersburg Poem marks one of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s earliest and most daring explorations of the human psyche. Often overshadowed by his later masterpieces, The Double is nevertheless a crucial work in Dostoevsky’s literary evolution — a precursor to the psychological complexity and existential themes that would define Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and Notes from Underground.
The novella tells the story of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a low-ranking civil servant whose already fragile identity begins to unravel when he encounters his exact double — a man who is identical in appearance but possesses all the social charm and confidence Golyadkin lacks. What follows is a haunting descent into paranoia, self-alienation, and mental disintegration, all set against the bureaucratic backdrop of 19th-century St. Petersburg."
"In The Green Fairy Book, Andrew Lang continues his celebrated work of gathering fairy tales from many nations into one collection, preserving stories that have delighted generations and offering them anew to young readers—and to all who value the enduring charm of folklore. This volume, the third in Lang’s famous “Coloured” Fairy Book series, draws its tales from an especially wide array of sources: French, German, Russian, Italian, Scottish, and even oral traditions from tribal cultures such as the Zulus of South Africa.
Lang, though a scholar of history and literature, held a deep affection for the fairy tale. In his original introduction, he writes, “The fairy tale is the oldest form of fiction, and it may be the most enduring.” He believed that fairy tales served not only to entertain but to cultivate imagination, to sharpen a child’s sense of wonder, and to subtly shape moral understanding. Though some may dismiss such tales as fanciful or outdated, Lang insisted that they contain “a kind of poetry and fun which children appreciate more than people suppose.”
Not all of the stories have the neat, happy endings we have come to expect from the sanitised versions of Fairy Tales in the 20th Century, and quite a few have their macabre and bloodthirsty moments!
Head Stories Audio presents 'The Green Fairy Book' by Andrew Lang. Narration and original music by Simon Hester."
"Delight in the whimsical world of childhood through the writing of some of the most beloved poets in English literature. Selected Poems for Children brings together works by Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, and Robert Browning—poems that brim with imagination, humour, and unforgettable characters.
In this charming collection, Simon Hester's warm, engaging narration and evocative music bring to life timeless classics such as Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verse, Lear's eccentric Nonsense Poems, Carroll's fantastical Jabberwocky, and the misadventures of The Hunting of the Snark. You’ll also enjoy Belloc's somewhat macabre Cautionary Tales and the tragic story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin—all narrated with the perfect blend of joy and intrigue that children (and the young at heart) will treasure."
"First published in 1909, Tono-Bungay is one of H.G. Wells’s most striking novels, blending sharp social critique with personal reflection. It tells the story of George Ponderevo, a scientifically minded young man who becomes entangled in the world of speculative business through his uncle’s fraudulent patent medicine, Tono-Bungay. Through George’s journey—from an obscure provincial upbringing to the heights of financial success and eventual disillusionment—Wells offers a biting satire of Edwardian capitalism, class mobility, and the moral compromises of ambition.
While Tono-Bungay is often read as a critique of reckless entrepreneurship, it is also a deeply personal work, reflecting Wells’s own concerns about progress, empire, and the fleeting nature of wealth. The novel captures the tension between scientific idealism and the chaotic forces of commerce, making it as relevant today as it was over a century ago.
At once humorous and tragic, sweeping and intimate, Tono-Bungay remains one of Wells’s finest literary achievements—a novel that continues to provoke thought about the nature of success and the price of modernity."
"First published in 1895, Lilith stands as one of George MacDonald’s most enigmatic and haunting works, a blend of fantasy, theology, and metaphysical speculation. Revered by literary giants such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, MacDonald’s fiction does not merely tell stories—it beckons readers into a deeper reality where moral and spiritual truths are woven into the very fabric of narrative.
Lilith is not a conventional fantasy. Instead, it is a dreamlike descent into questions of life, death, identity, and salvation. The protagonist, Mr. Vane, a reserved scholar, stumbles into a surreal realm beyond the physical world, where he encounters spectral beings, timeless landscapes, and the mysterious figure of Lilith—a being of both terrible beauty and tragic consequence. The novel explores the path from self-will to self-surrender, drawing heavily on Christian mysticism, Platonism, and a deep reverence for divine grace."
"Head Stories presents the 3rd volume of Selected Short Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Simon Hester. With original music.
- The Brown Hand - Upon his return from India, an eminent doctor is haunted by a patient in search of something that was taken from him.
- The King of the Foxes - In an effort to shake off a hangover a young man joins a fox hunt, only to experience much more than he expected!
- Lot 249 - An Oxford medical student is warned not to become familiar with his mysterious neighbouring student. He soon finds out why.
- How It Happened - A recollection of a dramatic motoring accident.
- The Terror of Blue John Gap - Whilst convalescing in Derbyshire, a young man is determined to discover what lurks in the local caves.
- The Contest - A Greek poet finds himself in an unlooked for competition with a powerful stranger.
- An Iconoclast - The origin story of the 'Venus de Milo'.
- The Blighting of Captain Sharkey - A notorious Pirate meets his nemesis.
- The Lost Special - The mysterious case of a disappearing train.
- A Pastoral Horror - A quiet Austrian village witnesses a series of horrific murders.
- John Barrington Cowles - The writer narrates the tragic story of his friend's death and his suspicions and fears as to the cause.
- The Curse of Eve - A touching story of a difficult birth."
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