Textbook Stuff podcast

Another sneak preview from Howard Carter's forthcoming music album, Dark Light, which is released later on this week! This is a fantasia based on Christina Rossetti's epic poem, 'Goblin Market', which is on our unabridged audiobook of Christina Rossetti - Selected Poems read by Miriam Margolyes. If you want to pre-order a copy of this music album, simply visit the Dark Light page on our website and click Buy Now, which takes you through to PayPal. The moment the album is finished - only a matter of days away - you'll receive an email with instructions on how to download your personal copy. More previews from Dark Light in due course.

In the second of our sneak peeks at Howard Carter's forthcoming music album, Dark Light, we play an extract from The Three Crowns Suite. This three-part composition is based on A Warning To The Curious, the second story on our unabridged audiobook of M.R. James - Casting the Runes and Other Uncanny Tales read by Andrew Sachs. The narrative concerns the existence of three holy Anglo-Saxon crowns, said to protect Britain from Vikings and other invaders. Each movement in Howard's suite deals with a different holy crown. If you want to pre-order a copy of this album, simply visit the Dark Light page on our website and click Buy Now, which takes you through to PayPal. The moment the album is finished, you'll receive an email with instructions on how to download your personal copy. More previews from Dark Light in due course.

We're terribly excited about Howard Carter's forthcoming soundtrack album, Dark Light. So thrilled, in fact, that we couldn't resist playing you a quick preview. It'll be another month or so before Dark Light is released, but you can pre-order it now and have it delivered to you the moment it's finished. More previews as the weeks progress!

The legend that is David Soul talks to Textbook Stuff's Barnaby Edwards about Edgar Allan Poe, the psychology of terror and sympathy for the underdog. Edgar Allan Poe - The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Macabre Tales is now available to buy from iTunes and other retailers. The audiobook contains unabridged readings of five classic Poe stories: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and Hop-Frog. See our web site for further details. Please let us know your thoughts in our podcast forum. Thanks for listening!

TextbookStuff.com presents Edgar Allan Poe - The Pit and the Pendulum & Other Macabre Tales. Read by David Soul. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe’s full-blooded Gothic style influenced generations of writers, filmmakers and musicians, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Baudelaire to Roger Corman and Lou Reed. The five tales collected here range from the famous to the obscure, but each displays Poe's unique sense of the macabre and his love for the baroque. A victim of the Inquisition finds himself in a nightmarish torture chamber, a castle is besieged by plague, a man becomes obsessed by the evil eye of his fellow lodger, a mesmerist suspends a man's life at the point of death and a jester takes his revenge on his cruel employers. ON SALE NOW.

Actor, writer and director Nicholas Pegg talks to Textbook Stuff's Barnaby Edwards about Andrew Marvell, metaphysical dewdrops, quaint wordplay and stressed remoras. Andrew Marvell - Selected Poems is now available to buy from Lulu and other retailers. The selection includes ‘To His Coy Mistress’, ‘The Garden’ and ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’, plus a complete and unabridged reading of Marvell’s longest poem, ‘Upon Appleton House’. See our web site for further details. Please let us know your thoughts in our podcast forum. Thanks for listening!

TextbookStuff.com presents Andrew Marvell - Selected Poems. Read by Nicholas Pegg. Andrew Marvell (1621-78) was best known during his lifetime as a classical scholar and political satirist. Although a friend and colleague of John Milton and an unofficial laureate to Oliver Cromwell, he was virtually unknown as a lyric poet until after his death. Reappraised by later generations and now famed for the elegant style, enigmatic wit and emotive power of works like ‘The Garden’, ‘The Definition of Love’ and ‘To His Coy Mistress’, Marvell has taken his place among the greatest of the metaphysical poets. ON SALE NOW.

Welcome to Textbook Stuff's second full-length podcast! This month we take a look behind the scenes of our June releases: Bram Stoker - Dracula's Guest and Other Dark Tales and Christina Rossetti - Selected Poems Presented by Barnaby Edwards and featuring exclusive interviews with Peter Guinness and Miriam Margolyes, this podcast is chock-full of goodies - clips, music extracts, trailers, listeners' comments and reviews, potted biogs of Bram Stoker and Christina Rossetti, and yet another free poem. As ever, let us know your thoughts in our podcast forum. Thanks for listening!

TextbookStuff.com presents Bram Stoker - Dracula's Guest and Other Dark Tales. Read by Peter Guinness. Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish novelist and theatre manager. Most famous for his perennial classic Dracula (1897), Stoker also wrote a number of supernatural short stories inspired by his love of all things weird, dark and Gothic. The three tales collected here display Stoker’s characteristic sense of the dramatic, shot through with flashes of mordant wit and dripping with the purest evil. A young Englishman finds himself prey to vampires and werewolves in a snowbound graveyard, a student is terrorized by a giant rat, and young newlyweds are haunted by a gipsy’s prediction that one of them will kill the other. ON SALE NOW.

TextbookStuff.com presents Christina Rossetti - Selected Poems Read by Miriam Margolyes. Christina Rossetti (1830-94) was an English poet. Sister to the great Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and niece of Byron’s physician John Polidori (author ofThe Vampyre), Christina wrote poetry from the age of seven. The publication of her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), made her a household name and secured her status alongside Elizabeth Barrett Browning as one of the most influential female voices in nineteenth-century poetry. As her family connections might suggest, Christina Rossetti’s work displays not only a strong religious sentiment but also a profound love of fairytale and folklore, laced with a dash of the macabre. ON SALE NOW.