http://librivox.org/ghost-story-collection-003/
Short Ghost Story Collection Vol. 003
What is a ghost story? M. R. James listed a number of features of the "English" ghost story: the pretence of truth; "a pleasing terror"; no gratuitous bloodshed or sex; no "explanation of the machinery"; with the setting being "those of the writer's and reader's own day". Roughly speaking, this gives the taste of what we're after, but the setting can be anywhere, of course. To me, the most effective stories have perhaps something of love in them, something of sadness, an other-worldliness, a touch of fear, a shiver of the hair on the back of your neck.
Please select and record any short ghost story in the public domain. Try to stick to works that run less than 60 minutes (shorter is good), but we're flexible. Contribute as many as you wish, and there is no need to "sign-up"...if the work is clearly in the public domain, just start recording. Multiple versions are always welcome, so don't worry whether someone else has recorded your selection already; we're happy to hear your version too: in this case, I would prefer that we (you or I) hold onto any duplicate stories to go into later collections, though.
There's a list of ghost story writers (not just ones whose stories are in the public domain) here: Author List
For some stories to read, there's Horrormasters ... and more at Literary Gothic
Be very careful: although stories may be free to download, they may still be copyright. (I spent a few hours recording a ghost story written in 1911 from Horrormasters only to find that theirs is the only copy I could find online and they're claiming copyright!)
After 10 stories are submitted, we will collect them, catalog them, and make them available to the public.
Recording Notes:
- Begin your recording with the standard Librivox Disclaimer: "This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox Recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit Librivox.org"
- Say: "[Story Title], by [Author Name]"
- At end, say: "End of [Story Title], by [Author Name]"
- Please leave a minimum of 3 seconds of silence at the end of your recording. If the recording is over 30 minutes long, leave 5 seconds; if an hour or more, 10 seconds. This is because some players cut off the end of mp3 recordings on playback.
- Recording info: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6427#6430
- More recording info: http://librivox.org/about-recording/
- Even more recording info: http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/NewbieGuideToRecording
File Name: (lower case, with words separated by underscores):
story_title_author_lastname_readers_initials.mp3 (e.g. mystery_of_death_sexton_py.mp3)
(Don't include punctuation - such as apostrophes - in the title, and abbreviate it if it's long, or starts with "the" or "a" etc.)
ID3 Tags:
- Title/Name: [Story Title] (e.g. The Mystery of Death)
- Artist: [Author Name] (e.g. Mortimer Sexton)
- Album: LibriVox Short Ghost Stories, Vol. 003
- Year: 2006
- Genre: Speech
- Track: (leave blank)
- Comment: (optional) Recorded by [your name/pseudonym plus your url, if you wish]
- If you have your own server space, you may simply post a link to your completed file in this forum
- Or send it via www.yousendit.com with my email as the recipient (peter[dot]planete[at]tiscali[dot]co[dot]uk) ... in this case please also post the generated link in this forum.
- If you can't get either of these options to work, PM me and I can give you a hand.
- Source from which you read (i.e. Gutenberg etext url)
- Your name as you would like it to appear on the catalog page.
- URL of your homepage if you have one you would like linked to your name on the catalog page.
They'll be stored there until the collection is complete. Please feel free to download from there and proof-listen any of the stories; any that aren't proofed by the time the collection is complete will be passed to the Listeners thread before the collection is passed to the catalog.
Peter
