20 Must-Read Historical Thrillers
Victorian Gothic Mysteries, Political Intrigue, Imperial Adventure, and Early Crime FictionBy Meadows Taylor, Thomas Peckett Prest, James Malcolm Rymer, Bernard Edward Joseph Capes, William Harrison Ainsworth, Gaston Leroux, Arthur W. Marchmont, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Fergus Hume, G. K. Chesterton, Wilkie Collins, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Thomas De Quincey, Richard Marsh, Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Length281h 32m
About this audiobook
20 Must-Read Historical Thrillers surveys the porous borders between historical romance, Gothic terror, sensation fiction, detective narrative, imperial adventure, and melodrama. Its selections range across revolutionary intrigue, inherited secrets, conspiracies, uncanny threats, and crimes embedded in vividly reconstructed pasts. The volume's significance lies in showing how suspense makes history experiential: grand political upheavals and private mysteries alike become occasions for pursuing questions of identity, power, class, and memory. Particularly striking are its scenes of pursuit, concealed lineage, and threatened domesticity, which reveal the thriller's debt to both romance and realism. The contributors form a notably transnational nineteenth- and early twentieth-century constellation, joining French historical adventure and mystery with British and Anglo-American Gothic, sensation, imperial, and detective traditions. Their varied careers encompass popular serial fiction, canonical novels, travel-inflected narratives, and experiments in psychological unease. Together, these voices illuminate the period's expanding print culture and its fascination with crime, empire, urban modernity, and the haunted remnants of earlier eras. Recommended for students and general readers alike, this anthology offers an unusually rich comparative encounter with the historical thriller. Reading across its diverse styles encourages attention to changing techniques of suspense and competing interpretations of the past. It is both an accessible introduction and a rewarding invitation to trace a sustained dialogue among adventure, fear, investigation, and historical imagination.
Audiobook details
GenreMystery and Thriller
Length281 hrs 32 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 31, 2024
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
120 Must-Read Historical Thrillers
2PREFACE.
3CHAPTER I. THE STRANGE CUSTOMER AT SWEENEY TODD'S.
4CHAPTER II THE SPECTACLE-MAKER'S DAUGHTER.
5CHAPTER III. A MAN IS LOST.
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6CHAPTER IV. THE PIE-SHOP, BELL-YARD.
7CHAPTER V THE MEETING IN THE TEMPLE.
8CHAPTER VI. THE CONFERENCE, AND THE FEARFUL NARRATION IN THE GARDEN.
9CHAPTER VII. THE BARBER AND THE LAPIDARY.
10CHAPTER VIII. THE THIEVES' HOME.
11CHAPTER IX. JOHANNA AT HOME, AND THE RESOLUTION.
12CHAPTER X. THE COLONEL AND HIS FRIEND.
13CHAPTER XI. THE STRANGER AT LOVETT'S.
14CHAPTER XII. THE RESOLUTION COME TO BY JOHANNA OAKLEY.
15CHAPTER XIII. JOHANNA'S INTERVIEW WITH ARABELLA WILMOT, AND THE ADVICE.
16CHAPTER XIV. TOBIAS'S THREAT, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
17CHAPTER XV. THE SECOND INTERVIEW BETWEEN JOHANNA AND THE COLONEL IN THE TEMPLE GARDENS.
18CHAPTER XVI. THE BARBER MAKES ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO SELL THE STRING OF PEARLS.
19CHAPTER XIV. THE GREAT CHANGE IN THE PROSPECTS OF SWEENEY TODD.
20CHAPTER XV. TOBIAS'S ADVENTURES DURING THE ABSENCE OF SWEENEY TODD.
21CHAPTER XVI. THE STRANGE ODOUR IN OLD ST. DUNSTAN'S CHURCH.
22CHAPTER XVII. SWEENEY TODD'S PROCEEDINGS CONSEQUENT UPON THE DEPARTURE OF TOBIAS.
23CHAPTER XVIII. THE MISADVENTURE OF TOBIAS.—THE MAD-HOUSE ON PECKHAM-RYE.
24CHAPTER XIX. THE MADHOUSE CELL.
25CHAPTER XX. THE NEW COOK TO MRS. LOVETT GETS TIRED OF HIS SITUATION.
26CHAPTER XXI. THE NIGHT AT THE MADHOUSE.
27CHAPTER XXII. MR. FOGG'S STORY AT THE MADHOUSE TO SWEENEY TODD.
28CHAPTER XXIV. COLONEL JEFFERY MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO COME AT SWEENEY TODD'S SECRET.
29CHAPTER XXV. TOBIAS MAKES AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM THE MADHOUSE.
30CHAPTER XXVI. THE MADHOUSE YARD, AND TOBIAS'S NEW FRIEND.
31CHAPTER XXVII. THE CONSULTATION OF COLONEL JEFFERY WITH THE MAGISTRATE.
32CHAPTER XXVIII. TOBIAS'S ESCAPE FROM MR. FOGG'S ESTABLISHMENT.
33CHAPTER XXIX. TOBIAS'S RAPID JOURNEY TO LONDON.
34CHAPTER XXX. MRS. LOVETT'S COOK MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT.
35CHAPTER XXXI. SHOWS HOW TOBIAS GOT TO LONDON.
36CHAPTER XXII. TOBIAS HAS A MIND DISEASED.
37CHAPTER XXXIII. JOHANNA WALKS ABROAD IN DISGUISE.
38CHAPTER XXXIV. MR. FOGG FINDS THAT ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.
39CHAPTER XXXV. MRS. LOVETT'S NEW LOVER.
40CHAPTER XXXVI. TOBIAS'S MOTHER AWAKENS OLD RECOLLECTIONS.
41CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SEARCH AT TODD'S.
42CHAPTER XXXVIII. SIR RICHARD PRIES INTO TODD'S SECRETS.
43CHAPTER XXXIX. THE MYSTERIOUS CUPBOARD.
44CHAPTER XL. CROTCHET ASTONISHES MR. TODD.
45CHAPTER XLI. TODD'S VISION.
46CHAPTER XLII. THE GREAT SACRIFICE.
47CHAPTER XLIII. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
48CHAPTER XLIV. TODD AND THE SILVERSMITH.
49CHAPTER XLV. JOHANNA'S NEW SITUATION.
50CHAPTER XLVI. TOBIAS'S HEART IS TOUCHED.
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