EnCrypted Horror - narrated by Jasper LEstrange | Seaton's Aunt by Walter de la Mare | Yes I know I messed the sound up, nothing I can do about it now @EnCryptedHorror | Uploaded May 2021 | Updated October 2024, 9 hours ago.
***A NOTE ABOUT THE SOUND QUALITY***
APOLOGIES for messing up the sound by adding too much reverb. I have learned never to do it again. Unfortunately you can't replace the video or audio once it has been uploaded so here it must stand in perpetuity as an example of my lameness. Check out my more recent videos though. They get better...
Who knows? One day I might re-record it.
***THE STORY***
A schoolboy is reluctantly drawn into the unhappy world of Arthur Seaton - a bullied outsider with a domineering aunt he believes communicates with ghosts.
This audiobook of Walter de la Mare's classic story brings "Seaton's Aunt" to vivid life with sound effects, music and compelling narration. It is part of the EnCrypted Classic Horror podcast series - read by Jasper L'Estrange.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro music
0:30 The story begins...
7:29 Meeting Miss Seaton
20:48 Night at Seaton's house
35:08 A chance meeting on The Strand
41:29 Alice
54:49 "Such a moon..."
1:05:59 The final encounter
Please support my work:
ko-fi.com/encryptedpodcast
NEW! Become a patron on Patreon! patreon.com/encryptedpod
Listen to the EnCrypted podcast on:
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Amazon Music
RadioPublic
More information: encryptedpod.blogspot.com
*********
About the episode:
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare was first published in The Riddle, and Other Stories (Selwyn & Blount Ltd, 1923).
Theme music: The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au Music promoted by chosic.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Incidental music:
Piano Sad 2 (Piano & Strings Version) by PeriTune | peritune.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Music promoted by chosic.com
Giant Wyrm by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3807-giant-wyrm
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Piano Sonata no. 14 in C-sharp minor 'Moonlight Sonata', Op. 27 no. 2
creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0
Sound effect attributions:
freesound.org/people/MeijstroAudio/sounds/372869/*
freesound.org/people/Cell31_Sound_Productions/sounds/376248/*
freesound.org/people/tosha73/sounds/530920/*
freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/411576/*
freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/44102/*
freesound.org/people/HerbertBoland/sounds/31960/*
freesound.org/people/SoundMarnus/sounds/491773/*
*All used under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
All other public domain sound effects sourced at: freesound.org
The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Anchor.
********
Although often anthologised as a such, it is questionable whether Seaton's Aunt even qualifies as a ghost story at all. Indeed, it is entirely possible to read Walter de la Mare's chronicle of the luckless Arthur Seaton and his domineering aunt as being simply a character study of a grotesque harridan and the catastrophic effect on those in her thrall. It would hold no less horror.
Nevertheless, something isn't quite... right...in this story - one of de la Mare's best-known, and one which, in many ways anticipates the "strange stories" Robert Aickman (a de la Mare admirer) would be penning some forty years later. Another fan, H.P. Lovecraft saw Seaton's Aunt as a tale of vampirism, even if its author eschews traditional blood-sucking in favour of either financial parasitism (the aunt exploiting Seaton for his inheritance) or, worse, the aunt as ghoul, feasting on poor Arthur's psychological discomfort.
In short, there may not be supernatural menace at the heart of the story, but Seaton's Aunt is certainly a monster. There may, or may not be, ghosts, but the characters are most certainly haunted.
It is possible, then, that some readers/listeners may be disappointed that de la Mare isn't more explicit. Others will find sufficient horror in the dysfunctional power dynamic between aunt and nephew, and the pathos in de la Mare's portrayal of a bullied outsider and his doomed life.
I, for one, am reminded of the following speech from another memorable outsider in the annals of horror:
"You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch."
- Norman Bates, Psycho (1960) (screenplay: John Stefano)
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist.
***A NOTE ABOUT THE SOUND QUALITY***
APOLOGIES for messing up the sound by adding too much reverb. I have learned never to do it again. Unfortunately you can't replace the video or audio once it has been uploaded so here it must stand in perpetuity as an example of my lameness. Check out my more recent videos though. They get better...
Who knows? One day I might re-record it.
***THE STORY***
A schoolboy is reluctantly drawn into the unhappy world of Arthur Seaton - a bullied outsider with a domineering aunt he believes communicates with ghosts.
This audiobook of Walter de la Mare's classic story brings "Seaton's Aunt" to vivid life with sound effects, music and compelling narration. It is part of the EnCrypted Classic Horror podcast series - read by Jasper L'Estrange.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro music
0:30 The story begins...
7:29 Meeting Miss Seaton
20:48 Night at Seaton's house
35:08 A chance meeting on The Strand
41:29 Alice
54:49 "Such a moon..."
1:05:59 The final encounter
Please support my work:
ko-fi.com/encryptedpodcast
NEW! Become a patron on Patreon! patreon.com/encryptedpod
Listen to the EnCrypted podcast on:
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Amazon Music
RadioPublic
More information: encryptedpod.blogspot.com
*********
About the episode:
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare was first published in The Riddle, and Other Stories (Selwyn & Blount Ltd, 1923).
Theme music: The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au Music promoted by chosic.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Incidental music:
Piano Sad 2 (Piano & Strings Version) by PeriTune | peritune.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Music promoted by chosic.com
Giant Wyrm by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3807-giant-wyrm
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Piano Sonata no. 14 in C-sharp minor 'Moonlight Sonata', Op. 27 no. 2
creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0
Sound effect attributions:
freesound.org/people/MeijstroAudio/sounds/372869/*
freesound.org/people/Cell31_Sound_Productions/sounds/376248/*
freesound.org/people/tosha73/sounds/530920/*
freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/411576/*
freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/44102/*
freesound.org/people/HerbertBoland/sounds/31960/*
freesound.org/people/SoundMarnus/sounds/491773/*
*All used under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
All other public domain sound effects sourced at: freesound.org
The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Anchor.
********
Although often anthologised as a such, it is questionable whether Seaton's Aunt even qualifies as a ghost story at all. Indeed, it is entirely possible to read Walter de la Mare's chronicle of the luckless Arthur Seaton and his domineering aunt as being simply a character study of a grotesque harridan and the catastrophic effect on those in her thrall. It would hold no less horror.
Nevertheless, something isn't quite... right...in this story - one of de la Mare's best-known, and one which, in many ways anticipates the "strange stories" Robert Aickman (a de la Mare admirer) would be penning some forty years later. Another fan, H.P. Lovecraft saw Seaton's Aunt as a tale of vampirism, even if its author eschews traditional blood-sucking in favour of either financial parasitism (the aunt exploiting Seaton for his inheritance) or, worse, the aunt as ghoul, feasting on poor Arthur's psychological discomfort.
In short, there may not be supernatural menace at the heart of the story, but Seaton's Aunt is certainly a monster. There may, or may not be, ghosts, but the characters are most certainly haunted.
It is possible, then, that some readers/listeners may be disappointed that de la Mare isn't more explicit. Others will find sufficient horror in the dysfunctional power dynamic between aunt and nephew, and the pathos in de la Mare's portrayal of a bullied outsider and his doomed life.
I, for one, am reminded of the following speech from another memorable outsider in the annals of horror:
"You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch."
- Norman Bates, Psycho (1960) (screenplay: John Stefano)
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist.
