Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
English traveller Harcourt Blunt becomes entranced by a beautiful Jewish woman in Venice, although they are not introduced and do not speak. A year later, however, he meets her in the Jewish cemetery, dressed in mourning and sitting by a grave. This time he plucks up the courage to talk to her, and she asks him for help...
A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.
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Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831–1892) was a prolific journalist, traveller and Egyptologist, as well as a hugely popular English novelist of the Victorian era. Born in London she was well educated at home by her Irish mother, and showed early promise as a writer as well as demonstrating skill in several other areas, including painting and musical composition. She devoted herself to writing professionally from the early 1850s, producing novels including 'My Brother's Wife' (1855) and 'Barbara's History' (1864). She also travelled widely, usually with her companion Lucy Renshawe, and published several travelogues, including 'A Thousand Miles up the Nile' (1877), which is still widely read and admired today. Aside from her travel writing she is best remembered today for her many short stories with ghostly, supernatural and mysterious themes, many of which were contributed anonymously to literary magazines. Charles Dickens regularly invited her to compose seasonal tales for his annual Christmas numbers of 'All the Year Round' between 1860 and 1866. It's unclear why she didn't contribute any stories to the publication between 1866 and 1870 – it's possible Dickens rejected her 1866 story 'The Four-fifteen Express' as too long, so she took it elsewhere – but his son, Charles Dickens junior, invited her to return after Dickens's death in 1870.
'The Story of Salome' was first published in Tinsley’s Christmas Annual in 1867. Although 'The Phantom Coach' is still perhaps Edwards's most famous ghost story, 'The Story of Salome' has remained widely read and became increasingly well-known after its inclusion in the current edition of The Virago Book of Ghost Stories by female authors.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2021.
English traveller Harcourt Blunt becomes entranced by a beautiful Jewish woman in Venice, although they are not introduced and do not speak. A year later, however, he meets her in the Jewish cemetery, dressed in mourning and sitting by a grave. This time he plucks up the courage to talk to her, and she asks him for help...
A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.
If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, you may like to consider supporting me on Patreon:
patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
Or for occasional one-off contributions, you can Buy Me a Coffee here: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831–1892) was a prolific journalist, traveller and Egyptologist, as well as a hugely popular English novelist of the Victorian era. Born in London she was well educated at home by her Irish mother, and showed early promise as a writer as well as demonstrating skill in several other areas, including painting and musical composition. She devoted herself to writing professionally from the early 1850s, producing novels including 'My Brother's Wife' (1855) and 'Barbara's History' (1864). She also travelled widely, usually with her companion Lucy Renshawe, and published several travelogues, including 'A Thousand Miles up the Nile' (1877), which is still widely read and admired today. Aside from her travel writing she is best remembered today for her many short stories with ghostly, supernatural and mysterious themes, many of which were contributed anonymously to literary magazines. Charles Dickens regularly invited her to compose seasonal tales for his annual Christmas numbers of 'All the Year Round' between 1860 and 1866. It's unclear why she didn't contribute any stories to the publication between 1866 and 1870 – it's possible Dickens rejected her 1866 story 'The Four-fifteen Express' as too long, so she took it elsewhere – but his son, Charles Dickens junior, invited her to return after Dickens's death in 1870.
'The Story of Salome' was first published in Tinsley’s Christmas Annual in 1867. Although 'The Phantom Coach' is still perhaps Edwards's most famous ghost story, 'The Story of Salome' has remained widely read and became increasingly well-known after its inclusion in the current edition of The Virago Book of Ghost Stories by female authors.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2021.
