← Guides 3 October 2026 · Aloud

Free ghost stories to listen to this Halloween

The best ghost stories in English are more than a century old, which means they’re out of copyright and free. These are the four that Aloud puts on its Ghost stories shelf every October, with a little on what each one is like to listen to.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

A governess takes a job at a country house called Bly, caring for two children whose previous governess died. She starts seeing two figures around the grounds, and becomes convinced they’re after the children. The question James never answers is whether the ghosts are real.

It’s the most demanding listen on this list. James writes long sentences that fold back on themselves, so slow the voice down a notch and give it your full attention. Allow roughly four to five hours. It’s on Project Gutenberg as book 209.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James

Eight stories by a Cambridge scholar who wrote them to read aloud to friends at Christmas. That origin shows. They’re built for a listener, with plain openings, a slow build and a last page you’ll remember. “Lost Hearts” and “Count Magnus” are good places to start.

This is the easiest pick if you’ve never listened to old fiction before. Each story stands alone, and most run well under an hour. It’s Gutenberg book 8486.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Ichabod Crane, a lanky schoolteacher, courts a farmer’s daughter in a Dutch village in New York, and rides home late one night past the place where the Headless Horseman is said to appear. It’s funnier than its reputation and more of a campfire tale than a fright.

It’s short, at about an hour and a half, so it suits Halloween night itself. Irving loves a long description of food and landscape, which a steady narrating voice handles well. Gutenberg book 41.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

A young woman named Laura lives with her father in a remote castle in Styria. After a carriage accident, a mysterious girl called Carmilla comes to stay, and Laura starts to sicken. It came out in 1872, a quarter of a century before Dracula, and it’s widely seen as an influence on Bram Stoker.

It’s told in the first person as a long confession, which makes it a natural listen. Allow a few hours. Gutenberg book 10007.

Where to find them free

All four are free public-domain books on Project Gutenberg, which has EPUB and plain text versions you can download. LibriVox, a volunteer project, records public-domain books read by people, and it’s worth searching there for any title you’d rather hear in a human voice. How to get a Gutenberg book onto your iPhone.

Listening to them in Aloud

Aloud is an audiobook reader for iPhone and iPad. I make it, so weigh that. Its search covers more than 125,000 public-domain books, including all four above, and opening a book from that search is free.

During October, the Ghost stories shelf leads the Browse tab, and Aloud offers these four as a small gift you can add to your library in one tap. The narration is generated on the device. Nothing is uploaded and you don’t need an account. Once a book and a voice are downloaded, it plays offline, so you can take it somewhere properly dark. If LibriVox has a human recording of a title, you can play that instead.

Tips for listening in the dark

• Start short. One M.R. James story is a better first night than four hours of Henry James.
• Set a sleep timer if you’re listening in bed, so you don’t wake at 3 am having missed half the book.
• Pick a slower, lower voice for gothic fiction. A bright, quick voice makes even Carmilla sound cheerful.
• Fix odd names once. Old books are full of them, and Aloud lets you set how a word is pronounced so the voice gets it right from then on.

Common questions