Whatever you do, don’t go on to the beaches at dusk, or the Sand-walker will come to your window at night. Such is the sinister warning given to the new lodger at the Beach Farm, a lonely house on the North Sea coast of England. But who, or what, is the Sand-walker?

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

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Fergus Hume (1859–1932) was born in England but grew up in New Zealand and worked in Australia before returning to his home country in 1888. A hugely prolific novelist, he never quite managed to repeat his very first popular success, 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' (1886), which became the best-selling mystery novel of the Victorian era and inspired many other writers in the genre – including Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote his first Sherlock Holmes story, 'A Study in Scarlet', the following year. Unfortunately Hume sold the rights to 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' for £50 and so never received any significant financial reward from the story which made his name.

On returning to England he produced well over a hundred novels and short stories, mostly with a theme of mystery and suspense, and occasionally the supernatural. 'The Sand-Walker', unjustly neglected and almost forgotten today, must rate as an outstanding example of the classic Victorian ghost story. Its initial publication date is uncertain but it probably appeared in a periodical around 1900; it was subsequently published in book form, along with several other stories, as part of the collection 'The Dancer in Red' in 1906.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2019.