The Technique of the Mystery Story: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Technique of the Mystery Story, credited to Carolyn Wells, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Technique of the Mystery Story by Carolyn Wells. Read in English by Lynn Lee; TomDavisBeal; Sonia; Timothy Ferguson; Larry Wilson; Christine Lehman; Douglas Taylor; pattymarie; sawasawaya; acousticwave; Joseph Tabler; realisticspeakers; Scotty Smith; HenryElliott; MacKenzie Nikol Greenwood For one, I have never been one of those who apologize for my frank and never-ending delight in mystery stories. Their mazes have led me unwearied through miles of printed pages, and if only the problem has been worth while, and its pursuit has led along surprising ways, past shuddery thickets and over fearsome bridges, my soul has returned to sober affairs refreshed and content. In a word, here is a remarkable volume which shows us how the wheels go round, not by dogmatic statement, but by an amazing breadth and variety of citation and quotation, showing not only what great mystery writers have thought of their art, but illustrating by apposite examples how they secured their effects. - Summary by J. Berg Esenwein, editor of The Writer’s Library published by The Home Correspondence School, from Introduction

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Technique of the Mystery Story
• Author credits: Carolyn Wells
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 27
• Listed recording duration: 11:15:34

Catalogue topics

• Crime
• mysteries
• how to write

Opening tracks: first 24 of 27

1. 00 - Introduction — 7:14
2. 01 - The Eternal Curious — 17:01
3. 02 - The Literature of Mystery — 20:39
4. 03 - The History of Mystery — 9:34
5. 04 - Ghost Stories — 23:16
6. 05 - Riddle Stories — 10:53
7. 06 - Detective Stories — 42:16
8. 07 - The Detective — 46:45
9. 08 - Deduction — 31:12
10. 09 - Applied Principles — 24:52
11. 10 - The Rationale of Ratiocination — 56:42
12. 11 - Close Observation — 25:42
13. 12 - Other Detectives of Fiction — 22:42
14. 13 - Portraits — 40:03
15. 14 - Devious Devices — 18:31
16. 15 - Footprints and Fingerprints — 35:32
17. 16 - More Devices — 23:33
18. 17 - Fake Devices — 23:41
19. 18 - Murder in General — 27:45
20. 19 - Persons in the Story — 21:35
21. 20 - The Handling of the Crime — 9:08
22. 21 - The Motive — 3:52
23. 22 - Evidence — 39:39
24. 23 - Structure — 24:43

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.