The Weird Circle

The Weird Circle was a syndicated radio drama series produced in New York and originally broadcast between 1943 and 1945.

Production background

The series was a Ziv Production, produced at RCA's New York studios and licensed by the Mutual Broadcasting System, and later, NBC's Red network. It lasted two seasons, 39 shows each consisting mostly of radio adaptations of classic horror or supernatural stories written by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens. A few scripts were written specifically for the series. The production values were modest and The Weird Circle featured very little music.

Series opening/closing

Standard opening

Old Man: "In this cave by the restless sea, we are met to call from out of the past, stories strange and weird. Bell keeper, toll the bell, so that all may know that we are gathered again in The Weird Circle."

Alternate opening

Announcer: "Out of the past, phantoms from a world gone by speak again the immortal tale."

Standard closing

Host: "From the time worn pages of the past, we have recalled,. Bell Keeper, toll the bell!

List of Episodes

Stories dramatized in The Weird Circle came largely from public-domain 19th-century sources. Longer works were heavily abridged, keeping only the bare outline of the weird elements of the story. Short works were expanded and rewritten, often with additional characters and a romantic element added. In some cases, the rewriting was so extensive that the original story is almost unrecognizable save for some character names.

#	Title	First Broadcast	Original Author
1	The Fall [of the House of Usher]	08/29/1943	Edgar Allan Poe
2	The House and the Mind	09/05/1943	Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
3	The Vendetta	09/12/1943	Honoré de Balzac
4	The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym	09/19/1943	Edgar Allan Poe
5	Declared Insane	09/26/1943	Honoré de Balzac
6	A Terribly Strange Bed	10/03/1943	Wilkie Collins
7	What Was It? A Mystery	10/10/1943	Fitz James O'Brien
8	The Knightsbridge Mystery	10/17/1943	Charles Reade
9	The Horla	10/24/1943	Guy de Maupassant
10	William Wilson	10/31/1943	Edgar Allan Poe
11	Passion in the Desert	11/07/1943	Honoré de Balzac
12	Mateo Falcone	11/14/1943	Prosper Mérimée
13	The Man Without a Country	11/21/1943	Edward Everett Hale
14	Doctor Manette’s Manuscript	11/28/1943	Charles Dickens
15	The Great Plague	12/05/1943	Thomas Hood
16	The Expectations of an Heir	12/12/1943	Samuel Johnson
17	The Hand	12/19/1943	Guy de Maupassant
18	Jane Eyre	12/26/1943	Charlotte Brontë
19	The Murders in the Rue Morgue	01/02/1944	Edgar Allan Poe
20	The Lifted Veil	01/09/1944	George Eliot
21	The 4:15 Express	01/16/1944	Amelia Edwards
22	A Terrible Night	01/23/1944	Fitz James O'Brien
23	The Tell-Tale Heart	01/30/1944	Edgar Allan Poe
24	The Niche of Doom	02/06/1944	Honoré de Balzac
25	The Heart of Ethan Brand	02/13/1944	Nathaniel Hawthorne
26	Frankenstein	02/20/1944	Mary Shelley
27	The Feast of Redgauntlet	02/27/1944	Sir Walter Scott
28	Murder of the Little Pig	03/05/1944	Émile Gaboriau
29	The Specter of Tappington	03/12/1944	Richard Barham
30	Strange Judgment	03/19/1944
31	Wuthering Heights	03/26/1944	Emily Brontë
32	The Curse of the Mantle	04/02/1944	Nathaniel Hawthorne
33	The Cask of Amontillado	04/09/1944	Edgar Allan Poe
34	The Rope of Hair	04/16/1944	Guy de Maupassant
35	Falkland	04/23/1944	Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
36	The Trial for Murder	04/30/1944	Charles Dickens & Charles Allston Collins
37	Werewolf	05/07/1944	Frederick Marryat
38	The Old Nurse’s Story	05/14/1944	Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
39	The Middle Toe of the Right Foot	05/28/1944	Ambrose Bierce
40	The Dream Woman	09/04/1944	Wilkie Collins
41	The Phantom Picture	09/10/1944	Washington Irving
42	The Ghost's Touch	09/17/1944	Wilkie Collins
43	The Bell Tower	09/24/1944	Herman Melville
44	The Evil Eye	10/01/1944	Théophile Gautier
45	The Mark of the Plague	10/08/1944	Daniel Defoe
46	The Queer Client	10/15/1944	Charles Dickens
47	The Burial of Roger Malvin	10/22/1944	Nathaniel Hawthorne
48	The Fatal Love Potion	10/29/1944	Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
49	Mad Monkton	11/05/1944	Wilkie Collins
50	The Return	11/12/1944	Edgar Allan Poe
51	The Executioner	11/19/1944	Honoré de Balzac
52	Rappaccini's Daughter	11/26/1944	Nathaniel Hawthorne
53	The Wooden Ghost	12/03/1944	Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
54	The Last Day of a Condemned Man	12/10/1944	Victor Hugo
55	The Warning	12/17/1944	R. P. Gilles
56	The Doll	12/24/1944	Fitz James O'Brien
57	The Diamond Lens	12/31/1944	Fitz James O'Brien
58	The History of Dr. John Faust	01/07/1945	Christopher Marlowe
59	The Duel Without Honor	01/14/1945	Alexandre Dumas
60	The Specter Bride	01/21/1945	William Harrison Ainsworth
61	The Tapestry Horse	01/28/1945	Edgar Allan Poe
62	The River Man	02/04/1945
63	The Ancient Mariner	02/11/1945	Samuel Taylor Coleridge
64	The Oblong Box	02/18/1945	Edgar Allan Poe
65	The Mysterious Bride	02/25/1945	James Hogg
66	The Thing in the Tunnel	03/04/1945	Charles Dickens
67	The Moonstone	03/11/1945	Wilkie Collins
68	The Pistol Shot	03/18/1945	Prosper Mérimée
69	The Possessive Dead	03/25/1945	Théophile Gautier
70	The Goblet	04/01/1945	Ludwig Tieck
71	The Case of Monsieur Valdemar	04/08/1945	Edgar Allan Poe
72	The Shadow	04/15/1945	Hans Christian Andersen
73	The Bride of Death	04/22/1945
74	Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	04/29/1945	Robert Louis Stevenson
75	The Red Hand	05/06/1945
76	The Haunted Hotel	05/13/1945	Wilkie Collins
77	Markheim	05/20/1945	Robert Louis Stevenson
78	The Black Parchment	05/27/1945