The Ambitious Guest

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Feb 2023 · Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing · Narrated by Mark Bowen

About this audiobook

"The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First published in The New-England Magazine in June 1835, it was republished in the second volume of Twice-Told Tales in 1841.

A young traveler stops for the night with a family that lives in a "notch" next to a mountain. They make friendly conversation, interrupted once by the sound of a wagon carrying other travelers, and then by the sound of rocks falling from the slope. The father reassures the visitor that rockfalls happen regularly without causing harm, but that the family has a "safe place" to go in the event of a serious collapse.

Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, American, College, Horror, Literature, 19th Century

Ratings and reviews

The audiobook is read by an AI of poor quality. The intonation at the end of many sentences is weird and distracting, especially when pronouncing words ending with an "S". Kinda fine for a free audiobook, but considering there are paid books read by the same "person", this feels to me like a testing ground for some quick AI-powered cash-grab attempt, and deserves no praise or compliments.