Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Two Bottles of Relish

  • The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories
  • By: Lord Dunsany
  • Narrated by: Oliver J. Hembrough
  • Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)
Get this deal Try for £0.00
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Two Bottles of Relish cover art

Two Bottles of Relish

By: Lord Dunsany
Narrated by: Oliver J. Hembrough
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Mingrelian Conspiracy cover art
Arsène Lupin, o ladrão de casaca [Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief] cover art
Byomkesh Bakshi Stories cover art
The White Priory Murders cover art
A Third Class Murder cover art
These Names Make Clues cover art
Footsteps in the Dark cover art
A Hundred Thousand Dragons cover art
The Cornish Coast Murder cover art
Freddy Pilkington-Soames Adventures: Books 1-3: A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia, A Case of Murder in Mayfair, A Case of Conspiracy in Clerkenwell cover art
Smallbone Deceased cover art
Bodies from the Library cover art
The Belting Inheritance cover art
Farthing cover art
The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy cover art
A Man Lay Dead cover art

Summary

Lord Dunsany mixes reality with fantasy in this forgotten collection of modern detective stories. Some are macabre, others have a lighter and more amusing touch, but every story stimulates the imagination and reveals the acknowledged master of the short story at his very best.

Smethers is a travelling salesman for Numnumo, who make a relish for meats and savouries. He shares a flat with an Oxford graduate called Linley, who fancies himself as a detective and to whom Scotland Yard is inclined to turn if they encounter a particularly challenging mystery.

When a pretty young girl disappears and her lodger is suspected of murdering her, two bottles of Numnumo relish are the only clues, and Smethers is sent to gather more information....

Amongst the hundreds of fantasy stories for which the Irish dramatist, poet and writer Lord Dunsany became deservedly famous, there was one solitary little collection of detective stories. Selected by Ellery Queen as an 'unequivocal keystone' in the history of crime writing, this quirky collection is a mixture of the masterful and the macabre, an audiobook that lovers of detective stories and tales of the unexpected will want to savour.

©1952 The Trustees of the Dunsany Wills Trust (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
Short Stories Anthologies & Short Stories Traditional Detectives Crime Thrillers
Show More Show Less

Critic reviews

"The book is a treasure-trove - no less than 26 tales of crime and detection, all illumined by Lord Dunsany's charm and wit, and his individualistic style. The first nine stories record the exploits of Mr Linley, including that undeniable modern classic, 'The Two Bottles of Relish'." (Ellery Queen)
"There are my 'Poe' pieces and my 'Dunsany' pieces - but alas - where are my 'Lovecraft' pieces?" (H. P. Lovecraft)
"'The Two Bottles of Relish' is so horrific - and what a brilliant, brilliant idea. The perfect crime." (Otto Penzler)

What listeners say about Two Bottles of Relish

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available