u/cserilaz

I u/cserilaz narrate public domain literature on YouTube. Mostly it’s stuff from before 1931 since copyrights typically last 95 years, but there are a few exceptions to this, like some sci-fi stories from old pulp magazines whose copyrights expired early just cause nobody cared to renew them. I mostly do short stories and weird old poetry, but I do a pretty wide range of content overall, including some non-fiction too. My goal when I started the channel was to make classic literature more accessible, and present it in an engaging way. I am a big Mary Shelley fan, and have done several of her stories.

What kind of stuff would yall be interested to hear in short-form audio? When I say short-form, I mean stories that are usually around 30 minutes, much shorter than a full-length audiobook, since I do this myself as an amateur. The poems are usually 1-5 minutes long. Some people have asked for self-help books before, but honestly this wasn’t really a big genre before 1931. I have done a little bit of philosophy, which is close, so I could do more of that.

Any and all suggestions are welcome

"Myttar Bowl," a meadhall poem from Bergen, Norway ca. 1300

"I Fell for the Devastatingly Fair Maiden Early On," a skaldic love poem from thirteenth-century Norway, written in Younger Fuþark

"Gunnhild, Kiss Me" - a love letter from Norway ca. 1200, inscribed on a stick in runes

"The Lover's Complaint" from the Harley Lyrics (ca. 1340)

“The Marching Morons” by C. M. Kornbluth, a proto-idiocracy written in 1951

"The Layman's Complaint" and "The Friar's Answer," a pair of satirical poems from the time of the first Middle English translations of the Bible (ca. 1380's-90's)

"Everest" by Isaac Asimov (first published in the December 1953 issue of Universe Science Fiction)

"Narrative of a Fatal Event," an early Walter Scott story

Walter Scott's review of Frankenstein in March 1818, two months after it came out [CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR FRANKENSTEIN]

I narrate uncopyrighted literature in English on YouTube. What do people want to hear?

"The Magnificent Possession" by Isaac Asimov (1940)

"Advice to Women," a Middle English poem warning women about player-type men

"Man Beware and Be No Fool," a poem about the Peasants' Revolt under King Richard II in England in 1381

"The Men Return" by Jack Vance (1957, copyright expired in 1984)

"Shot by a Crank," newspaper coverage of the assassination of Chicago's mayor during the World's Fair

"The Three Ladies Who Found a Dick," a Norman fabliau from the early 1300's

"New Tidings from Livonia," a broadsheet describing an alleged miracle near Rēzekne Castle in 1584

"Wealth," a Middle English poem about Wealth, heavily influenced by the traditional Mediterranean concept of "Fortune's Wheel" as described by Boethius, whose work was translated into Old English by the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great

"The Poet's Repentance," a poem from the early 1300's in which the poet laments and apologizes for making disparaging remarks about women in his previous poems

"Deer," an Old English poem about a former court poet, Deer, who was cast out by his king (and likely lover) and replaced with another poet, Heorrend