Episode
Books at Bedtime By Calming Anxiety - The Sphinx Without a Secret - By Oscar Wilde
- Published
- Sep 3, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 987
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Summary
The Sphinx Without a Secret by Oscar Wilde — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime A soothing bedtime story to help you drift off tonight: Oscar Wilde's quietly haunting tale The Sphinx Without a Secret, read slowly and gently for sleep, insomnia relief, and unhurried listening. This continues the Books at Bedtime strand — also known as Coffee Break for the Soul — from the Calming Anxiety podcast, a series of classic story readings designed as a calming audiobook for restless or anxious nights. For the full library, plus ambient night-light features for the small hours, download Anchored on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 Narrated softly by Martin Hewlett, clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic, this reading follows Lord Murchison, who confides in an old Oxford friend over dinner in Paris about a mysterious widow he has fallen for in London, a woman wrapped in secrecy who insists her letters go to a lending library rather than her own home. A slow, unhurried mystery rather than anything unsettling — ideal as a sleep story or relaxation audiobook for falling asleep, insomnia, and quieting an anxious mind before bed. First published under the title "Lady Alroy" in 1887, and later renamed The Sphinx Without a Secret by Wilde himself when it was collected in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories in 1891, this Oscar Wilde tale is in the public domain worldwide (Wilde died in 1900); this reading is Calming Anxiety's own narration of the classic public-domain text. This episode continues the Books at Bedtime strand, alongside The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince (also by Oscar Wilde) and classic short fiction from Katherine Mansfield, Kate Chopin, and Arthur Conan Doyle — currently working thr…