Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Bad Seed
    The Bad Seed
    The Bad Seed
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Bad Seed

    Written by William March

    Narrated by Elizabeth Wiley

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The bestselling novel that inspired Mervyn LeRoy's classic horror film about the little girl who can get away with anything-even murder.

    There's something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she's the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?

    Originally published in 1954, William March's final novel was an instant bestseller and National Book Award finalist before it was adapted for the stage and made into a 1956 film. The Bad Seed is an indelible portrait of an evil that wears an innocent face, one which still resonates in popular culture today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 14, 2018
    ISBN9781977371126
    The Bad Seed
    Author

    William March

    William March (1893-1954) was a writer and highly decorated US Marine. March volunteered in 1917, and was sent to France where he took part in every major engagement in which American troops were involved. Returning as a war hero, March suffered periods of depression and anxiety. His masterpiece, Company K, draws directly on his wartime experiences and was criticised when first published for its anti-war sentiment.

    Related to The Bad Seed

    Related audiobooks

    Suspense For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Paul Tremblay

      Jun 17, 2020

      IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS that I would live to see the end of everything,” says Paul Tremblay, speaking to SFX from his Massachusetts home in the middle of lockdown. It’s a singularly peculiar time, and a peculiar interview for him to

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Quiet Boy

      Jan 28, 2019

      The Quiet Boy
      29 min read

    • Article

      Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels

      Jun 19, 2019

      A list of books so scary you definitely won't keep them on your nightstand. The post Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Hauntings

      Jul 5, 2023

      Hauntings
      11 min read

    • Article

      This Back Is a Familiar Back

      May 1, 2023

      This Back Is a Familiar Back
      8 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      What the Tornado Gave Us

      Jul 1, 2022

      In part 1, Rosica tells the story of how she and her family moved from Mexico to North Carolina to join her father, who works as a roofer and has been sending home money. Adjusting to a new school where they didn’t know the language was easier on her

      9 min read

    • Article

      Last Love

      Dec 8, 2023

      Last Love
      13 min read

    • Article

      What’s In A Name?

      Dec 22, 2021

      What’s In A Name?
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Plain Little House

      Apr 8, 2019

      The house is real, not imaginary. But it is also a place lodged deep in the imagination, a dream place whose actual coordinates have been forgotten. In the last years of her very long life, my mother’s memory, eroded by time and general anaesthetics,

      3 min read

    • Article

      What the Tornado Gave Us

      May 1, 2022

      OF ALL THAT I lost when we moved to America, my personality is what I missed most. Not lost in a forever kind of way, perhaps just misplaced, because after I had a friend, it began to show up again. In Mexico, I knew the language well enough to easil

      3 min read

    • Article

      Cherry Season

      Sep 3, 2020

      1. My mother’s mother kept a set of painted wooden nesting dolls on top of her television. When I was small and went to her house, I would take the set apart and line up the five dolls on her living room floor, side by side, from biggest to smallest.

      16 min read

    • Article

      Funny You Should Say That…

      Oct 14, 2019

      Before you have children, people tell you how much you’ll love your baby, how special parenthood is and how exhausting. They tell you lots of things, but one thing they don’t tell you is how funny children are. Even babies can be amusing, with their

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Posting

      Jun 27, 2023

      The Posting
      35 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Aug 9, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Last Christmas

      Oct 6, 2022

      Last Christmas
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Southern Christmas

      Nov 1, 2023

      A Southern Christmas
      7 min read

    • Article

      Mother Tongue

      Feb 24, 2021

      Mother Tongue
      12 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Bad Seed

    4/5

    250 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      The reader performed the adult voices very well, but the performance of the child was annoying and misses the mark. Perhaps another voice actor should have been used. The child's vocals were lazy uninspired and boring. This is unfortunate because how this child speaks and thinks is the most important part of the story. I still love the story. The reader should watch the film. It is a masterpiece of theatre......
    • 1/5
      Terribly written and supremely boring.
    • 3/5
      I did not like any of the characters, that’s fine, I don’t have to like them, but they really annoyed me.
    • 3/5
      This is a creepy little story about a psychotic child and the mother who is beside herself with the anxiety of what to do about her. The author March mistakenly created a character who inherited her grandmother's psychosis. William March had a talent for creating in-depth characters, such as the painfully frank Mrs Breedlove, the janitor Leroy, who is in love with the little girl Rhoda, the three eccentric sisters who run the private school, and, of course, Rhoda. Poor March had a sad childhood where he was deprived of familial love, causing the author himself to be emotionally warped. This probably helped his insight into warped and paranoid characters, but didn't help him any in living a happy life.
    • 4/5
      Readable little horror story, as mother-of-one, Christine Penmark, alone while her husband is on a lengthy posting, realises that her "strange" ten-year-old daughter, Rhoda, is a serial killer. Yet, as she peruses criminal cases for some understanding, she learns sobering information of her own biological nother...Keeps you reading.
    • 4/5
      Rhoda has become my favorite literary character. This book served as the inspiration for many film productions in the years to come. It is unquestionably a classic book that everyone should read at least once.
    • 5/5
      I've read both the book and the play, seen the play performed various times and watched the 1956 movie version, with Patty McCormack playing Rhoda. (No, I'm not obsessed with it, it just has crossed my path over the years).What I find interesting is that each of the three versions has a different ending. After buying the book and reading it, I got to the end and said "Huh? That's not how it ends!". That meant a trip to the library to find the script, followed by renting the movie to see which of the two they chose, only to discover the third variation.I think the book's ending was the least satisfying version of the three, but still worth the read for the creepiness on the way.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Young mother discovers her 8-year-old daughter is a murdering psychopath. Interesting.
    • 4/5
      I was surprised at how well this held up - although it's very 1950s in its details, it's still a fascinating psychological study.
    • 3/5
      A good read . . . less creepy by today's standards than it likely was in the 50s when it was originally published. There were certainly some holes, but I did find myself trying to get through some of the leading lady's ramblings to find out where the plot would go next. Also, fun to read a book set and written in a completely different time . . . . a reminder of how different the world is today.
    • 3/5
      I didn't find this as great as many people seem to have done -- perhaps in part because, fifty years after it was written, the whole "evil child" thing has been done to death. But I do think March worked the setting very well and, more importantly, painted a very accurate portrait of what a psychopath is like.
    • 4/5
      Forget watching the movie. William March's The Bad Seed is both creepy and thought provoking at the same time. Achieving cult status, March's novel follows a murderous child who shows no remorse for the deeds she does. And the ending is one of the most chilling finales ever found in horror literature. This book is a must have for lovers of both Southern Gothic and Horror.
    • 4/5
      Satisfying creepy.
    • 4/5
      A classic in its own way, I gather from the back blurb that when this book was published in 1954, the creepy baby sociopath caused quite a sensation. Fifty-odd years later it's hard to imagine the book's shock value, but I can attest to its appeal. The story is told from the bad seed's mother's perspective, as she slowly realizes that her little girl is not "odd" but coolly homicidal, untroubled by the normal array of emotions. The time period and the aloof tone remind me, in a good way, of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Also interesting is the genesis, in the mother's own life, of the term "bad seed." Easy read. Worthwhile for the tone alone.
    • 4/5
      "Bad Seed" is an American 1950s era potboiler about a child serial killer we learn is genetically doomed to a life of remorseless mayhem. It spawned a Tony Award-winning Broadway play, and then later an Academy Award-nominated Hollywood film with a "bad people get what they deserve"-style ending (a product of the mandatory moral codes of the time) that is a radical departure from March’s novel.Many readers will be drawn to this pop culture classic by what today is considered camp melodrama, rather than its merits as a thriller.