Frequently Asked Questions

Story Teller is a collection of children’s stories and poems released as a partwork by Marshall Cavendish in the 80s. Think of a partwork as a book released in instalments. Each “instalment” consisted of a full-colour, 32-page magazine and a 45 to 50-minute cassette tape.

The original Story Teller series (now commonly referred to as Story Teller 1) was released in 1983. Story Teller 2 was launched the following year, and Little Story Teller was published in 1985. Three Christmas editions were published over these three years. The last Story Teller title was published in 1986, a little-known collection of songs called the Story Teller Song Book.

There were three series of Story Teller (1, 2 and Little). Each series had 26 issues (although Part 26 of the first series also contained a “free” preview issue of the second series). In addition, three bumper Christmas issues and one Song Book were published.

Marshall Cavendish sold the rights to Story Teller to Eaglemoss Partworks in the 2000s. Eaglemoss went into administration in 2022 and it is not certain which company now owns the rights to Story Teller. However, it is highly unlikely that Story Teller will ever be re-released because most of the audio masters were damaged in a flood and there are complicated royalty issues with the readers.

Only cassette tapes were released in the UK. However, I have heard that the Greek, French, Afrikaans and Italian editions of Story Teller have been released on CD.

Story Teller was never officially released digitally. However, members of the Story Teller Facebook Group have produced a digital version comprising MP3s and PDFs. They make this available for free and it should never be sold or used for financial gains.

Indeed it was. Story Teller was published in Spanish, Dutch, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Greek, Russian and probably other languages. In Australia and New Zealand, the series was published as Story Time (not to be confused with Disney’s Storytime which was a similar collection published around the same year). The UK edition was also sold in other countries, including Ireland, Malaysia and South Africa. For more information, see the International page.

I do not know what circulation figures Story Teller had when it was published but we can fairly assume that it was a big success, because it was originally intended to run for just one series but eventually ran for two more because it was so popular. According to Peet Ellison (writer and illustrator of Timbertwig), Marshall Cavendish even organised a lavish party attended by the writers, illustrators, and readers to celebrate Story Teller’s success. It was no wonder that other publishers released similar partworks to ride on the Story Teller mania, including Once Upon a Time from Fabbri and Storytime from Disney.

Mark McMillan, a member of the Story Teller Facebook group, has compiled a comprehensive music database with the help of other members. It details every track used in the series. View the Story Teller Music Database.

Even though Story Teller is more than 40 years old, it’s still surprisingly easy to acquire copies or even complete sets if you know where to look and have the money to spend! Car boot sales and charity shops are always worth trying, especially if you’re after complete collections. There are always auctions on eBay for individual issues as well as full sets. You would normally expect to pay around £80 for a complete set of Story Teller 1, for example. I have seen a copy of Christmas Story Teller 3 in good condition going for £100!

This new website does not link to the YouTube videos because it offers something much better: the entire Story Teller collection as flipbooks, complete with audio. We think that the flipbooks give an experience very close to what we had with the printed books and cassettes. With the YouTube videos, you just watched and listened. With the flipbooks, you read, listen and turn the pages — just like the old days!