Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A gripping collection of 30 minute stories by some of the greatest storytellers in the English language....

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost and horror stories. 'The Bed by the Window' is the story of a man who takes himself off to a remote guest house so as to be free of distractions while he finishes a project. While he is there, he begins to have odd dreams and visions...and the calendar on the desk seems to keep showing him the wrong date...always May 8th.

>A true classic tale from the genre of weird Victorian tales based on a fascination with Ancient Egypt. A student of Egyptology gets shut into the Louvre at night by accident. Suddenly he sees a light approaching. Fearing that it is burglars, he hides and watches. The museum attendant, to whom he had spoken earlier, and who bears an uncanny physical similarity to images of ancient Egyptians, proceeds to open a mummy case and then unwrap the mummy. What he does next shocks the student of Egyptology to the core....

A delightful folk tale from Romania about a princess who is destined to marry a pig. When the pig arrives at her father's court to woo her, she submits to her fate - but the pig is in reality anything but what he seems. He is a prince who has been bewitched. Unfortunately the witch now tricks the princess into extending the spell - her fate is now to embark on a lengthy quest, hampered by iron sandals, to find her beloved husband and free him from the curse once and for all. Enchanting!

A king has three sons and is determined that one shall be his heir - but which? He orders them to marry and decrees that the one who picks the best wife shall be the next king. The youngest finds himself marrying a frog, against his better judgement. But when it turns out that the frog is extraordinarily gifted in such skills as carpet weaving and baking, he looks like winning the contest to be king. His frog princess is indeed a real princess under a magic spell.

The Magic Casket describes a classic case for Dr. Thorndyke. It tells the story of an ordinary and apparently quite worthless metal casket, which conceals a mysterious secret which nearly costs a young woman her life.

Leo Tolstoy is widely recognized as one of the world's greatest novelists and short story writers and a master of realistic fiction. He is equally known for his complex and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, developed following a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became known for his deep moral thinking and social reforms.

Fifty short stories by women writers who broke the mould.

Jan Nepomuk Neruda (1834-1891) was born in Prague, Bohemia, the son of a small grocer. After studying philosophy and philology, he worked as a teacher until 1860, when he became a freelance journalist and writer. 'The Vampire' is a strange tale of a group of tourists visiting an idyllic spot outside Constantinople in the company of a charming but oddly sinister Greek artist who seems to be at pains to ensure nobody can look over his shoulder and see what he is sketching.

A glorious collection of some of the finest British short stories ever written. The Dog – Arnold Bennet, Not On The Passenger List – Barry Pain, The Old Man’s Tale About The Queer Client – Charles Dickens, The Half Brothers – Elizabeth Gaskell, The Veiled Portrait – James McGovan, Markheim – Robert Louis Stevenson, The Bottle Imp – Robert Louis Stevenson, The Adventures Of The Kind Mr. Smith – William J. Locke, The Man Of Mystery – Barry Pain, The Brazilian Cat – Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle.

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American author who wrote weird fiction and terrifying horror stories. The Right Hand of Doom features one of his most fascinating characters, the puritan Soloman Kane. Kane is staying at an inn where in the taproom a braggard is boasting at having brought the evil necromancer Roger Simeon to justice. Simeon is to be hanged the next day. The necromancer has vowed revenge on the man who betrayed him....

Kipling’s classic tale taken from the Just So Stories. Neolithic cave girl Taffy and her father work out a new way of passing on messages - and find that they have invented the alphabet.

'The Library Window' is a ghost story. A young girl, visiting her aunt in Scotland, finds herself increasingly intrigued by a mysterious window in the house opposite her own favourite window, where she sits to read. There seems to be a local mystery about the window, including a dispute about whether there is even a window there at all. Increasingly this doubt seems odd to the girl as the days go by, as she can see into the room opposite and make out furniture and objects there. Then one day she sees someone in that room....

As the invention of the automobile enabled quicker travel and enhanced the lives of the early motorists, it also gave new impetus to a generation of story writers. Automobiles were unusual, unfamiliar beasts. They combined speed and danger with an uncanny ability to break down at unexpected moments, catapulting the unhappy traveller into new adventures, or thusting mystery strangers onto the inhabitants of remote houses.

Gwendolyn Ranger Wormser's was a Victorian writer best known for her weird psychological horror stories. The best known of these is 'The Scarecrow', an eerie tale of a sinister scarecrow beckoning to the young son of the farmer from the moonlit cornfield.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer, now best remembered for his science fiction novels and often credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Apple' is a strange tale about a young student who, in a third-class railway carriage, is unexpectedly offered the genuine fruit of the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden by a stranger with piercing grey eyes. The strange tale of how the stranger came to have the fruit is almost as unusual as the story of what the student then did with it.

In this tale of Jeannot and Colin, Voltaire not only tells an instructive tale, warning of the dangers of sudden wealth and social climbing, but also directs his satirical comments at the vacuous and fickle nouveau riche of his day, the catholic church, private education, and society in general. Jeannot and Colin are childhood friends. Both come from working-class backgrounds in a rural part of France, but Jeannot's parents, on a trip to Paris, strike it lucky in business and within a short time become very wealthy.

A remarkable short story by the Nobel Literature Prize winner W. B. Yeats, steeped in Irish magic and folklore. When Red Hanrahan, the itinerant schoolmaster, drops into a remote barn where Irish farm labourers are drinking and singing, he receives a message from his sweetheart to make haste to her. Her mother has died and she must marry at once or be turned out of her home. Red Hanrahan gets up to start immediately, but a strange old man sitting by the door delays him by starting a game of cards with him.

Katharine Pyle's masterly retelling of well-loved folk tales from around the world. •The Meester Stoorworm – A Story from Scotland •Jean Malin and the Bull Man – A Louisiana Tale •The Widow’s Son – A Scandinavian Tale •The Wise Girl – A Serbian Story •The History of Ali Cogia – From the Arabian Nights •Oh! – A Cossack Story •The Talking Eggs – A Story from Louisiana •The Frog Princess – A Russian Story •The Magic Turban, the Magic Sword and the Magic Carpet – A Persian Story

Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and nonfiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the Victorian golden age of the short story. In 'The Secret of the Strong Room', three young men of unimpeachable character are planning to commit the perfect heist on the safe of the Illysium Theatre. But they have planned without the greater cunning of the theatre's owner, Markenstein.