Showing results by narrator "Mitchley Richard" in All Categories

The human race prides itself on being the most organised of animals. We manage the fate of all other species. All other animals bow to our control or suffer. In diminishing numbers we allow some to live in the wild, but in increasing numbers we domesticate them, and whether they become part of the family, a best friend or wonderfully decorative accessory, we take their compliance for granted.

The human race prides itself on being the most organised of animals. We manage the fate of all other species. All other animals bow to our control or suffer. In diminishing numbers we allow some to live in the wild, but in increasing numbers we domesticate them, and whether they become part of the family, a best friend or a wonderfully decorative accessory, we take their compliance for granted.

We love control. The ability to predict and organise our lives as we want them. As we desire them. It’s quite a shock, then, when phantoms, ghouls and ghosts play their part, too. They don’t play by our rules. Our welfare is not their concern. They will do as they wish. And they have very vivid imaginations - way beyond the dictionary definition: Phantom. Noun. Something apparently seen, heard or sensed but having no physical reality. An image that appears only in the mind; an illusion. A model, especially a transparent one, of the human body or of any of its parts.

At some point in our lives we believe that creak, that low moan, that whisper is something unnatural, beyond our comprehension. And in these stories our instincts are right. We are afraid. And we should be. Perhaps even terrified. In this volume our classic authors take different approaches, but the result is inevitably the same. We are hooked by these unknowable forces, our emotions heightened and rattled by the expectation - or shock - of the next few words.

Westminster Abbey has seen much during its long, rich history: the coronations of Kings and Queens, the burials of Prime Ministers. However, it is also a church that remembers the men and women of the arts. Dedicated writers and poets who spoke so eloquently that the nation wished to remember them with plaques upon its walls so that all who travelled here could remember, too. Their works are worth remembering, and here, in these volumes, their wise words speak, too, and for us all. In volume 3 we collect together Edward Lear to William Wordsworth.

Romanticism was a new movement in philosophy and the arts that began in the late 18th century when major political events shook the world, such as the French Revolution and American independence. It marked a distinct contrast to the prevailing Enlightenment ideals and in poetry represented a more personal intuitive, emotional and meditative expression with a back-to-nature imperative. It subsequently altered the way in which we perceive poetry and beyond as well as defining our own modern sensibilities to the arts.

Victoria’s reign was long and presided over the restless expansion of the British Empire and reams of creative genius. Within these volumes we can bring only a glimpse of the richness, beauty and words of the poets and their musings on this remarkable age. Many are world-renowned - Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Kipling, Austin, Hopkins, Hardy and Swinburne. Some are almost forgotten - Patmore, Newbolt, Synge. And some are barely noted - Lyall, Meynell and Merdeith. But together they encompass a great poetical age.

With almost a million words at its command, it is not surprising that these Isles have produced some of the most beautiful, moving and descriptive verse through the centuries. In this series we look at individual poets who have shaped and influenced their craft and cement their place in our heritage. In this volume we look at the works of the Victorian Poet Laureate Alfred Austin.

Many people dream of being a fly on the wall or, even better, a companion and friend to the great artists of the day. We cannot offer you quite that, but we can take you on a walk through parts of London that will give you a real sense and feel of the world of Dickens and its impact upon himself, his characters and his stories. Your tour guide is Emma Parker, and the book extracts are read by Richard Mitchley.

Women, so often referred to as the gentler sex - in this volume at least, this is an unfounded and unlikely description. From their minds and pens comes a series of macabre, twisted tales that are anything but gentle. But as they weave their magic, usually black, and mesh you into their narrative you just know 'sugar and spice and all things nice' are not likely to be what little girls really are made of and certainly not these femme fatales....

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia. His family life was difficult; his father was strict and overbearing, but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’. Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories which included many, many classics including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’. His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26.

Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Hanley one of the six towns that formed the Potteries that later joined together to become Stoke on Trent; the area in which most of his works are located. For a short time he worked for his solicitor father before realising that to advance his life he would need to become his own man. Moving to London at twenty-one he obtained work as a solicitor’s clerk and gradually moved into a career of journalism. At the turn of the century he turned full time to writing. Clayhanger and The Old Wives Tale are perhaps his greatest and most lauded novels.

Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Hanley, one of the six towns that formed the Potteries that later joined together to become Stoke-on-Trent - the area in which most of his works are located. In 1908 Bennett published The Old Wives' Tale, to great acclaim. With this, his reputation was set. Clayhanger and The Old Wives' Tale are perhaps his greatest and most lauded novels. But standing next to these are many fine short stories and it is to these that we turn our attention in this audiobook.

An essential for life. Without it life is impossible. Was it always that way? In this volume of stories, water becomes the landscape and narrative, a character more deadly and perhaps more aware of its power than us mere mortals. We are beguiled by its sight, whether softly breaking waves on a sandy beach or a thunderous storm engulfing the cliff face. But also in other forms; as lakes and lagoons. Water is everywhere, and where there is water is the shadow of menace.

Charles Edward Montague was born in London on New Year’s Day, 1867, and educated at the City of London School and then Balliol College, Oxford. Among those to flow from his pen are the novels A Hind Let Loose and Rough Justice as well as collections of short stories, other essays and a travel book. He finally retired in 1925 and settled down to become a full-time writer in the last years of his life. Charles Edward Montague died in Manchester on May 28th, 1928, at the age of 61.

John Buchan was born on August 26th 1875. After a brief career in the legal profession he began a twin career as writer and politician. He was a prodigious writer not just of fiction but of such acclaimed works as a 24 volume history of World War I. It was during the war, where, as a sideline writing propaganda, he wrote his most famous work, ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’. Its hero, Richard Hannay, continues his story in other Buchan novels, most notably Greenmantle (1916) and Mr Standfast (1919).

Stacy Aumonier was born at Hampstead Road near Regent’s Park, London, on 31st March 1877. He came from a family with a strong and sustained tradition in the visual arts - sculptors and painters. This volume comes to you from Miniature Masterpieces, a specialised imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single authors, themes, and many compilations.

Keats. A short life but a legacy of works that few, if any, can rival. And of course his end was to be tragically Romantic. Keats was returning one night to his home in Hampstead when he coughed. He coughed a single drop of blue blood upon his hand and said, ‘I know the colour of that blood, it is arterial blood, it is my death warrant, I must die’. And so it was that tuberculosis took its slow, devastating hold.

Our greatest fears are of the unknown. Usually we think those fears are in front of us...or behind us. But perhaps the human body itself holds the greatest horror. What happens after death? Do our bodies have a new existence either in whole...or part? Will others seek to claim them and do unspeakable things? We don’t know. But our authors do. And they have the talents and wits to make these diabolical stories vehicles for horror, for terror, for the unimaginable....

Francis Bret Harte was born on 25th August 1836 in Albany New York. As a young boy Harte developed an early love of books and reading. He first published at the tender age of 11, his satirical poem ‘Autumn Musings’. Expecting praise he received anything but and later wrote "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse." By age 13 his formal education was at an end and four years later the family moved to California. It was here that he found the stories and inspiration for the works that would seal his fame across the literary world.