Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

'The Enchanted Knife' is the story of a young man who seeks to marry the princess. Her father sets him an impossible task to perform before he will grant the suit - but with the aid of the cunning princess and a magic knife, the youth is able to win his bride.

Maurice Baring (1874-1945) was an English short story writer, children's writer, novelist, travel writer and war correspondent during the First World War. The Glass Mender is a fairy story about a princess named Rainbow, who as a baby is cursed by a wicked fairy. If Rainbow hears or sees the spring, her happiness will end. Her parents decide to keep her in a tower for three months every year...but will they be able to keep her away from the spring forever?

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. 'A Suburban Fairy Tale' is a disturbing story set in an English family at the end of the First World War. While the parents are revelling in the end of rationing and enjoying the availability of all kinds of food which had been rationed, their young son is aware of the hungry birds chirruping in the garden. But are they actually birds? Or could they be hungry little boys like himself?

'Number Fifty-Six' is a humorous tale of a Chinese laundryman who gets to know his clients through their laundry habits. He is able to infer much from the state of the various shirts, handkerchiefs, waistcoats which are delivered to him for washing. Of all his clients he is most fascinated by number 56...a man with strangely fluctuating shirt habits. And then one fateful day, a dreadful set of laundry is delivered to him....

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction stories. 'The Baumoff Explosive' (sometimes known as 'Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani') was first published in 1919. This story is one of Hodgson's most powerful and disturbing and is especially relevant to modern times because of its themes of blasphemy, religious mania, obsession with the crucifixion of Jesus, and suicide bombing.

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture (1890-1943), was a prolific English author who wrote under the pseudonym E. M. Delafield. She is best known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly in a Devon village of the 1930s. In 'Squirrel in a Cage', she tells the story of the ending of a relationship between two lovers.

Marie Corelli (1855 - 1924) was an eccentric British novelist who enjoyed great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Corelli's novels sold more copies than the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling and she was the most widely read popular author of her day. Her fans included Winston Churchill, Mark Twain and the British Royal Family.

A fast-paced and engaging narrative about a medical assistant who despairs of finding the funds for his final year of medical school until, while defending himself against the belligerent spouse of a patient, he ends up knocking out the town's best candidate to defeat the local boxing champion, the Croxley Master. Learning that the impending fight carries prize money which would see him through his education, he agrees to step in as the new challenger and see whether he can defeat the Croxley Master.

The Stonecutter is a fairy tale Lang collected in Japan. A stonecutter sees how rich people live when he is delivering a gravestone one day. From that day on he is dissatisfied with his own lot and wishes to be rich. His wish is granted by the spirit that lives in the mountain...but the stonecutter is still not satisfied with his life and makes further wishes, each taking him a little further on his quest for happiness.

Maurice Baring (1874-1945) was an English short story writer, children's writer, novelist, travel writer and war correspondent during the First World War. The Blue Rose is a fairy tale about a Chinese princess who is as clever as she is beautiful. When her father sets out to find her a husband, she determines to make her own choice. The Emperor declares that whoever can find and bring his daughter a blue rose shall wed her. But the wise princess is able to debunk all the blue roses proffered and at the same time works out a way to favour her own lover.

James Wilbraham Waite is living in a bedsit in Praxton Street, London, and feels trapped. Trapped by his life, his job...and particularly by the depressing room he rents. He sees it as his personal hell. His only escape is through reading books and imagining adventures. When he unexpectedly inherits a substantial sum of money from an uncle in Canada, he resolves to take off and live his dream.... He wants to experience life in the desert.

The deceptively mild mannered detective, Mr. J.G. Reeder devises a cunning plan to set a thief to catch a murderer.

The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal - the redness and the horror of blood. To avoid the terrible plague which is devastating his kingdom, Prince Prospero locks himself with 1000 revellers in his castle and holds one hedonistic party after another. For months they celebrate their crazed feasts, until one night a stranger appears at the festivities... a stranger who strikes fear into the hearts of all present. Terrifying!

When the young bank clerk Charlie Mears comes up with an innovative idea for a new story, he has no notion just how amazing his tale is. Inspired by dreams which are memories of former lives, he takes us back to the vivid and brutal world of ancient Greece. But Charlie’s own literary skill is not equal to the task of writing his novel. His friend must take on the challenge of extracting the finest tale in the world from the reluctant and ever-distracted brain of the young clerk. But just as there seems to be some progress, something most unexpected occurs….

'A Bracelet at Bruges' is a mystery story about a lost diamond bracelet. Initially there does not appear to be any mystery about the loss. Kitty Sartorius, the famous actress, visiting Bruges with her friend Eve Fincastle, had just passed the valuable trinket to her new acquaintance Madame Lawrence to look at, when the latter accidentally dropped the jewellery into the canal. But despite the best efforts of the Bruges police department to drain the bottom of the canal over several days, the bracelet does not reappear.

The Welsh Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydein, 'Triads of the Island of Britain') are a group medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in the form of wise sayings. The triads are terse statements of three related facts - probably to make them easier to remember. The oldest triads predate Christianity, their origins lost in the dark ages. Yet they show clearly that far from being barbarians, our ancient forefathers lived according to an advanced level of philosophy and ethics.

The Blind Man, the Deaf Man and the Donkey is a strange but compelling tale of two codependent friends who nonetheless mistrust each other. They find a donkey and a large container...and then when sheltering from a storm in what they mistake for a temple, they find a Rakshas' (terrifying monster with elephant tusks) treasure. While attempting to trick the Rakshas and steal the treasure, the two are still also intent on swindling each other...then karma deals a strange twist to the tale.

'The Man Who Missed the Bus' is a creepy horror story about a lonely and eccentric man who finds himself unable to see other human faces. Worse still, gradually he also loses the ability to see his own reflection in the mirror. But this is only the beginning of the horror story. Far worse is to come....

Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) was, amongst other things, an eccentric archaologist, historian, architect, antiquarian collector and author of Gothic horror stories very much after the fashion of M. R. James. 'The Dolls' Castle' is the creepy story of a haunted house with a sinister past which uses old, rotting dolls to lure unwary children away from their parents.

Over 50 great classic short stories, each around 20 minutes in length - perfect for short journeys, bedtime listening and those moments in between.... 'The Khitmatgar' by B. M. Croker, 'The Mummy of Thompson Pratt' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Ghost at the Blue Dragon' by William J. Wintle, 'A Tropical Horror' by William Hope Hodgson, 'Miracles' by Barry Pain, 'The Dust That Was Barren' by P. C. Wren, 'His Unconquerable Enemy' by W. C. Morrow, 'A Tiger’s Skin' by W. W. Jacobs....