Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A grisly collection of despicable crimes told by some of the world's best writers.

A glittering collection of classic stories for children, which have delighted generations and continue to appeal.

A spine-chilling collection of tales of uncanny happenings, ghostly apparitions, unexplained mysteries, evil deeds and tragic events.

Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright who is sometimes credited as the original 'Father of Science Fiction'. Written in 1851, 'A Drama in the Air' is one of Verne's earliest and most seminal stories, telling the dramatic adventure of a balloonist suddenly confronted with an unexpected and unpredictable passenger who climbs into his balloon at the point of take-off. Many of the themes from this tale were expanded by Verne in his later and better known works about aerial journeys around the world or to the moon.

Percival Christopher Wren (1875 - 1941) was an English writer of adventure fiction mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. 'Presentiments' is the story of a legionnaire who knows he will be killed the following day but does not want to die without telling somebody about a set of terrible events which occurred in his childhood and which have overshadowed his life.

The Voice in the Night is an uncanny story about a ship becalmed in fog in the middle of the Pacific. In the night, the watch hears a voice hailing the ship. It would seem to be a lone man in a rowing boat, but the individual does not wish to be seen. He is starving and urgently wants food - but despite this, he will not approach the ship and vehemently rejects the idea of being rescued. Instead they have to float some provisions out to him in a crate, which he takes off to a nearby island where his fiancée is dying of hunger.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. The Sea Raiders is a gruesome tale of a rapacious shoal of cephalopods which attack the coast of Southern England.

Vincent O'Sullivan (1868-1940), born in New York to an Irish American family, moved as a child to London. As a young man, he soon became well recognised as the master of decadent and macabre fiction. 'Will' is the macabre tale of a man who is in the process of poisoning his wife using the most deadly, untraceable and secret poison ever discovered. His wife has realized what he is doing but is powerless to prevent her own death...but she vows to exact a ghastly and morbid revenge from beyond the grave.

William James Wintle (1861-1920) was already a recognised writer before he became an Oblate for the Abbey of Caldey Island in Wales. It was there that he wrote a series of horror stories for the entertainment of eight boys who attended the abbey. In the foreword of this collection, Wintle explains that the stories were originally told on Sunday nights while "crouching over a wood fire on a wind-swept island off the Western shore."

Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) was an American writer best known for her stories reflecting the world of women fighting for dignity and independence from men. Her tales typically describe domestic settings and intimate relationships and are told with sensitivity and a poignancy which illuminates a bygone era in vivid detail. 'The Lost Ghost' is a supernatural story told by one woman to another about a child ghost who wanders around an old house in search of her mother.... The story has an extraordinary ending.

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American author famous for his weird tales and horror stories. Sea Curse is the tale which starts with a village tragedy. A local girl who lives with her elderly aunt has been seduced and deflowered by a swaggering, drunk sailor. In despair she drowns herself in the ocean. The sailor mocks her aunt over the girl's washed-up body on the beach. The old aunt retaliates by putting an awful, terrible curse upon the sailor and his mate....

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), who wrote as H. P. Lovecraft, was an American writer who achieved fame only posthumously for his influential horror stories. "The Cats of Uthar" is a strange tale about the village of Uthar, which is known for its law that no man may kill at cat. This is the peculiar story of the terrible events that led to this law being passed.

Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his outstanding ghost and horror stories. This selection gives a marvellous insight into the strength and diversity of Pain's writing. The collection includes "The Missing Years", "Rose Rose", "Miracles", "The End of a Show", "The Giraffe Problem", "The Green Light", "The Tree of Death", "The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit" and "The Magnet".

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 non-fiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the Victorian "Golden Age" of the short story. "The Earl, the Warder and the Wayward Heiress" is the story of a ten thousand pound bet between young gentlemen in their club.

When the body of the eccentric painter Sir Owen Cram is found on a deserted beach next to his easel, a murder enquiry is launched. It is clear that the injury which has killed him could not have been self-inflicted. Nor is the murder weapon anywhere to be found. But most mysterious of all, there is only one set of footprints in the sand leading up to the body, and these are Sir Owen's own. Even the scientists and police investigators are struggling to conceive how the murder has been committed.

A highly unsettling collection of macabre stories in which death and the dead are key themes. Moon’s Gibbet by Egerton Castle, A Strange Goldfield by Guy Boothby, The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy, The Pistol Shot by Alexander Pushkin, The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe, The Dead Hand by Wilkie Collins, The Famous Race between the Hearse and the Steamroller by Sidney Keyes, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, Nine O’Clock by Wilkie Collins, The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin.

A brilliant and humorous short story by Wilkie Collins, in which an elderly lady, whose Victorian sensibilities on morals and propriety are finely honed, finds herself living next door to Major Namby, the ultimate neighbour from hell.

D.H. Lawrence's famous short story, set against the background of the First World War, and examining the quintessence of Englishness, relationships and paternity in an idyllic rural setting. Egbert and Winifred are deeply in love when they first marry and settle in the picturesque thatched cottage which Winifred's father has given her on his estate. But as their relationships develops and alters, and as they have children and become increasingly dependent financially on Winifred's father, the cracks in their relationship become ever deeper.

When Joseph Gibson, an oil and colourman from London, faces bankruptcy, he seizes the opportunity to take the bargain lease on Stape Hill near Poole in Dorsetshire. The deal turns out to be less a bargain than a swindle. The farm is worth nowhere near the price paid for it. The grasping owner, a retired lawyer, Arthur Blagden, had charged him more than twice the property's worth. Gibson and his delicate daughter face ruin next Michaelmas day when the next annual rent payment is due.

When the king advertises for a herdsman to look after his gigantic herd of hares, the deal sounds too good to be true. A fair wage and the chance to win the hand of the princess in marriage. But there is a catch. If any of the hares should be lost out on the hills, then instead of wages and the princess, the herdsman should receive a harsh beating. Three brothers each try their luck...but one has a secret magic pipe to help him, as well as the sharp wits and cunning needed to outwit the king and queen.