Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Nobel Prize winner (and Forsyte Saga author) John Galsworthy described Stacy Aumonier as ‘one of the best short-story writers of all time’ and predicted that, through the best of his stories, he would ‘outlive all the writers of his day’. A Source of Irritation is one such story. Sam Gates, an elderly and somewhat irritable agricultural labourer, is thinning a field of turnips in Norfolk one morning during the Great War. Suddenly he sees an ‘airyplane’ behaving oddly in the sky.

When a poor lad sets out to seek his fortune, he manages to acquire a magic turban which can make him invisible, a magic sword which is so strong it can cut through anything, and a magic carpet which will take him wherever he wants to go. Armed with these enchanted artefacts, he sets out to solve the mystery of where the princess disappears to every night....

Another collection of great classic novellas by superb storytellers, including Robert E. Howard, E. T. A. Hoffman, Edith Wharton, Bessie Kyffin-Taylor, F. Marion Crawford and more....

Edmund Gill Swain (1861-1938) was an English cleric and author of ghost stories. He was a longtime friend of M. R. James, and his ghost stories show James' influence. 'The Eastern Window', 'The Man with the Roller', 'The Rockery'.

Elizabeth, a young wife and mother, waits for her husband Walter to come home from the coal mine. She attributes his lateness to him having gone drinking. As time goes on, she goes to look for him and alerts his colleagues. It transpires he has been killed in a pit accident. Elizabeth's mother-in-law helps her to wash the corpse after it is brought home from the mine. The reactions of the two women are in stark contrast - and the experience of laying out the body shows Elizabeth how she and her husband never really knew one another in life.

A vintage collection of some of the greatest short stories ever written

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.

William Wymark Jacobs (1863 - 1943) was an English author of short stories and novels. His most popular works in the early part of the last century were his humorous tales set around the docks of Wapping and in the tap-room of the infamous Cauliflower tavern. Many of his stories were written in a Cockney vernacular and were keenly observant of character. His most famous horror stories are "The Monkey's Paw" and "His Brother's Keeper" both of which have been included in numerous anthologies.

Seven short story masterpieces by the acknowledged master of the short story, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: 'The Parasite', 'The Mystery of Sasassa Valley', 'The Man with the Watches', 'A Pastoral Horror', 'The Slapping Sal', 'Lot No. 249','The Ring of Thoth'.

Seven strange stories of intriguing optical illusions. The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O'BrienThe Devil's Spectacles by Wilkie CollinsThe Secret of the Smoked Spectacles by William Le QueuxMy Black Mirror by Wilkie CollinsThe Man who was Blind by Edwin PughA Coincidence by A. J. AlanTitbottom’s Spectacles by George William Curtis.

James Hume Nisbet (1849 - 1923) was born in Scotland but travelled extensively in Australia before returning to his native country. He became a writer in middle-age and wrote prolifically, mainly mystery and adventure fiction. The Vampire Maid is a classic vampire story about a traveller who takes lodgings with an apparently kind landlady and her pale invalid daughter, who instantly casts a spell upon him.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) was a British Victorian-era novelist famous for her sensationalist writing. "The Cold Embrace" is a ghost story about a pair of lovers who promise to be true to each other. The young man declares he will even return from beyond the grave to be with his lover, but she declares that only a suicide can do this, as they are denied entrance to heaven. Shortly after this, the young man travels away and after some time neglects to write anymore.

Bram Stoker (1847 - 1912) is best known for his masterpiece of horror, "Dracula". But he was also the author of many exceptional horror stories, of which "The Squaw" is a prime example. It tells the story of a brash but kind-hearted American visiting Europe. He and his travelling companions are keen to visit the Torture Tower in the Burg at Nuremburg. But on their way, the American unfortunately drops a pebble over the parapet... setting in motion a terrible series of events.

A medieval tale of the trial of a werewolf in southern France. A strange wandering beggar-boy meets a group of French girls who are tending their flocks. He frightens the girls with dreadful stories of souls in Hell and explains that he is a werewolf and describes how at night he ravages the country and devours sheep and children. The boy is arrested and brought before the courts. His testimony is alarmingly frank and astonishingly well corroborated by the evidence of other witnesses.

Possibly the scariest horror story of all time. Captured and condemned to death by the Inquisition at Toledo, the narrator finds that his captors have devised a dungeon for him which exposes him to the most dreadful and drawn out psychological terror before certain death finally catches him. Every time he manages to escape one of their petrifying devices, another even more gruesome mode of execution is deployed.

When the villainous Mr. Hyde embarks on a series of heinous crimes in London, he proves elusive to the authorities. What is more puzzling is the peculiar last will and testament drawn up by the mild mannered and amiable scientist, Dr. Jekyll, leaving everything he owns to the disreputable Mr. Hyde in the case of his own death or disappearance. As Robert Louis Stevenson's tale unfolds from his masterly pen, the listener is drawn into the mystery and waits with bated breath for the denouement. Gripping!

A quartet of short stories by the mastermind of practical jokes, Hector Hugh Munro, better known under his pseudonym “Saki”. This collection brings together four of his most ingenious tales, all of which involve one character playing a prank on the others. The results range from the comic to the macabre… but all are brilliantly narrated with Saki’s superb ironic wit. The Stampeding of Lady Bastable.

A wonderful collection of 50 phenomenal stories by the world’s great short story writers.

Maxim Gorky, whose real name was Alexey Maximovich Pyeshkov, is probably the best-known late-19th-century Russian fiction writer among the English-speaking world. His pen name translates as Maxim the Bitter, which attitude is reflected in many of his works. Much of his writing reflects his own terrible life experiences and suffering. It is in his short stories that he reveals his true genius. "Her Lover" describes the plight of a lonely, alienated woman who creates an imaginary lover for herself.

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (1857-1946) was a prominent and prolific American author of novels, short stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers. Her horror stories are particularly popular. 'The Striding Place' (1895) tells the story of a man who is searching for his best friend ,who's gone missing. The search takes him to a dangerous waterfall in the forest called The Strid, from which many have fallen and drowned. There he discovers something most terrifying and surreal.