Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A delightful collection of humorous classic tales by some of the world's greatest racconteurs.

The Giant Who Had No Heart tells the story of a kind prince who sets off to rescue his brothers and their sweethearts, who have been turned to stone by a cruel giant. With the help of a raven, a salmon, a wolf and a very clever princess, he is finally able to rescue his brothers and their brides and win the princess for himself....

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer noted for his classic weird and fantastic stories, especially those set in Italy. One of the most famous of these is 'For the Blood Is the Life' - a strange and uncanny vampire story set on the coast of Calabria.

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.

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American writer of weird fiction and horror stories. The Thing on the Roof is a gruesome tale of Tussman, a scholar and explorer who becomes obsessed with finding a hidden treasure which he believes to be buried beneath the altar of the ruined Temple of the Toad in the jungles of Honduras.

The extraordinary story of Robert Jeffrey who was press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1808 at the age of 18. On his first voyage on board the Recruit under the strict Captain Lake, Jeffrey gave in to temptation and stole a sip of rum. For this he was clapped in irons for two days and then given two dozen lashes. A few days later however, he drank two quarts of spruce beer belonging to the midshipmen. For this repeat misdemeanor, Captain Lake ordered him to be put ashore on a barren rock on the outskirts of the Leeward Islands.

The "Mary Russell" was a trading boat that set sail from the harbour of Cobh in County Cork on 8 February 1828, carrying a cargo of mules bound for Barbados. When it returned to Cobh on 25 June 1828, the horrified people of Cork found a cabin awash with blood and the bound and battered corpses of the ship's crew.

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.

Letitia Hopkins has always been curious about the peculiar green door in her Aunt Peggy's cheese room. But whenever she asks about it, she is always forbidden to open it or go through it. And the door is always locked. But one day, she finds a small black key on a green ribbon. And when she is left alone in the house, she cannot resist the temptation to try the door. Immediately Letitia finds herself in a strange, unfamiliar world full of wild animals, hostile natives, and a frontier life of hardship and hard work in the company of her pioneer ancesters. But how is she to find her way back to her own time?

A gripping collection of dramatic sea stories from famous classic authors. 'Absolute Zero' by Morgan Robertson; 'The Former Passengers' by B. M. Croker; 'The Ghost in the Cupboard Room' by Wilkie Collins; 'The Passing of a God' by Henry S. Whitehead; 'Haunted' by G. Ranger Wormser; 'Sea Curse' by Robert E. Howard; 'Seashore Macabre' by Hugh Walpole; 'Dagon' by H. P. Lovecraft; 'The Lighthouse on Shivering Sand' by J. S. Fletcher; and many more.

A thoroughly engaging collection of classic short stories from some of the greatest writers who lived.

The golden age of the short story was in Victorian and Edwardian times, when authors made a living by contributing to literary magazines and journals. These popular journals threw up such literary greats as Dickens, Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, and Jerome K. Jerome. Many of the great writers are undeservedly neglected by modern audience...but what a pleasure it is to rediscover the literary treasures that delighted our great grandparents!

The Balloon Hoax was first published in The Sun newspaper in New York in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a hot air balloon. The story turned out to be a hoax and the paper published a retraction two days later (rumoured to also have been written by Poe himself) admitting the deception.The story ignited a fever of excitement in New York: Poe himself claimed that the Sun building was "besieged" by people wanting copies of the newspaper.

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. 'The Ceremony' is the eerie tale of a standing stone which exerts a supernatural pull towards young females and draws them fearfully to make offerings there. Strange and mysterious offerings, at secret erotic ceremonies.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Among her most popular and terrifying tales are the many masterly ghost stories which she wrote in her early career. Miss Mary Pask is the story of a young man who calls in on the sister of his best friend's wife while he is travelling in Brittany, where she lives.

1. "The Mysterious Card" by Cleveland Moffett 2. "The Card Unveiled" by Cleveland Moffett 3. "The Problem of the Five Marks" by Melville Davisson Post 4. "A Terribly Strange Bed" by Wilkie Collins 5. "The Gold Bug" by Edgar Allan Poe 6. "Who Killed Charlie Winpole" by Ernest Bramah 7. "The Comedy at Fountain Cottage" by Ernest Bramah 8. "The Secret of the Smoked Spectacles" by William Le Queux 9. "The Hair" by A. J. Alan 10. "The Haunted Dolls’ House" by M. R. James, and many more....

A splendid collection of seafarers' tales. "Choice Spirits", by W. W. Jacobs; "A Descent into the Maelström", by Edgar Allan Poe; "Pickled Herring", by W. W. Jacobs; "The Secret Sharer", by Joseph Conrad; "Mixed Relations", by W. W. Jacobs; "The Upper Berth", by F. Marion Crawford; "The Finest Story in the World", by Rudyard Kipling; and many more.

Often hailed as the finest short story ever written in the English language, James Joyce's "The Dead" tells the story of a young woman who hears a familiar song unexpectedly at a Christmas party. The melody brings memories of a long-dead lover flooding back to her. Joyce's description of the multi-layered situation, characters, and atmosphere are unsurpassed. The reader is drawn into the stifling world of Dublin society with its aspirations, pretensions, repressed morals, and furtively enjoyed freedoms. Beautiful and evocative.

A captivating anthology of some of the more unusual short stories written by well-known classic writers. 1. "A Witch in the Peak" by R. Murray Gilchrist. 2. "War" by Sherwood Anderson. 3. "Self-Help" by W. W. Jacobs. 4. "The Wolf" by Guy de Maupassant. 5. "Makes the Whole World Kin" by O. Henry. 6. "The Stone Dragon" by R. Murray Gilchrist. 7. "The New Englander" by Sherwood Anderson. 8. "Berenice" by Edgar Allan Poe. 9. "The Man with the Watches" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 10. "The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace" by G. F. Forest.

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.