Showing results by author "The Whartons" in All Categories

NBC University Theater initially started in Chicago with a remit to bring adaptations of classic novels, usually Anglo-American, to a radio audience. In its later years, it also included short stories and plays and went on to win the distinguished Peabody award. University Theater relied on excellent distillations of the novels and first-class acting alongside high production values.

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by American author Edith Wharton. It was her twelfth novel and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine Pictorial Review. Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Appleton & Company. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. The story is set in the 1870s, in upper-class, "Gilded Age" New York City.

How do you know if you’ve seen a ghost? Maybe you’ll never know. But an American couple seeking an idyllic retirement in and English country house do find out...eventually. Afterward is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known. With music by Benedict Edwards.

A gripping collection of weird and fantastical stories of supernatural and unbelievable happenings. "Pomegranate Seed" by Edith Wharton; "The Tiger" by Hugh Walpole; "When I Was Dead" by Vincent O'Sullivan; "The Fire" by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne; "Satan's Circus" by Eleanor Smith; "The Coffin Merchant" by Richard Middleton; and more tall stories....

Wharton's genius is clearly demonstrated in the hilarious "Xingu" as well as the other tales included in this collection - "The Dilettante", "The Other Two", "April Showers", and "Copy".

When a successful painter gives up his passion to paint at the height of his popularity, an old friend of his decides to pay a visit and find out why. Originally published in 1908.

Penned in 1899 by Edith Wharton, this short story features the proper Mrs. Carstyle; her husband, Mr. Carstyle; and their daughter, Irene, who are all are taken with their guest and an eligible bachelor named Vibart. Narrator John Chancer is a film and television actor with professional readings of many audiobooks to his credit.

Two teenagers form an unlikely friendship in pre-War Philadelphia. Al is obsessed with lifting weights, looking good and chasing girls. Birdy is obsessed with flight.Birdy’s passion becomes all-encompassing. Birdy wants to fly. A few years later these young men find themselves emotionally and physically scarred by Word War Two. Al is called to an army psychiatric hospital to help the doctors there treat his friend, who he finds squatting on the floor of his cell and acting like a bird.

This century is crammed full of talents that showcase an enviable array of stories and genres. Across a hundred years the short story develops, becomes yet more emboldened, more accessible to a wider audience as these female authors challenge the literary bastions.

The story begins with an unnamed male narrator who describes a man with a limp and a striking demeanor. The story of Ethan, his sickly wife Zeena, and the caregiver Mattie then unfolds: Mattie helped to care for the infirm Zeena, but when Zeena noticed a spark of affection between her husband and Mattie, she demanded that the caregiver be dismissed. When the aforementioned narrator resumes, it emerges that Mattie was severely injured 20 years earlier in the accident which caused Ethan’s limp as well as a startling role reversal among the two women.

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. 'The Lady's Maid's Bell' is a classic ghost story about Alice Hartley, a servant who takes up a new position in a remote country house as companion to an invalid lady. Almost immediately she realises that there is something not quite right in the house.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Edith Wharton’s 1913 satire of marriage and money in early-20th century American society. ‘The Custom of the Country’ was originally broadcast as the ‘Classic Serial’ from 3 - 17 January 2010. The play follows the beautiful Undine Spragg as she arrives in New York and sets her sights on Ralph Marvell, then travels to Paris where she meets a charming French aristocrat. Will Undine ever find real happiness?

A woman dies and discovers that the afterlife allows her to choose a soul mate for eternity if she felt she was denied one in life. After complaining that her husband never understood her and had many habits that annoyed her, she is introduced to another soul who seems to be her perfect match. Who will she choose? This story touches on ideas of different types of love and how our wants and our needs may be two very different things.

Ethan Frome is an entrancing but sad story of a poverty-stricken Massachusetts farmer caught in a loveless marriage. An emerging love for his young cousin leads to one day of explosive emotions with tragic consequences.

A superb collection of classic short stories showcasing the variety, depth and imagination of great Victorian writers.

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton, and the winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. The title is an ironic comment on the smooth outward manners of New York society in comparison to its inner workings. The narrative revolves around the impending marriage of an upper-class couple, Newland Archer and the beautiful May Welland, which is disrupted by the appearance of the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska who shocks the New York aristocracy with her unconventional manners and revealing clothes.

"Ethan Frome" is a novel published in 1911 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel was adapted into a film, "Ethan Frome", in 1993. "Ethan Frome" tells the story of a tragic love triangle. Set in the highly symbolic wintry landscape of Starkfield, Massachusetts, the narrative centers on the title character's fraught relationships with his "sickly, cantankerous" wife Zeena and his young, beautiful cousin Mattie Silver.

The northern mining town of River Meadows is one of three hotspots in the world producing ghost ore, a new source of energy worth twenty-eight times its weight in gold. It's also linked with slippages of time and space that gradually render the area uninhabitable. After the town is evacuated, the whole region is cordoned off, the new no-go zone wryly nicknamed "the Park." Three intertwined stories flow from the disaster of River Meadows.

A haunting collection of strange and macabre short stories, ideal for listening to around the fire on a cold winter evening.... 'The Last Leaf' by O. Henry, 'On the Northern Ice' by Elia W. Peattie, 'The Fire' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Tiger' by Hugh Walpole, 'Cool Air' by H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Missing Model' by Lettice Galbraith, 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon, 'The Snow' by Hugh Walpole, 'Over an Absinthe Bottle' by W. C. Morrow, 'The Coffin Merchant' by Richard Middleton.

Witty socialite Lily Bart has expensive tastes. Unfortunately, she does not have the social status to match. So far she has managed to get by on ‘old money’ and has become accustomed to a certain level of luxury. Her luck seems to be running out, however, as she approaches thirty and begins to scramble for an eligible bachelor who will secure her both an elevation of social status and stability.