Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Thomas Hood (1799-1845) was an English writer and great friend of Lamb, Hazlitt and De Quincey. Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, the Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. "A Tale of the Great Plague" is an ironic piece set in the time of the Black Death, about how an old man outwits a gang of ruthless cutthroats.

Edward Alexander Crowley (1875-1947) was a British writer, poet, magician and follower of the occult who wrote under the name Aleister Crowley. His works scandalised Victorian England with their diabolical and deviantly sexual themes. 'The Drug' is the story of a man who accepts a strange drug from an alchemist and goes on a terrifying psychic trip.

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 Star' is the story of a shooting star which is discovered hurtling towards our solar system. It is on a collision course with Neptune. When the celestial crash occurs, the two planets combine into a gigantic burning star which is being drawn rapidly and irresistibly towards our sun. But on what trajectory? Will it hit any other planets on its way?

The much loved chronicler and observer of all that is unusual, John Timbs describes a selection of the oddest sights and anecdotes of the 18th and 19th centuries.

'Green Ink' is a classic Victorian detective story. Carsdale the solicitor receives a mysterious visit from Mr. Flapp, an old Wrychester resident who has just returned from years of travel overseas. The purpose of the visit remains mysterious, although Grice, the clerk, believes that Mr. Flapp left something with Carsdale. When next day Mr. Flapp is found drowned in the canal, Carsdale is surprisingly silent on the subject of his business with Flapp.

'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.

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. In 'The Wrong House', an elderly lady is traumatised when a funeral cortege turns up unexpectedly at her door.

A Patch on the Quilt is a short story about an actor who is pursued by a strange woman at the theatre with a very odd request. She has attended every performance of his play since it started, skipping meals to afford the tickets. She now wants him to come with her to a house in Kensington after his performance...which she says is part of her 'plan'. But who is this person and what could she possibly want from him?

'A School Story' is an intriguing ghost tale set in a private school near London. During a lesson one of the boys finds himself writing a strange sentence in Latin which he himself cannot properly explain. When the teacher reads it, he turns pale and appears to become suddenly very ill. A week or so later, again during class, another even more mysterious Latin message appears...and then events turn very strange and sinister indeed.

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.

Lettice Galbraith is as mysterious as the stories she wrote. She appeared on the literary scene in 1893 with a rash of short stories and one novel, published another story four years later, and then disappeared without a trace. Yet despite the brevity of her presence on the literary stage, her supernatural stories have remained popular to this day. 'The Ghost's Revenge' is a classic gothic horror story about a vengeful ghost which visits a terrible curse upon anyone who attempts to live in the ancient Ravenshill Hall.

E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror as well as a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories were highly influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement. 'The Cremona Violin' is the story of Councillor Krespel, an eccentric violin maker who lives with a mysterious woman, Antonia, who has the most beautiful singing voice ever heard by anyone in the town, but she was only ever heard to sing once.

When Vi and Amos go diving for the first time in the West Indies, they hope to explore the recent wreck of a smuggling ship. Once underwater, Vi struggles to remember who the man up on the surface, pumping air down to their diving suits, reminds her of. Suddenly she realizes. He is Nana's son! Nana, the housekeeper who Amos sacked for stealing. And Nana's son had vowed to get even with them. Vi searches frantically among the coral for Amos and struggles to make him understand what has happened.

Wilhelm Busch's classic tale of two tearaways who play tricks on their neighbours and come to a sticky end.

In The Marquise, Sand displays her instinctive feeling for the true sense of the "conte" or short story. She neither analyses nor explains the character of the old noblewoman who fell in love with an actor, she merely suggests the strength of passion in the cold, cynical, aged beauty. She leaves the listener's imagination vibrating with its own images thrown up by the hints she gives. A truly exceptional short story.

A terrifying and macabre collection of anatomically inspired stories by the masters of gruseome fiction.

A selection of ghost stories which make your blood run cold.

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....

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.

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. 'See-Saw' is an evocative and poignant description of young and old enjoying the weather on a fine spring day. The youngest are playing 'house' and pretending to be grown-ups. The elderly are regressing into a second childhood.