Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Neap-Tide Madness is the strange story of Sir Jaspar Slane's visits to the Dormy House in Norfolk. One foggy evening Slane glimpses the figure of a man emerge from the mist carrying a hunting rifle. The figure raises his gun and shoots at Slane from close quarters, narrowly misses him and vanishes again into the mist. When he makes it back to the Dormy House, Slane learns that the loose madman is the mysterious Mark Rennett - a fishman and hunter who lives in a ramshackle cottage on the marshes with his extraordinarily beautiful wife.

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day. 'The Beard' is the touching and insightful tale of a narcissistic and pompous father who is struggling to raise his pubescent son, who is enraged at and embarrassed by his father, yet the codependency between the two still exercises a magnetic pull.

Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer of short stories and novels, who is best remembered as the father of science fiction. 'The Flying Man' is a strange adventure story. A young lieutenant explains how it is that a remote tribe of natives believe him to have supernatural powers - including the ability to fly. And a very remarkable story it is!

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 taproom of the infamous Cauliflower tavern. Many of his stories were written in a cockney vernacular and were keenly observant of character. 'The White Cat' is a humorous tale of a disputed inheritance, a clever old rogue and a suspiciously mislaid white cat.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 - 1914) was an American writer famous for his dark and cynical writings, which earned him the nickname Bitter Bierce. He is famous also for his mysterious demise. He wrote a letter to a friend, which he closed by saying, "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination," and then he vanished without a trace, his disappearance becoming one of the most famous in American literary history.

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' is the peculiar tale of a vicar who sees something very odd one night in his church. It appears that a stained-glass window with the image of St. John the Baptist moves and points to the ruins of the old manor house nearby.

Edward Frederic Benson (1867 - 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic ghost story. "The Step" tells the bizarre and terrifying tale of a British money-lender in Alexandria who is aware of uncanny footsteps following him as he walks home from his club at nights. Initially he ignores the footsteps... then he plucks up courage to challenge the invisible follower...

A wonderful collection of classic stories on the theme of love. A must-listen for the incurable romantic.

Henry Lawson's poignant tale of a woman bringing up her four children alone in the Australian outback. When her family is threatened by a venomous snake that has invaded their home, she (with the help of Alligator, the family's dog-of-all-breeds) must find a way to defend her children.

"A Witch in the Peak" tells the story of a moneylender trying to recover a debt from an old woman who has been recently widowed. She throws him out of her house with a curse...and what happens next terrifies the man almost to death.

In the macabre tale The Other Side, Stenbock explores the werewolf theme in the sinister setting of a village on the edge of a stream. On the side where the village is, everything is peaceful and pleasant. But on the other side, where the forest is, there are werewolves, witches, and other sinister beings. When the young boy Gabriel is tempted to cross the brook to pick a beautiful and mysterious blue flower, he finds himself in a beautiful but terrible nightmare in which he is in the thrall of werewolves and other mysterious inhuman beings.

A remarkable short story by the Nobel Literature Prize winner W. B. Yeats, steeped in Irish magic and folklore. When Red Hanrahan, the itinerant schoolmaster, drops into a remote barn where Irish farm labourers are drinking and singing, he receives a message from his sweetheart to make haste to her. Her mother has died and she must marry at once or be turned out of her home. Red Hanrahan gets up to start immediately, but a strange old man sitting by the door delays him by starting a game of cards with him.

A fabulous collection of stories about the fabulously rich, the grindingly poor, sudden wealth, odd inheritances, greed and generosity.

Be careful what you wish for. W.W.Jacob's famous horror story about the monkey's paw, a talisman which has had a spell cast on it, enabling three people each to have three wishes... which come true with devastating consequences.

When a passing magician tells the old Bee-Man of Orn that he has at some time been transformed from another state, he sets off to discover his own origins. Was he formerly a nobleman? A dragon? A giant? After much searching and many adventures, where his faithful bees help him, he finally discovers the truth. And it is not what either he or the magician expected....

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!

When the young bank clerk Charlie Mears comes up with an innovative idea for a new story, he has no notion just how amazing his tale is. Inspired by dreams which are memories of former lives, he takes us back to the vivid and brutal world of ancient Greece. But Charlie's own literary skill is not equal to the task of writing his novel. His friend must take on the challenge of extracting the finest tale in the world from the reluctant and ever-distracted brain of the young clerk.

A delightful folk tale from Romania about a princess who is destined to marry a pig. When the pig arrives at her father's court to woo her, she submits to her fate - but the pig is in reality anything but what he seems. He is a prince who has been bewitched. Unfortunately the witch now tricks the princess into extending the spell - her fate is now to embark on a lengthy quest, hampered by iron sandals, to find her beloved husband and free him from the curse once and for all. Enchanting!

New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. 'The Woman at the Store' is a sinister tale about a woman living at a remote farm and general store in New Zealand with her small daughter and sheepdog...and a dark secret....

A collection of short stories written by prominent supporters of the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom....