Showing results by narrator "Frederick Davidson" in All Categories

Having entered the British Navy at the age of 12, Horatio Lord Nelson achieved the rank of captain at the age of 20. As captain, he was quickly recognized as a magnetic and controversial figure. He triumphed at Cape St. Vincent and the Nile, but failed at Tenefife and Boulogne. With the glories of Copenhagen and Trafalgar yet ahead of him, his ardent passion for Emma Hamilton, the wife of a British Ambassador, cast a heavy shadow over his career.

When noted English writer William Somerset Maugham set off for the South Seas to regain his health, he gathered the materials and wrote the stories represented here. These are among Maugham's best, and the best stories ever written about the exotic South Seas.

Julio Desnoyers, a wealthy young Spanish American, tries to escape the dirt, blood, and horror of World War I. Why should he fight on foreign soil for a country that is his father's land and not his own? But everywhere he turns, war and its ravages follow Julio, changing everything. His lover Marguerite no longer desires their old life of abandoned intimacy, and his father has no use for his cowardly, profligate son. When Julio finally decides to fight, the world and his family know him for a different man.

Since the Renaissance, Julius Caesar has been idolized as a superman. There is no doubt that Caesar was an extraordinary man. But as General Fuller points out, Caesar was more extraordinary for his reckless ambition, matchless daring, and ruthless tyranny than for his skills as a military commander. Caesar continually had to extricate himself from the results of mistaken judgments. His unpremeditated Gallic conquest was just one of Fuller's many examples.

Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Vanity Fair is Thackeray's resplendent social satire that exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars. Subtitled "A Novel Without a Hero", it traces the changing fortunes of two unforgettable women: the scheming opportunist Becky Sharp, one of literature's most resourceful, engaging, and amoral heroines, and her foil, the faithful, naive Amelia Sedley.

In The Napoleon of Notting Hill, his first novel, G. K. Chesterton creates a witty satire of staid government, set in a London of the future. Auberon Quinn, a common clerk who looks like a cross between a baby and an owl and is often seen standing on his head, is one day told that he has been randomly selected to be His Majesty the King. He decides to turn London into a medieval carnival for his own amusement - with delightful results.

Detective fans of all races and creeds, of all tastes and fancies will delight in the exploits of this wise and whimsical padre. You will be enchanted by the scandalously innocent man of the cloth, with his handy umbrella, who exhibits such uncanny insight into ingeniously tricky human problems. This collection includes 12 mysteries solved by Father Brown.

Catriona, first published in 1893, is the sequel to Kidnapped and continues the adventures of David Balfour and his friend Alan Breck. Balfour returns to the city in order to defend Breck against false charges in the Appin murder. In so doing, he becomes a pawn in a game between feuding Scottish clans; he also sets eyes on a young woman whose involvement in the same matter becomes as central to his actions as his desire to vindicate his comrade in arms.

Perhaps more than any other book The Thirty-Nine Steps has set the pattern for the story of the chase for a wanted man. And, of the many writers who have attempted this kind of thing since Buchan, only a very few, like Graham Greene, have managed to sustain the tension in the same way. The story's extended chase scene inspired Alfred Hitchcock's movie of the same name.

The Mandelbaum Gate divides the conflict-torn realm of Jerusalem, separating Israel from Jordan. Barbara Vaughn, a stubborn young English woman and half-Jewish Catholic convert, insists upon crossing the divide in order to rendezvous with her fiancé, in spite of the very real danger. Her quest sets off a series of bizarre situations and adventures, set against the backdrop of the Eichmann trial of 1961.

Andrew Lang drew upon his classical learning to recreate the Greek myths for children. He follows Ulysses from his boyhood, thorugh the Trojan Wars, to his voyage to seek the son of Achilles. The story of Helen of Troy, and the Trojan Horse, is told with the pace of a modern adventure. Lang's collection of retold myths includes Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, and recounts the lives and heroic deeds of two other major figures: Theseus, who slew the Minotaur; and Perseus, who freed the princess Andromeda as one of his many tests, with the helo of the gorgon's head. Perseus, Andromeda, and her parents, Cephus and Cassiopeia, are remembered in the constellations of the summer sky. Not only will theres tales bring to life for children of all ages the quest for good and the struggle against eveil embodied in the myths, they also reveal the roots of characters referenced throughout Western litereature from Shakespeare's time to the present day. In the true spirit of adventure, Lang dedicated his book to H. Rider Haggard.

Wealthy and old, Martin Chuzzlewit, Sr. is surrounded by greedy relatives hoping to obtain a portion of his estate upon his death. Of his two descendants, born and bred in the same heritage of selfishness, one, Martin Jr., has the good fortune to transform, while the other, Jonas, does not and receives a fatal penalty.

Robertson's story, written 14 years before the historic event it presaged, parallels the descriptions and fate of the Titanic with psychic precision. His tale, however, doesn't end with the passengers' watery demise; rather, it chronicles the detective work instigated by members of Lloyd's of London, embroiling Scotland Yard, when word comes in that the heavily insured ship has sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

In this spirited and romantic saga, a young heir named David Balfour meets his miserly uncle Ebenezer, who has illegally taken control of the Balfour estate. Ebenezer kidnaps David and plots to have him seized and sold into slavery on a ship to the Carolinas. A couple of days into the voyage, a shipwreck throws David together with David Break, a Scotsman returning from political exile in France, and the two of them journey together.

Whether viewed as subjugator or protector, Oliver Cromwell was a titan of 17th century England. French theologian Merle D'Aubigné wrote this 1847 biography for one purpose: "rectification of the common opinion with regard to Cromwell's religious character." And rectify he does.

Dr. Johnson may have been correct in saying that “Rousseau was a very bad man,” but none can argue that his ideas are among the most influential in all of world history. It was Rousseau, the father of the romantic movement, who was responsible for introducing at least two modern day thoughts that pervade academia. The Confessions is Rousseau’s landmark autobiography. Both brilliant and flawed, it is nonetheless beautifully written and remains one of the most moving human documents in all of literature.

Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Misérables follows the adventures of Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor.

Marcus, a Roman officer in Nero's army, risks his career, his family, and even his life when he falls in love with a Christian woman named Callina. In order to win Callina's love, Marcus must come to understand the true meaning of her religion, even as Rome sinks under the excesses of Nero and Christians are thrown to the lions. Quo Vadis brims with passion and life as it explores one of the turning points in history.

Pretty, impecunious Sally Nicholas never dreamed a fortune could prove a disadvantage, until she became an heiress and watched in bewilderment as her orderly existence went haywire. Coping first with her brother's wild theatrical ambitions, then with the defection of her fiancé and his immediate replacement by a much more appropriate but strangely unattractive suitor, Sally finds that life in New York is becoming altogether too complicated, and a trip to England only makes the whole situation worse.

Francis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small-town embalmer, an expert art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis' life were not always what they seemed. This wonderfully ingenious portrait of an art expert and collector of international renown is told in stylish, elegant prose and endowed with lavish portions of Davies' wit and wisdom.