Showing results by narrator "Richard Mitchley" in All Categories

AD 1136. Across a barren battlefield in the shadows of Kidwelly Castle, the bodies of a defeated army lay abandoned, left to rot as a warning to all who dare rebel against the authority of the English crown. Throughout the kingdom, the people are subjected to a renewed campaign of brutality from the victorious castellans, and any thoughts of freedom are abandoned as they struggle simply to survive each passing day. However, deep beneath the Cathedral of Saint David, in a cold and damp cell that has been his home for many years, an old monk kneels in prayer.

There is a Welsh legend about a harp of gold, hidden within a certain hill, that will be found by a boy and a white dog with silver eyes - a dog that can see the wind. Will Stanton knew nothing of this when he traveled to Wales to recover from a severe illness. But when he met Bran, the strange boy who owned a white dog, he began to remember. For Will is the last-born of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to saving the world from the forces of evil, the Dark.

Edith Nesbit is more famously known as a writer of children’s stories such as The Railway Children. But in this volume we explore her short stories of the macabre and ghostly sort. Thought of as the first modern writer for children she also wrote for adults producing over 50 books in total as well as collections of poetry which we shall explore in a separate volume. These stories are brought to your ears in eerie detail by Ghizela Rowe and Richard Mitchley.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, as you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own.

Robert FitzStephen is a warrior down on his luck. Arrogant, cold, but a brilliant soldier, FitzStephen commands a castle despite his checkered lineage. When a Welsh rebellion brings defeat and a crippling siege, FitzStephen's highborn comrades scorn him, betraying him to the enemy. A hostage of his cousin, Prince Rhys, FitzStephen is disgraced and seemingly doomed to a life of obscurity and shame.

Captain Lionel Wafer and his fellow-pirates - Toad, Brace-and-Bit and Winkle, are no ordinary ruffians. Clinging to the belief that life should be simple, free and unplanned they set off in a converted teashop of a ship, renamed The Sinful Sausage, to sail backwards and forwards over the bounding blue. In no time a dastardly plan has formed in Captain Wafer's mind to kidnap the famous inventor, Humbert Cash-Cash, from his sunshine retreat and purloin his inventions - or at the very least pinch his diamond doorknob.

It is often said that two things are unavoidable: death and taxes. Certainly the latter is a common thorn in adult life, but as to the former it seems that for many people it is merely a hiccup in life’s journey. A journey they wish, if being of good deed and character, to share at the eternity of heaven’s largesse, a reward for faith and the obligations of religion. Of course for those not so fortunate an altogether different experience was prepared for them: hell. Its nightmare visions are so terrifying, conjured up by Dante, Milton, Blake, Baudelaire and many others.

Philip Edward Thomas was born on 3rd March 1878 at 14 Lansdowne Gardens in Stockwell, Lambeth, which was then a part of Surrey. His family had a rich Welsh heritage. Thomas was educated at Battersea Grammar School before proceeding to St Paul's School in London and then becoming a history scholar, between 1898-1900, at Lincoln College, Oxford. Whilst still studying for his degree he married Helen Berenice Noble in June 1899, in Fulham, London.

Billy is a street urchin, pickpocket and petty thief. Mister Creecher is a monstrous giant of a man who terrifies all he meets. Their relationship begins as pure convenience. But a bond swiftly develops between these two misfits as their bloody journey takes them ever northwards on the trail of their target . . . Victor Frankenstein.A moving, thrilling story about friendship, trust and betrayal, from bestselling author Chris Priestley. Read by Richard Mitchley.

In 1274, Edward the First ruled England having inherited the crown from his father, Henry the Third. Across the border to the west, the smaller country of Wales was ruled by Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, a direct descendant of Llewellyn the Great. Tensions were strained between the two countries and minor conflicts were commonplace between the lesser nobles, but when Edward found out about Llewellyn’s proposed marriage to Eleanor du Montfort, he was incensed, and in 1275, arranged for her ship to be intercepted as she travelled from France to be with the Welsh prince.

You Are Here is a dazzling exploration of the universe and our relationship to it.It is the story of how something evolved from nothing, and how something became everything. It is the story of science: the greatest story ever told.Here, for the first time in a single span, is the life of the universe, from quarks to galaxy super-clusters, and from slime to Homo sapiens.

In January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection, but a few days later he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic, and by May 1868 Hopkins firmly 'resolved to be religious'. Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and ceased to write for almost seven years.

We are all driven by needs, desires, ambitions and many other forces. Life runs as normal with the obligatory ups and downs. In this volume such literary leviathans as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nikolai Gogol, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and many others provide tales from pens that seep with wisdom and worry.

In those last few moments drifting from wake to sleep we sometimes delve into thoughts of a very unpleasant kind. The hint of a shadow moving across the room can give rise to all sorts of troubling, unsettling ideas. Bram Stoker was a master of this effect. Who can forget the masterful creation of Dracula? Here, his sinister tales saturate your soul and hit your heart with untold fears that, layer by layer, reveal their true unutterable horror. These stories are read for you by Richard Mitchley.

In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a 17-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.

The beautiful island of Ireland has endured a history that is pock-marked with struggle and oppression, with religious division and self-serving administrations. It has sacrificed its youth in wars, its generations in famines and emigration, but it has never forsaken its calling that Ireland is a beacon of dignity, humanity and a home for words and literature of every description. Across the centuries, whatever its joys or torments, its poets have assembled verse that speaks from its soul.

Andrew Marvell was born in Winestead-in-Holderness, in the East Riding of Yorkshire on March 31st, 1621. He was educated at Hull Grammar School, and at the age of 13 he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and eventually received his BA degree. It is thought that in 1642 Marvell travelled in Europe and, while England was embroiled in its civil war, remained there until 1647, mastering several languages including French, Italian and Spanish.

Love whether fleeting or of the ages, expressed with a look, a touch, or a thought is wanted by us all. Our classic poets did not surrender to the logic of the group or seek advice from others quick to blame but slow to embrace. Their legacy remains because it is true, because in that look, that touch, that thought, that display of words the heart remembers us and treasures us. Here are words and verse of love. For your ears, your loved one’s ears and hearts everywhere.

Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī is commonly known to us as Hafiz, the Persian poet who was born in Shiraz, Iran, in either 1315 or 1317. The facts of much of his early life are unknown to us but it is said that, at an early age, he memorised many passages of the Quran and was therefore given the title of Hafiz, which means 'the memoriser or the safe keeper'. Hafiz mainly wrote lyric poetry or ghazals - an ideal form for expressing the ecstasy of the divine and the intoxicating mystical union with God.

Many giants of literature originate from the shores of the emerald isles: Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, the Brontes, and Austen, to which most people would willingly add the name Thomas Hardy. Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and The Mayor of Casterbridge are but three of his literary masterpieces. But let us go further and add to his canon his poems....