Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A rich and varied anthology of inventive classic tales by some of the world's top storytellers. 'A Deal in Ostriches' by H. G. Wells, 'The Scarecrow' by G. Ranger Wormser, 'Only a Dream' by H. Rider Haggard, 'The Magic Shop' by H. G. Wells, 'The Business of Madame Jahn' by Vincent O'Sullivan, 'The Old Portrait' by Hume Nisbet, 'The Yellow Globe' by Alexander W. Drake, 'The Last Trump' by Hugh Walpole, 'The White Cat' by W. W. Jacobs.

'Good Lady Ducayne' is a sensational tale of a young woman, Bella Rolleston, who secures a job as a paid companion to a very elderly and wealthy aristocratic lady who offers her a handsome salary, a winter travelling on the Italian Riviera and the Italian Lakes and very little to do. It all seems too good to be true. And when Bella learns that the old lady's previous two companions died under mysterious circumstances and she herself is becoming paler and sicker...it does seem as though something sinister is afoot.

A gripping collection of Victorian supernatural stories from the greatest ghost story writers of the age. 'Room Number Ten' by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor, 'Kerfol' by Edith Wharton, 'A Child of the Rain' by Elia W. Peattie, 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon, 'The Mummy of Thompson-Pratt' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'When I Was Dead' by Vincent O'Sullivan, 'The Everlasting Club' by Arthur Gray, 'The Story of the Spaniards' by E & H Heron, 'The Staircase' by Hugh Walpole....

Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) was an English author of 21 novels and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works have been ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells, and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. In his stories of detection, Bramah hit on the idea of a blind detective, Max Carrados, whose triumphs are all the more amazing because of his disability.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer best known for his fictional priest-detective, Father Brown. In "The Blue Cross" however, we are following the famous Parisien sleuth Aristide Valentin in pusuit of a master criminal in London. Valentin's problem is that he has no clue where to start looking... until in a restaurant where he has his breakfast, the salt and sugar are in the wrong containers.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer best known for his fictional priest-detective, Father Brown.This collection features five of Chesterton's most intriguing cases:The Shadow of the SharkThe Hammer of GodThe Invisible ManThe Queer FeetThe Blue Cross

On the night before their execution during the French Revolution, twenty-one condemned prisoners and their friends are permitted a last banquet before their trip to the guillotine on the morrow. While they feast and jest on their last night alive, they begin to speculate about the hour of the execution the next day. Only one prisoner, Duprat, is quiet on the subject. His friend Marginy questions him on the subject, and Duprat asserts than he knows the exact time at which he will die on the next day.

When Richard Hannay returns to London after an action-packed life in Rhodesia, he finds life unbearably dull. He is on the point of leaving the city in search of adventures, when mystery and intrigue turns up at his door in the shape of Franklin Scudder, Hannay’s neighbour, who turns out to be a spy trying to escape the clutches of a shady international organisation, bent on sparking a European war. When Scudder is mysteriously murdered and all the evidence seems to point to Hannay himself, he escapes to Scotland, bearing Scudder’s cryptic coded notebook, which he struggles to decipher.

The Cunning Apprentice is a fairy tale set in Russia. It tells the story of a young lad who is apprenticed to a wicked sorcerer who intends to use his magic to trick the boy's parents into giving up their son to him forever. Only the cunning of the lad enables him to turn the magician's magic against him.

John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) was an American author, editor and satirist. 'The Ghost Club' is a lighthearted ghost story told by a prisoner who has been found guilty of burglary and the theft of a set of ornate silver teaspoons. His improbable story of how he came to be in possession of the spoons is extraordinary and charmingly engaging.

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was a prolific American poet, novelist, and short story writer. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. 'The Black Dog' is a supernatural tale of a group of travellers who seek shelter in a remote cabin where an old man lies dying. They hear from the man's nephew of a local tale that when death arrives, it is preceded by the appearance of a ghostly black dog which howls outside the house.

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American author famous for his weird tales and horror stories. Sea Curse is the tale which starts with a village tragedy. A local girl who lives with her elderly aunt has been seduced and deflowered by a swaggering, drunk sailor. In despair she drowns herself in the ocean. The sailor mocks her aunt over the girl's washed-up body on the beach. The old aunt retaliates by putting an awful, terrible curse upon the sailor and his mate....

George Robert Gissing (1857–1903) was a popular English novelist and short story writer who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. The House of Cobwebs is the story of an emerging friendship between two unlikely housemates. A young, struggling novelist and his landlord, a middle-aged retired assistant chemist who has inherited three dilapidated houses which are most definitely not fit for human habitation.

George Robert Gissing (1857-1903) was a popular English novelist and short-story writer who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. The Scrupulous Father is an unusual love story set in the world of stifling Victorian propriety. Rose, the only daughter of the highly respectable and class obsessed Mr. Wiston, is drawn to a young, redheaded clerk at an inn while she is on holiday. The young man is outgoing, cheerful, and free of all the petty rules and inhibitions which dominate her own life.

George Robert Gissing (1857–1903) was a popular English novelist and short story writer who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. Humplebee tells the tale of a young man of the same name who, in his youth, saves the life of his schoolfellow, Leonard Chadwick, who falls through thin ice on a winter pond.

A poor schoolteacher decides to spend the summer vacation at a remote country inn, where he falls gradually in love with not only the tavern's way of life, but also the landlord's daughter, the lovely Miss Fouracres. Meanwhile the landlord is sinking into drink and despair, driven by his obsession over an incident at a hotel he ran several years ago. An incident which now threatens to raise its ugly head again....

Leitch Ritchie (1800–1865) was a Scottish novelist and journalist, who is best known for "The Man-Wolf" - one of the first British werewolf stories. At the ceremony of the ducking of the fishermen, a knight is accidently pitched into the river by his servant Hugues. This humiliation, which occurs in the presence of the beautiful damsel Beatrix, causes the knight to go on a drinking spree that night, as a result of which he sets off home very late indeed. Travelling through the forest at night, he has a series of adventures which end in him being turned into a werewolf.

Fleete, a relative newcomer to India, becomes extremely drunk on New Year's Eve and on the way home desecrates the temple of the monkey-god Hanuman, by stubbing out his cigar on the statue of the deity. A mysterious leper appears and bites Fleete on the chest, leaving a strange mark. Another priest warns Fleete that Hanuman has not yet finished with him.During the next day, Fleete's behaviour becomes stranger and stranger. He gnaws ravenously on raw meat, grovels in the earth of the garden and begins to howl like a wolf.

Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, was a collector of ghost stories. He assembled an extensive compilation of firsthand accounts of encounters with ghosts from all around the British Isles and abroad. The Man in the Iron Cage was one of Lord Halifax's favorites. It tells the story, from several sources, of a haunted house in Lille, France, with a gruesome secret in the attic.

A quartet of short stories by the British master of the macabre, Hector Hugh Munro, better known under his pseudonym “Saki”. This collection brings together four of his most macabre tales, all of which will surprise the listener with an uncanny twist at the end.