Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Following an apocalyptic storm at sea, a sailor finds himself one of only two survivors on board his badly damaged ship. As the vessel floats helplessly southward, he begins to write down a narrative of the strange events which ensue. Their ship collides with a ghostly ship from mythology...and our sailor tries to learn the secrets of its eerie crew. Realizing that he cannot be saved, he resolves to cast his narrative into the sea in a bottle at the point when his death is imminent.

Kenneth Grahame's wonderful and heart-warming story of a squabble between a brother and sister, and the extraordinary (if sometimes misguided) lengths the boy goes to, so that he can finally make peace with his wronged sibling.

Poe's classic supernatural tale of a black cat which is maltreated by its drunken owner and reaps a macabre form of revenge from beyond the grave.

Mary Ann Lamb (1764 – 1847) was an English writer who battled with mental illness all her life. In 1796 during a nervous breakdown, she stabbed her mother to death and was sent to an asylum. Six months afterward, her brother Charles took over her care, and she went to live with him, and the two of them collaborated on many works of literature together.

A Vine on a House is a classic Gothic haunted house story. The old abandoned Harding house, which is now overgrown by an unusual vine, has a strange and sinister story behind it. Years before, the mother of the household disappeared suddenly. Two years later the family abandoned the house. More recent visitors have discovered the vine growing up the front of the house behaving very oddly. Finally the local authorities decide to dig up the vine....

Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and nonfiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the Victorian golden age of the short story. This collection brings together some of the finest and most diverse examples of Fletcher's genius. 'The Ivory God' is the tale of a failing writer who acquires a strange ivory carving of an Indian god. He becomes convinced that the statue is communicating with him, taking possession of him, even writing through him.

Maurice Baring (1874-1945) was an English short story writer, children's writer, novelist, travel writer and war correspondent during the First World War. The Blue Rose is a fairy tale about a Chinese princess who is as clever as she is beautiful. When her father sets out to find her a husband, she determines to make her own choice. The Emperor declares that whoever can find and bring his daughter a blue rose shall wed her. But the wise princess is able to debunk all the blue roses proffered and at the same time works out a way to favour her own lover.

John Davys Beresford (1873-1947) was an English writer, now remembered for his early science fiction and short stories in the horror story and ghost story genres. 'Powers of the Air' is a strange and evocative tale of superstition, supernatural forces and suspense. When the 'black time' comes, it is not safe to go out on the cliffs...but a young outsider from the town is determined to prove that the Powers do not exist.

The Child in the Garden is the story of an independent young woman with a passion for archeology who enjoys travelling to sites of antiquity in pusuit of her research. Meanwhile her fiancé, a highly traditional curate, is unhappy at her level of freedom and independence. When he finally travels out to Greece and catches up with her in a remote village, she breaks off their engagement. Soon after this she experiences a terrifying, but at the same time thrilling adventure.

The Secret of the Barbican is the story of a small-town solicitor who on a chance visit to a local museum in a distant town discovers a set of rare siege coins. He instantly recognizes them as the set of coins which had been stolen from his own town corporation many years previously. He immediately sets out to investigate...and the thief's trail takes him to some quite extraordinary places....

'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 Cry of a Century is a short story about a gifted 11 year old who supports his mother by performing great feats of memory and general knowledge every night on the stage in the Brixton Theatre of Varieties. One night after his performance, his mother does not come to pick him up from the theatre. The young Marvel catches a ride on the back of a passing motor car. But the exhausted boy drifts off to sleep and when he awakes he is far outside London at a mysterious house whose inhabitants are holding a very strange and eerie celebration.

Bithia Mary Croker (1848-1920) was an Irish-born novelist and a notable writer of ghost stories; most of her work concerns life and society in British India. This collection contains six of B. M. Croker's best ghost stories, including four of her iconic tales set in British India: 'Number Ninety', 'To Let', 'The Former Passengers', 'If You See Her Face', 'The Khitmatgar', 'The Dâk Bungalow at Dakor'.

Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith (1902-1945) was an English author, journalist and film critic. Many of her books, including her extensive oeuvre of ghost stories, involve a circus or gypsy setting, based on her own research and her (unsubstantiated) belief that she had a Romany great grandmother. Satan's Circus is a creepy tale of a circus run by a sinister and manipulative couple, Carl and Lya Brandt. When a new circus hand, Anatole, joins the troupe in North Africa, he is assigned to work with the menagerie.

William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres. Born into a wealthy Quaker family in Yorkshire, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, and took a degree in medicine at Leeds. Ill health dogged him, however, and he devoted much of his recuperation to writing short stories. The Clock is an atmospheric tale of the supernatural where a young woman finds herself alone in an empty house, searching for a missing clock.

Cleveland Moffett (1863-1926) was an American journalist and author who contributed articles and stories to magazines and weeklies. He first became famous with his short mystery story "The Mysterious Card", which was published in the Boston-based The Black Cat in 1895. This tale caused a sensation, partly because it did not reveal the answer to the puzzle posed, thereby gaining widespread attention and engaging his readers in speculation for months.

George William Curtis (1824 - 1892) was a traveller, essayist and fiction writer who was particularly renowned for his short stories. He combined a highly polished style with a great sense of humour and his works we enthusiastically received in the heydays of American Periodical Literature. In the marvellous story

Titbottom's Spectacles, Curtis displays the individual charm of his work as well as the delicate atmosphere of sympathy and humour in which he sets his scenes and his characters.

When the elderly widow Cipriana is visited by a strange and scary fire spirit, he tells her that he will help her to make her fortune. The weird elf tells her that he is responsible for fires all over the world and he tells her of a major fire that will break out in the city of Murcia in two weeks time. He advises Cipriana to go to the authorities there and predict the fire. Of course, she will not be believed at first...but when her predictions come true, she will be in great demand and will be well rewarded. Things do not go quite according to plan.

Hector Hugh Munro, who wrote under the pseudonym "Saki" tells the tale of a modern werewolf. "There is a wild beast in your woods" observes the artist Cunningham to his friend van Cheele. It turns out that Cunningham is right. The next day, van Cheele finds a naked feral child in the woods, who speaks in a very disturbing way about eating flesh and hunting four-footed at night. Strangest of all is an uncanny remark about having eaten child's flesh recently.

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