Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A delightful collection of classic poems that will delight young and old alike, including: "How Beauty Contrived to Get Square with the Beast" by Guy Wetmore Carryl, "How Little Red Riding Hood Contrived to Be Eaten" by Guy Wetmore Carryl, "How Rudeness and Kindness Were Justly Rewarded" by Guy Wetmore Carryl, "If No One Ever Marries Me" by Lawrence Alma TademaI’m, "Nobody, Who Are You?" by Emily Dickinson, "Lochinvar" by Sir Walter Scott, "The Akond of Swat" by Edward Lear, and more.

Seven strange stories of intriguing optical illusions. The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O'BrienThe Devil's Spectacles by Wilkie CollinsThe Secret of the Smoked Spectacles by William Le QueuxMy Black Mirror by Wilkie CollinsThe Man who was Blind by Edwin PughA Coincidence by A. J. AlanTitbottom’s Spectacles by George William Curtis.

The Alligator and the Jackal is the story of a jackal who narrowly escapes being eaten by an alligator on the banks of a river. Following this incident, the alligator is determined to catch the cunning jackal. The Jackal is equally determined not to be eaten. A series of close escapes escalates the feud until the dramatic finale.

In this tale of Jeannot and Colin, Voltaire not only tells an instructive tale, warning of the dangers of sudden wealth and social climbing, but also directs his satirical comments at the vacuous and fickle nouveau riche of his day, the catholic church, private education, and society in general. Jeannot and Colin are childhood friends. Both come from working-class backgrounds in a rural part of France, but Jeannot's parents, on a trip to Paris, strike it lucky in business and within a short time become very wealthy.

Katharine Pyle's masterly retelling of well-loved folk tales from around the world. •The Meester Stoorworm – A Story from Scotland •Jean Malin and the Bull Man – A Louisiana Tale •The Widow’s Son – A Scandinavian Tale •The Wise Girl – A Serbian Story •The History of Ali Cogia – From the Arabian Nights •Oh! – A Cossack Story •The Talking Eggs – A Story from Louisiana •The Frog Princess – A Russian Story •The Magic Turban, the Magic Sword and the Magic Carpet – A Persian Story

A dysfunctional and amoral family murders its alcoholic father and buries him in the yard, before embarking on a hobby of befriending strangers whose bodies they bury in the cellar. When the stocks of liquor and provisions kept in the cellar start to deplete mysteriously, they put it down to the partying of the restless spirits of their murder victims...but a stranger truth emerges. Written in Bierce's witty style, this story is a laugh-a-minute comedy.

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.

When the prematurely middle-aged J.P. Huddle is recommended to take an “unrest-cure” by a friend, he little realizes that the other passenger in the railway compartment, the prank-loving Clovis, will take this as a personal challenge. The havoc which Clovis’s macabre and at times shocking practical joke causes is beyond anything that the sleepy hamlet of Tilfield has seen before. Hector Hugh Munro at his most macabre.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 - circa 1914) was an American author, journalist, short story writer and satirist who disappeared in 1913 under mysterious circumstances and was never seen again. "John Bartine's Watch" is the strange and terrifying tale of an evening guest who reacts with horror when his host asks him the time. But why is John Bartine so reluctant to look at his own watch?

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 Silver Mask is a multilayered tale of an elderly lady who falls victim to an insidious but dreadfully attractive confidence trickster. Like a fly trapped in a spiderweb, she cannot extricate herself from the clutches of this gorgeously wicked man...and he is so very attractive...so very, dreadfully attractive....

Poe's famous detective story which is credited with inspiring an entire genre. The first case of the celebrated private detective, Dupin. When two women are found murdered in the most gruesome and mysterious circumstances in their apartment in the Rue Morgue, the Parisian police are baffled. Not only is one of the corpses stuffed feet first up a chimney in a room locked from the inside, but the other is hideously mutilated and lying in the yard outside.

Five classic examples of the sheer comic genius of Mark Twain. "The One Million Pound Bank Note", "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm", "The Stolen White Elephant", "Cannibalism in the Cars", and "The Awful German Language".

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

Kipling’s classic tale taken from the Just So Stories. The young elephant has an unfortunate encounter with a crocodile, which results in his nose being stretched, which is how he got his trunk.

Harry Graham was an English writer of light verse, popular fiction and history. He is best remembered for his grotesque and humorous verses which parody the children’s cautionary verses of his day. His most successful work was his series of hilariously cruel Ruthless Rhymes, first published in 1898 under the pseudonym Col. D. Streamer. Billy in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.

A delightful and comprehensive collection of all the best known traditional children's rhymes. Click on the link below to find out the story listing.

In The Adventure of the Speckled Band, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are faced with a most unusual case. Two years earlier a young woman died under mysterious and unexplained circumstances while alone in her locked bedroom. Her last words to her sister referred to a 'speckled band'. She had previously complained of hearing a strange whistling sound in the night. Now the sister is sleeping in the same room, and she too has heard the mysterious whistling. But what can it be? And what is the 'speckled band'?

'The Bronze Ring' is a story in which a princess falls in love with the son of the palace gardener, although her father wishes her to marry the son of his Prime Minister. The King devises a quest for the two suitors and attempts to engineer the situation so that the rich youth will win. But the gardener's son does a good deed to an old woman, who in return helps him win a magic ring which will grant wishes. But the youth's adventures are not over when he marries the princess. The ring is stolen, and he must enlist the aid of some very clever mice to get it back.

Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright who is sometimes credited as the original 'Father of Science Fiction'. Written in 1851, 'A Drama in the Air' is one of Verne's earliest and most seminal stories, telling the dramatic adventure of a balloonist suddenly confronted with an unexpected and unpredictable passenger who climbs into his balloon at the point of take-off. Many of the themes from this tale were expanded by Verne in his later and better known works about aerial journeys around the world or to the moon.

A glittering collection of classic short stories. 1. "The Hoop" by Fedor Sologub; 2. "Miracles" by Barry Pain; 3. "In a Far-off World" by Olive Schreiner; 4. "The House of Cobwebs" by George Gissing; 5. "A Dream of Wild Bees" by Olive Schreiner; 6. "A Very Black Business" by Ernest Bramah; 7. "The Missing Years" by Barry Pain; 8. "The Pig and Whistle" by George Gissing; 9. "A Soothing Dream" by Fedor Sologub; 10. "Life’s Gifts" by Olive Schreiner...and many more.