Anna Teague

Great value

Revisado: 03-02-24

For one credit there’s a lot of listening here and wide swath of authors from the Victorian age from both English and international authors. Some of the stories are well known but with so many to choose from there were many new to me. Likewise, several different narrators voice the stories which keeps the narration from getting monotonous. The main problem I had was finding which stories are contained here and even after I bought it the chapters are unlisted so I had to find the google book preview of the hard copy and the contents are as listed:

Introduction by Otto Penzler
One Night in a Gaming-House 3
"Waters"

The Biter Bit 11
Wilkie Collins

Hunted Down 30
Charles Dickens

The Wife-Killer 44
James M'Govan

My Adventure in the Flying Scotsman
52
Eden Phillpotts

The Mystery of a Handsome Cad 66
Moll. Bourne

The Jewelled Skull 72
Dick Donovan

The Greek Interpreter 84
Arthur Conan Doyle

The Black Bag Left on a Door-Step 96
C. L. Pirkis

The Opal of Carmalovitch 111
Max Pemberton

An Oak Coffin
120
L. T. Meade & Chifford Halfax

The Stanway Cameo Mystery 136
Arthur Morrison

The Divination of the Zagury
Capsules 149
Headon Hill

Five Hundred Carats 160
George Griffith

The Vanishing Diamonds 170
M. McDonnell Bodkin

Hagar of the Pawn-Shop 184
Fergus Hume

The Robbery in Phillimore Terrace 205
Emmuska Orczy

CRIME STORIES

Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess,
219
J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The Advocate's Wedding-Day
240
Catherine Crome

Levison's Victim 248
M. E. Braddon

The Pavilion on the Links 259
Robert Louis Stevenson

The Knightsbridge Mystery 289
Charles Reade

The Three Strangers 311
Thomas Hardy

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime 335
Oscar Wilde

The Mystery of the Strong Room 345
L.. T. Meade & Robert Eustace

The Hammerpond Park Burglary 360
H. G. Wells

The Ides of March 366
E. W. Hornung

The Story of the Lost Special
378
Arthur Conan Doyle

The Episode of the Tyrolean Castle 390
Grant Allen

The Diamond Lizard 400
George R. Sims

A Prince of Swindlers 414
Guy Boothby

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

The Little Old Man of Batignolles 484
Émile Gaboriau (French)

The Deposition 512
Luigi Capuana (Italian)

Vendetta 518
Guy de Maupassant (French)

The Confession of a Woman
522
Guy de Maupassant (French)

The Swedish Match 525
Anton Chekhov (Russian)

Sleepy 538
Anton Chekhov (Russian)

Well-Woven Evidence 542
Dietrich Theden (German)

The Nail 445
Pedro de Alarcón (Spanish)

The Invisible Eye 458
Erckmann-Chatrian (French)

God Sees the Truth, but Waits 469
Leo Tolstoy (Russian)

The Moscow Theater Plot 475
Alfredo Oriani (Italian)

AMERICAN STORIES
The Purloined Letter 553
Edgar Allan Poe

A Thumb-print and What Came of It 565
Mark Tirain

My Favorite Murder 574
Ambrose Bierce

The Lady, or the Tiger?
580
Frank Stockton

The Corpus Delicti 585
Melville Davisson Post

A Difficult Problem 603
Anna Katharine Green

The Suicide of Kiaros 616
L. Frank Baum

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Like listening to radio waves from the past…

Revisado: 07-05-21

I came to this story through being a fan of it’s narrator, Mr Simon Stanhope and his body or work on youtube. Posterity only has wax cylinders to give a few clues to how people sounded back in the 19thC, but Mr Stanhope’s voice conjures up the image of a learned Victorian-age English man telling a tale of mystery, at times in a firm evenhanded manner, but often with gothic strains of terror and woe creeping in. In a word: evocative.(As an aside, I am impressed when a person can speak distinctly the words. Mary, merry, and marry. I try and they all sound the same!)
The story itself is also quite good. Turns out, in addition of reverses-of-fortune tales for which he is famous, Dickens also wrote mystery stories, written in the same vein but with elements of surprise, crime, misfortune, and justice. Hunted Down follows the quest of a confidential agent meant to ferret out the stalker of a sickly woman, but as the investigation deepens it’s unclear who is stalking whom, and with what motive in mind.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Love these old short stories...

Revisado: 01-30-21

It’s too bad that the short story has somewhat fallen out of favor... especially the mystery genre which is well served by the format where character development isn’t as necessary and where contrivance only highlights the cleverness of the thing... Since some of these stories are rare they aren’t the stories best weathered by time but I like listening to them and getting to know a few of the more obscure authors. Glad that Mr Medaware dug these up and I will continue to purchase the “Bodies” series for as long as the publishers crank them out!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña