Showing results by narrator "Lawrence Skinner" in All Categories

"Nights with Uncle Remus" by Joel Chandler Harris is a collection of 71 Afro-American tales, featuring the cunning fox and the more cunning rabbit. "Nights with Uncle Remus" is a storybook dearly loved by children. Besides that, it is an important contribution to the study of Afro-American folklore, and through many years of popularity it has carried a long and learned Introduction, of great interest to students but rather forbidding in aspect to youthful readers.

The plot focuses on the adventures of five Americans on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. During the American Civil War, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, by hijacking a balloon. During their stay on the island, the group endures bad weather, and domesticates an orangutan, Jupiter. There is a mystery on the island in the form of an unseen deus ex machina, responsible for Cyrus' survival after falling from the balloon, the mysterious rescue of Top from a dugong, the appearance of a box of equipment (guns and ammunition, tools, etc.).

"Ben-Hur" is a historical novel by Lew Wallace, a story of a hero named Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish nobleman who was falsely accused of an attempted assassination and enslaved by the Romans. Judah first encounters Jesus, who offers him a drink of water and encouragement, as Judah is being marched to a galley to be a slave. Their lives continue to intersect as the story unfolds. Judah survives his ordeal as a galley slave, after befriending and saving the commander of his ship, who later adopts him.

Dr. Albert Shaw of the "Review of Reviews", after reading the manuscript, characterized the author as "The Robinson Crusoe of the Twentieth Century". I desire, therefore, to assure the reader at the outset that Dr. Ossendowski is a man of long and diverse experience as a scientist and writer with a training for careful observation which should put the stamp of accuracy and reliability on his chronicle.

"Over the Top" (1917) is a World War I memoir by Arthur Guy Empey. From the Foreword: During sixteen years of "roughing it", knocking around the world, I have had ample opportunity of studying, at close range, many different peoples, their ideals, their hopes and principles. Through this I have become convinced of the nobility, truth, and justice of the Allies' cause, and know their fight to be our fight, because it espouses the principles of the United States of America, democracy, justice, and liberty.

"The Battle of Life: A Love Story" is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1846. It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books". The setting is an English village that stands on the site of an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title. "The Battle of Life" is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. (One scene takes place at Christmas time, but it is not the final scene.)

"The River War" is an account by Winston S. Churchill, based on his experiences as a British Army officer, during the Mahdist War (1881- 99) in the Sudan. He tells the story of the British imperial involvement in the Sudan, and the Mahdi War between the British forces, led by Lord Kitchener, and the Dervish forces, led by Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, "The Mahdi", heir to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad who had embarked on a campaign to conquer Egypt, to drive out the Ottomans.

"Captains Courageous" is an adventure novel. The book's title comes from the ballad "Mary Ambree", which starts, "When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt". Protagonist Harvey Cheyne, Jr., is the son of a wealthy railroad magnate and his wife, in San Diego, California. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Harvey can neither persuade them to take him quickly to port, nor convince them of his wealth.

"William Tell Told Again" (1904) is a retelling of the William Tell legend in prose and verse. The main prose was written by P. G. Wodehouse, while the verses were written by John W. Houghton. Excerpt: Once upon a time, more years ago than anybody can remember, before the first hotel had been built or the first Englishman had taken a photograph of Mont Blanc and brought it home to be pasted in an album and shown after tea to his envious friends, Switzerland belonged to the Emperor of Austria, to do what he liked with.

"Master of the World" is a "black novel," filled with foreboding and fear of the rise of tyrants such as the novel's villain, Robur, and totalitarianism. Set in the summer of 1903, a series of unexplained events occur across the Eastern United States, caused by objects moving with such great speed that they are nearly invisible. The first-person narrator John Strock, "Head inspector in the federal police department" in Washington, DC, travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to investigate. He discovers that all the phenomena are being caused by Robur, a brilliant inventor.

"The travelers had sighted the cove from the sea - a narrow bite into the land, the first break in the cliff wall which protected the interior of this continent from the pounding of the ocean. And, although it was still but midafternoon, Dalgard pointed the outrigger into the promised shelter, the dip of his steering paddle swinging in harmony with that wielded by Sssuri in the bow of their narrow, wave-riding craft. The two voyagers were neither of the same race nor of the same species, yet they worked together without words, as if they had established some bond which gave them a rapport transcending the need for speech."

"The Royal Book of Oz" is the fifteenth in the series of Oz books, and the first by Ruth Plumly Thompson, to be written after L. Frank Baum's death. Although Baum was credited as the author, it was written entirely by Thompson. The Scarecrow is upset when Professor Woggle-bug tells him that he has no family, so he goes back to the corn-field where Dorothy Gale found him to trace his "roots". When he fails to return, Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion set out to search for him. They meet an elderly knight, Sir Hokus of Pokes.

"Little Wars" is a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers. Its full title is "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty". "Little Wars" includes fairly simple rules for infantry, cavalry, and naval artillery in the form of a toy 4.7 inch gun that launched projectiles, usually small wooden dowels to knock down enemy soldiers. In addition to its being a war game, the book hints at several philosophical aspects of war. The book is written in a whimsical style and gives a description of the game from the view of one of the generals in the battle bombastically relating his memoirs.

"The Young Railroaders" (1910) is a collections of "Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity" by Francis Lovell Coombs. Excerpt: When, after school that afternoon, Alex Ward waved a good-by to his father, the Bixton station agent for the Middle Western, and set off up the track on the spring's first fishing, he had little thought of exciting experiences ahead of him. Likewise, when two hours later a sudden heavy shower found him in the woods, with but three small fish, it was only with feelings of disappointment that he wound up his line and ran for the shelter.

"The White Feather" is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse. When Sheen, a quiet and studious boy, finds himself facing a street brawl between boys of Wrykyn and those of St. Jude's, their sworn enemies, he slips away to safety to avoid the wrath of his masters. However, his cowardliness is noticed by his fellows, who send him to Coventry. In order to save his reputation, he must train secretly under boxing legend Joe Bevan. Can he overcome the many obstacles in his path and restore the school's honor in the ring?

"Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-61" is a war memoir by Abner Doubleday published in 1876. From the preface: Now that the prejudices and bitter partisan feeling of the past are subsiding, it seems a fitting time to record the facts and incidents connected with the first conflict of the Rebellion.

"Sons and Lovers" is a famous novel by D. H. Lawrence. The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family", Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner, Walter Morel, at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterized by physical passion. But soon after her marriage to Walter, she realizes the difficulties of living off his meagre salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day.

"Triplanetary" is a science fiction novel by E. E. Smith. The novel covers several episodes in an eons-long human breeding project by the super-intelligences of the Arisians. This alien race is breeding two genetic lines to become the ultimate weapon in Arisia's cosmic war with their archenemies, the Eddorians. The story cover the Kinnison genetic line during the fall of Atlantis, Nero's reign in Rome, World Wars One, Two, and Three.

"I would ask you a favour," said the German captain, as we sat in the cabin of a U-boat which had just been added to the long line of bedraggled captives which stretched themselves for a mile or more in Harwich Harbour, in November, 1918. I made no reply; I had just granted him a favour by allowing him to leave the upper deck of the submarine, in order that he might await the motor launch in some sort of privacy; why should he ask for more? Undeterred by my silence, he continued: "I have a great friend, Lieutenant-zu-See Von Schenk, who brought U.122 over last week; he has lost a diary, quite private, he left it in error; can he have it?"

The novel takes place in the Netherlands and is a colorful fictional portrait of early 19th-century Dutch life, as well as a tale of youthful honor. The book's title refers to the beautiful silver skates to be awarded to the winner of the ice-skating race Hans Brinker hopes to enter. The book is also notable for popularizing the story of the little Dutch boy who plugs a dike with his finger.