Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

'The Malachite Jar' is a detective story. An eminent magistrate, an antiquarian book and antique collector, has been found dead. The post mortem indicates that he was poisoned. But who could possibly have a motive for the murder? Various members of the community come forward with information, each of which points to a different solution to the puzzle...but which is correct?

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....

Kipling’s classic tale taken from the Just So Stories. Leopard is having trouble finding the other animals in the forest because they have camouflaged themselves. But he soon learns the advantages of having a patterned hide.

Herbert Armstrong was a Welsh solicitor who murdered his wife by administering arsenic. His life was marked by love affairs and dubious business dealings. It is also probable that his hatred of his dull, respectable existence in a tiny rural village was one of the motives for his terrible crime. This story of the crime and trial of Armstrong is told by Edgar Wallace, who reported from the courtroom. On behalf of a newspaper syndicate, Wallace offered the convicted man £5,000 for his confession. The offer was refused.

When Cecilia and her mother are introduced to an eminent Egyptologist, Professor Constanides, while staying in Cairo for the winter, they are captivated and charmed. Cecilia in particular spends much of her leisure time in his company. One night she returns early to the hotel from a party at which she had been alone on the balcony with the mysterious Professor. Although she retires early, it is not to sleep. She stands on her balcony, and feels herself strangely compelled to leave the hotel and set out at night alone on the streets of Cairo.

A gripping collection of classic spy stories by some of the great early masters of espionage fiction: 'The Secret of the Black Bag' by William Le Queux, 'How I Became a Secret Agent' by Dr. A. K. Graves, 'The Secret of the Smoked Spectacles' by William Le Queux,'The 39 Steps' by John Buchan, 'Matahari and Some Other Women Spies' by Sir Basil Thomson, 'The Secret of Dr. Vaux’s Intrigue' by William Le Queux.

'The Donkey Skin' is a strange fairy tale of a princess who escapes an unwanted marriage by running away from the palace dressed in a donkey skin, to a hard life of poverty as a hen-wife. When a young prince happens to catch a glimpse of her without her donkey skin, he falls in love with her. But how is he to find the beautiful maiden again?

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. 'The Little Girl' is the story of a child with a strict, overbearing Victorian father. When her mother is ill and her father has to look after the little girl alone, she gets to know a different, softer, kinder side of him.

Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was one of France's finest writers of short stories. 'The Pope's Mule' is the amusing story of an animal which waited patiently for seven years to repay a man who mistreated her.

An absorbing set of stories set in Victorian and Edwardian London. Old Fags by Stacy Aumonier, The One Million Pound Bank Note by Mark Twain, The Omnibus by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, A Circular Tour by W. W. Jacobs, The Hired Baby by Marie Corelli, Juxtapositions by Stacy Aumonier, Mixed Relations by W. W. Jacobs, The Inconsiderate Waiter by J. M. Barrie, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Talking Horse by F. Anstey Guthrie, London Street Markets by Henry Mayhew,

"The Door in the Wall" is the strange supernatural tale of a young boy who finds a door in a wall which leads to a beautiful magical garden full of wonderful people, animals and flowers. The rest of his life is spent searching for the door and the magical world again...but the door reveals itself again only at the most inconvenient moments, when he cannot spare the time to go through it. Until one night, finally, he finds the door again and goes back through....

A spectacular collection of outstanding half-hour short stories...perfect for commuters or bedtime listening. 'The Whistle' by Hugh Walpole, 'The Well' by W. W. Jacobs, 'The Scrupulous Father' by George Gissing, 'The Debt' by Edith Wharton, 'The Problem of the Five Marks' by Melville Davisson Post, 'The Purple Wig' by G. K. Chesterton, 'Pickman's Model' by H. P. Lovecraft, 'Humplebee' by Geroge Gissing.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856 - 1925), known as H. Rider Haggard, was an English writer of adventure stories, often set in exotic locations, especially Africa, and a pioneer of the Lost World literary genre. Only a Dream is a ghost story about the strange experience of a widower about to remarry, who is visited on the eve of his wedding by the ghastly apparition of his dead first wife.

Mary Shelley's classic gothic horror novel. The scientific young genius, Frankenstein, discovers a method for creating life in inanimate objects and sets about a project to build a human in his laboratory. He is successful in his aim, but in so doing, unleashes on the world a creature whose physical deformities make him repulsive to everyone who sets eyes on him.

The deceptively mild mannered detective, Mr. J.G. Reeder devises a cunning plan to set a thief to catch a murderer.

Maxim Gorky, whose real name was Alexey Maximovich Pyeshkov, is probably the best-known late-19th-century Russian fiction writer among the English-speaking world. His pen name translates as Maxim the Bitter, which attitude is reflected in many of his works. Much of his writing reflects his own terrible life experiences and suffering. It is in his short stories that he reveals his true genius. "Her Lover" describes the plight of a lonely, alienated woman who creates an imaginary lover for herself.

An atmospheric tale in which a lady receives a box of six hand-made Egyptian cigarettes in a mysterious package. When she smokes the first one, she is immediately transported into a strange and disturbing vision of herself, abandoned alone in the desert, in which she feels the acute sensations of love, loss, grief and suicidal despair. An eight minute emotional rollercoaster.

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.

A seafarer's story of when his ship was sucked into the terrifying maelström... a bottomless whirlpool of gigantic proportions and power... and how he survived to tell the tale.

Richard Barham Middleton (1882-1911) was an English poet and author who is remembered mostly for his short ghost stories, of which 'The Ghost Ship' is the most famous. It is one of the few stories in literature which combines a ghostly theme with lightening humour. Middleton suffered from severe depression for much of his life (then known as melancholia) and committed suicide by poisoning himself with chloroform at the age of 29.