Showing results by narrator "Phillip J. Mather" in All Categories

Ollie loved helping others. He would spend his days running errands and fetching food from the farmer’s field for his friends, and especially for dear Freda, the old Mother Fox. One day, after being chased by Dax, the farmer’s hound, Ollie fell into a deep hole in the ground. Discover what happens to Ollie when he finds that it is he who needs help.

The kangaroo once ambulated on four legs. This charming story by Rudyard Kipling, and wonderfully narrated by Phillip J. Mather tells us how the kangaroo became the marsupial we know today.

"The Beginning of the Armadillos" is a tale that focuses on two days in the lives of three creatures "who lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon": Stickly-Prickly the hedgehog, Slow-and-Solid the tortoise, and Painted Jaguar.

Robert Ernest Vernede [1875-1917] was an English poet and writer of short stories, most remembered as a war poet of WWI. Wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, he recovered and returned to the front and was killed by machine-gun fire at Havrincourt in 1917. "England to the Sea" was published in Poems of the Great War, in 1914.

"The Hour" by James Bernard Fagan (1873-1923) was published in Poems of the Great War in 1914 on behalf of The Prince of Wales' National Relief Fund. Fagan was an Irish-born actor, poet and playwright.

Written in 1914 by Owen Seaman, the poem "Pro Patria" is a call to arms to defend the righteous and noble values that England was deemed to represent. Calling upon God to support the coming actions of the war, based on a gallant national history, "Pro Patria" is an allusion to Horace and was also utilized in Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen.

Whinchat is a nostalgic reminiscence of a long ago bucolic vacation that awakened a life-long interest in nature. Skilfully written and self-narrated by Phillip J. Mather, the tale will strike a chord with birdwatchers and nature lovers alike, and will remind all of gentler times in 1950’s England.

The Speckled Band: one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes adventures, published in 1892. Doyle considered this tale to be his best Holmes story - a "locked door" mystery. It has been adapted for stage, film, radio, and TV and is now available in audiobook format, where Phillip J. Mather's masterful delivery transports the listener back over 100 years to Victorian England.

This book contains brief sketches on the life and work of 22 of the greatest evolutionary thinkers in the past two centuries. Accessible and listenable, with recommended readings for each thinker. From Lamarck and Darwin, to Gould and Dawkins.

The classic Christmas love story, as poignant now as when O. Henry (pen name of William Sydney Porter) wrote it in 1905. A poor young couple sacrifices their own "treasures" for their partner. A must-listen for any time of year.

First published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1895, this dark tale from master storyteller, H. G. Wells gives an account of the truly maddening battle for scientific supremacy between two notable entomologists.

Beatrix Potter's Tale of Peter Rabbit first appeared in 1902 and has remained a classic children's favorite ever since. Peter was named after a pet rabbit that Beatrix had as a child, and she held the character in especial regard.

"Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer and one of the foremost modernists of the 20th century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury group of intellectuals." (Wikipedia)

Six classic ghost stories from six classic authors, narrated by Phillip J Mather: "A Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf"; "The Image of the Lost Soul" by H H Munro [Saki]; "A Ghost" by Guy de Maupassant; "The Oval Portrait" by Edgar Allan Poe; "A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain; "The Trial for Murder" by Charles Dickens.

Hector Hugh Munro (December 18, 1870-November 14, 1916), better known by the pen name Saki and frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous, and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Rudyard Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noel Coward, and P. G. Wodehouse.

The Just So Stories began as bedtime stories told to "Effie" (Josephine, Kipling's firstborn). When the first three were published in a children's magazine, a year before her death, Kipling explained: "....in the evening, there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence." (Wikipedia)

The Just So Stories began as bedtime stories told to "Effie" [Josephine, Kipling's firstborn]. When the first three were published in a children's magazine, a year before her death, Kipling explained: "....in the evening, there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence." (Wikipedia)

"Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 - 14 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous, and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story, and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker." (Wikipedia)

The book describes a tragic story involving a young maiden of 'the rarest beauty'. She loved and wedded an eccentric painter who cared more about his work than anything else in the world, including his wife. The painter eventually asked his wife to sit for him, and she obediently consented, sitting "meekly for many weeks" in his turret chamber. The painter worked so diligently at his task that he did not recognize his wife's fading health, as she, being a loving wife, continually 'smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly'.

"A Ghost" is an old man's reminiscence of a supernatural event that has haunted him for more than half a century....