Showing results by narrator "John Chatty" in All Categories

"The King of the Golden River" is the magical story of a boy named Gluck, his evil brothers, and a dangerous quest to find treasure lurking in the Golden River. It is a classic tale and the only fairy tale the famous English author and critic ever wrote. It could also be classified as a fable or parable since it it explains "how things came to be".

Since its publication in 1883, Treasure Island has remained one of the great tales of the sea. The story is told through the eyes of young Jim Hawkins, who first hears the tales of buried pirate treasure while working in his father's tavern. Once he actually meets some of those pirates, the action moves from the tavern, to the the high seas, and then to a secret island. A true adventure classic.

The story of the wily Robin Hood and his Merry Men has been passed down in oral legend, movies, and even a TV series. This reading of Howard Pyle's 1883 book The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood relates all the joys, woes, and adventures of the thief who "robbed from the rich to give to the poor".

This collection consists of the following nine stories: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment", "The Great Stone Face", "My Kinsman, Major Molinaux", "The Minister's Black Veil", "Mr. Higgonbotham's Catastrophe", "The Ambitious Guest", "The Birthmark", "The Minotaur", and "Young Goodman Brown".

Young David Balfour is cheated out of his inheritance by his uncle, who then has him kidnapped and forced into servitude on a sailing ship bound for a long voyage. What follows is one of the most spellbinding stories ever written.

Herman Melville, known primarily for his epic Moby Dick, also wrote a number of equally incisive, but much shorter stories. This collection contains four of his best: "Bartelby the Scrivner", "Benito Cereno", "Jimmy Rose", and "The Fiddler".

The revenge-minded Montresor convinces Fortunato to join him deep in the catacombs, ostensibly to sample some rare wine. The conclusion to this suspenseful story is memorable, to say the least.

Two of Poe's most famous poems, both dealing with love and loss.

Ligeia is a haunting story told by a husband about his deceased wife. She was beautiful but, also very strange in many ways. After her untimely death,he marries again but strange things start to happen as he becomes disenchanted with his newwife and begins thinking more and more about his first wife, Ligeia. Poe's descriptive powers are at his best here in setting the mood for this incredible story.

When it comes to short stories, Edgar Allan Poe is considered by many to be the master of terror and the macabre. This is one of his most famous stories. A man is tormented by a cat and decides to take a terrible vengeance, but things do not go as planned.

The Damnation of Theron Ware is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. The novel reveals much about turn-of-the-century provincial America, religious life, and the depressed state of intellectual and artistic culture in small towns. The story deals with the life of a Methodist pastor named Theron Ware who recently moved to small town in upstate New York. Theron has a number of experiences that cause him to begin to question the Methodist religion, his role as a priest and even the very existence of God.

A veritable library of listening in this splendid collection of American Short Stories! This boxed set includes all stories from Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

Typee is an idyll of four months among primitive South Sea islanders. However, the books also shocked its original audience with a truthful account of Polynesian tribal life, including their very liberal sexual practices. Typee won Melville great fame during his life and remains a favorite today.

Here is one of London's famous stories of the Klondike, where men had to battle the elements, and often each other, to survive.

This unabridged recording of the classic adventure novel from 1914 tells of an aristocratic English infant, abandoned in the African jungle upon the death of his shipwrecked parents, who is reared by apes. Given the name "Tarzan", meaning "white-skin" in the language of the apes, Tarzan is raised without knowledge of his own kind, until the beautiful socialite Jane Porter sets foot into his secluded life.

When it comes to short stories, Edgar Allan Poe is considered by many to be the master of terror and the macabre. This is one of his most famous stories. It is set during the torturous times of the Spanish inquisition and is a first-person account of a terrifying psychological ordeal. It a masterpiece of suspense and fear, with just a hint of the supernatural.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe's only complete novel, published in 1838. Set in 1827, it is an exciting blend of science, romance, adventure, realism, and supernaturalism. It is based on the actual experiences of J.N. Reynolds, whose book Poe consulted.

As with The Call of the Wild, White Fang explores a world in which animals and men depend on each other for survival. The story of a dog who is part wolf has lasted because Jack London gives each of his animals a personality. London's narratives are more than epics of hardship and survival; the are morality plays in which virtuous good triumphs over corrupt evil.

The book begins when Weyden's ship sinks in San Francisco harbor. Rescued by Larson, Weyden is forced to serve as cook's scullion. Larson's heads for the Bering Sea where Van Weyden finds human cruelty matched only by nature but he also finds something else when a young lady is also rescued by Larson.

The story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, part of Puritan New England, which was a common setting for Hawthorne's work. Its theme is one often used by Hawthorne: the conflict between good and evil in human nature and, in particular, the problem of public goodness and private wickedness.