Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Amyas Northcote (1864-1923) was an English writer and a contemporary of M. R. James. He is best known for his ghost stories. 'The Young Lady in Black' is an eerie tale of a woman who died, leaving one crucial task in her life unfinished. The tale poses at the outset the question of whether the dead can return to earth to bring incomplete tasks to their conclusion...and the weird circumstances of this story appear to confirm the theory.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, critic and writer of fiction and is particularly well known for his morbid and supernatural stories. 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head' is a tale which reveals Poe's sense of humour - a gruesome and fantastic humour. It is a witty take on the Faust theme - an antihero inadvertently enters into a terrible wager with the devil.

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterisation, and surprise endings. 'Roads of Destiny' is an intriguing story about a young would-be poet, David, who is running away from home after a quarrel with his beloved. He reaches a crossroads - but which road will he take?

'Mr. Tallent's Ghost' is an amusing tale about an eccentric writer who likes to read his appalling and tedious novels aloud to his relatives...or indeed anyone who will listen. He persuades a lawyer to draw up a will devoting his entire fortune to funding the publication of his writing. Shortly after this, news of Mr. Tallent's death arrives. The disinherited relations dispute the will vigorously, and soon after this, the ghost of Mr. Tallent begins to haunt the relatives and the executor.

'Sparkling Biacrene' is a humorous story about a young chemist who invents a marvellous new type of nonalcoholic drink based on a marvellous Amazonian herb with astounding properties. He names his invention 'Sparkling Biacrene' and excitedly invites his uncle to dinner with his employer and a manufacturer of soda waters to discuss the commercial potential of the drink.

Twenty classic tales featuring doctors, patients, feverish imaginations, sick minds and unwell bodies, including 'Under the Knife' by H. G. Wells, 'Room Number Ten' by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor, 'Story of the Vanishing Patient' by Elia J. Peattie, 'The District Doctor' by Ivan Turgenev, 'Dead of Night' by W. F. Harvey, 'Cool Air' by H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Operation' by Violet Hunt, 'The Greatest Good of the Greatest Number' by Gertrude Atherton and more.

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day. 'The Beard' is the touching and insightful tale of a narcissistic and pompous father who is struggling to raise his pubescent son, who is enraged at and embarrassed by his father, yet the codependency between the two still exercises a magnetic pull.

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and surprise endings. 'Between Rounds' is the tale of a lost child, the six-year old son of the owner of a boarding house with a colourful and eclectic range of boarders. For a brief period of the child's absence, the inhabitants pause in their regular activities and relationships. The interlude is described in a warm and gently humorous manner.

Neil Munro (1863-1930) was a Scottish journalist, newspaper editor, author and literary critic who is now mainly known for his humorous short stories. 'The Tudor Cup' is an amusing tale based on stereotypes. Two crooked London art dealers are set on swindling an eccentric Scottish Laird of a valuable artefact in his collection: a Tudor cup of silver. A similar cup had sold recently at Sotheby's for a small fortune. But the canny Scot sees straight through the swindle and manages to double-cross the duo quite ingeniously.

'The Thing in the Upper Room' is a classic Victorian horror story. Poor young English artist Attwater is delighted to find an oddly cheap top-floor room to rent in an old house in Paris. The room, as he is aware, has a reputation for being haunted. But what the nature of the haunting is, nobody seems to know - the place has been let only once in living memory owing to its reputation, and that tenant had committed suicide at the point where the police were breaking down his door to arrest him for murder.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. 'Wireless' is a multilayered story set in a chemist's shop, where the nephew of the business' owner occupies a back room where he is experimenting with Marconi's new radio technology. The chemist's assistant, lovesick and also sick with tuberculosis, is staying in the shop overnight. The narrator is visiting, officially to observe the radio experiments...but he discovers that another set of signals are being received in the chemist's shop.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Star' is the story of a shooting star which is discovered hurtling towards our solar system. It is on a collision course with Neptune. When the celestial crash occurs, the two planets combine into a gigantic burning star which is being drawn rapidly and irresistibly towards our sun. But on what trajectory? Will it hit any other planets on its way?

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Stolen Body' tells the story of two men who are experimenting with mind over matter. On prearranged evenings they sit in their own rooms, two miles apart, and each attempts to make himself apparate in the room of the other. One evening one of the men, Mr. Bessel, succeeds in making himself visible to his friend.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'A Vision of Judgment' tells the story of a man who is awakened from his grave by a trumpet sounding for the last judgment. As the first souls are called before God, he realises that things are not quite as he had expected....

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of wonderful and varied stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'Mr. Brisher's Treasure' is a humorous tale about a man who finds a chest of buried treasure while making a rockery for his future father-in-law, but circumstances repeatedly and hilariously conspire against him as he tries in vain secretly to retrieve it.

A spine-tingling collection of the greatest short stories by the father of science fiction, H. G. Wells. 'The Time Machine', 'The Empire of the Ants', 'The Crystal Egg', 'The Sea-Raiders', 'The Door in the Wall', 'A Dream of Armageddon', 'The Country of the Blind', 'Under the Knife', 'The Stolen Body', 'The Plattner Story', 'The Stolen Bacillus', 'The Magic Shop', 'The Inexperienced Ghost', and many more short fiction masterpieces.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer, now best remembered for his science fiction novels and often credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Apple' is a strange tale about a young student who, in a third-class railway carriage, is unexpectedly offered the genuine fruit of the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden by a stranger with piercing grey eyes. The strange tale of how the stranger came to have the fruit is almost as unusual as the story of what the student then did with it.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer, now best remembered for his science fiction novels and often credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Inexperienced Ghost' is a ghost story with a twist. Clayton, overnighting alone at a club, encounters a pathetic ghost who is struggling to remember how to get back to the spirit world. With Clayton's help he finally works out the precise method for crossing out of our world into the next.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'A Catastrophe' is a poignant tale of a shopkeeper whose business is on the verge of bankruptcy when a dreadful catastrophe strikes the family, just in time to save him from total ruin.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer, now best remembered for his science fiction novels and often credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Plattner Story' is the strange tale of Gottfried Plattner, a modern languages teacher at a private school in England who, while conducting a chemistry experiment, accidently causes an explosion. The results of the explosion are mysterious. First, Plattner disappears completely.