Showing results by narrator "Robert Maskell" in All Categories

From the earliest steam engine to the high-speed bullet trains of today, A Short History of Trains reveals the hidden stories of railway history across the world - the inspired engineering; the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the construction of the tracks; the ground-breaking innovations behind the trains that travelled along them; and the triumphs and tragedies of the people who made the railway what it is.

Ferguson Wright Hume was born in Powick, Worcestershire on the 8th July 1859. He moved to become a barrister’s clerk to Melbourne and once there also began writing plays. The local theatres were not interested in his works, and it was only after one was stolen and presented as being by someone else that his stock rose at all. Most of his output was detective stories, thrillers and mysteries.

The novelist and screenwriter James Hilton was born in 1900. He is best remembered for the novels ‘Lost Horizon’ and ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips. He earned an Oscar for co-writing Mrs. Miniver in 1942.

Lettice Galbraith is yet another of those mysterious women of British literature of whom little was recorded. Lizzie Susan Gibson was born on the 27th January 1859 in Kingston-Upon-Hull in Yorkshire into a comfortable middle-class family. Although her canon of works is small, she mainly achieved her reputation on a single volume of ghost and supernatural stories entitled ‘New Ghost Stories’.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook. In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time.

Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex. His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. There he struggled with constraints and boundaries and by night he took to a bohemian lifestyle. As an author he is most remembered for his short ghost stories.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on the 30th August 1797 in Somers Town, London. Her mother, the famous feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft died when Mary was only 11 days old and she was raised by her father. Her short stories, some based in Europe, tackle difficult situations and genres as well the obstacles that women were burdened with in society. Her editorship of her late husband’s poetry was also widely praised.

Louisa MacDonald was born in 1845, one of eleven children of part Scottish descent. Together with three of her sisters they were known as the ‘MacDonald sisters’ primarily because of their marriages to well-known men. Her writing career of novels, short stories and poetry is often overlooked, as was the case with so many women, yet her works reveal many talents and a gift for melding odd and weird circumstances into seemingly everyday life.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. His literary works were both prolific and covered many topics. In the early part of his career he published many poetry books, even plays, before his darker and more forceful works came to dominate his output.

Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex. His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. There he struggled with constraints and boundaries and by night he took to a bohemian lifestyle. Middleton moved into rooms in Blackfriars and joined the New Bohemians club where his literary contacts grew.

Tom Hood was born on the 19th January 1835 at Lake House, Leytonstone just outside of London, the son of the famed poet Thomas Hood. Hood began writing at Oxford and first published soon after his arrival there. Much of his work is humourous or for children (which his sister co-authored) but he also wrote novels, two books on English verse composition and short stories as well as many pieces for magazines and periodicals. Hood was also a talented artist and illustrated several of his father's comic verses.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook. In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time.

Edith Nesbit was born on the 15th August 1858 in Kennington, then part of Surrey. Due to the health issues and tuberculosis of her sister Mary, Nesbit’s early life was one of constant changes of house both in England and on the continent. At age 17, Nesbit met Hubert Bland and they married three years later―whilst she was 7 months pregnant. Bland also kept his affair with another woman going throughout their marriage and the two children of that relationship were raised by Nesbit as well as her own three with Bland.

Edith Nesbit was born on the 15th August 1858 in Kennington, then part of Surrey. Nesbit was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism but gradually her work for them dwindled as her career as a children’s writer grew. Her most famous success was ‘The Railway Children’ but she was also very prolific and greatly accomplished in poetry, short stories―especially her macabre ghost and supernatural stories―and novels for adults.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai, India on 30th December 1865. In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with the citation “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterise the creations of this world-famous author”.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. He was educated at Malvern College, Tonbridge School, Eastbourne College and finally Trinity College, Cambridge where he focused on his passions of mountaineering and poetry and published several volumes. His literary works were both prolific and covered many topics. In the early part of his career he published many poetry books, even plays, before his darker and more forceful works came to dominate his output.

John Donne was born on the 22nd January 1572 in London, into a Roman Catholic family when Catholicism was illegal in England, and there was turbulence and unrest with both state and church throughout much of Europe. During the 1590s, Donne wrote a wide range of verses, including both erotic and sacred poems, creating two major volumes of work. His strong vivacious and sensual style fusing intellect and passion, as well as inventive use of subtle argument and syntax, provided a new radical perspective that reached beyond his contemporaries.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes changed crime fiction forever and helped launch not just a popular character but an enduring legend who is just as loved today.

This audio book was narrated in London by experienced British stage actor Robert Maskell at a voice recording studio renowned for high production values.

The stories were originally featured not in a book at all, but were written as installments in a London magazine called The Strand.

Whatever the reasons given or proffered the reality and known facts are that if you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, that feeling that in an empty house we are not quite alone and that sometimes the sharp, sheer shock of what just happened is upon us then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your listening pleasure.

Dorothy Kathleen Broster was born on 2nd September 1877 at Devon Lodge in Grassendale Park, Garston, Liverpool. Her novels, mainly historical fiction, peaked in popularity with ‘The Flight of the Heron’, in 1925, a best-seller followed up by two sequels. As well as poetry and various articles she also wrote several short stories, the best known of which is a classic of weird fiction ‘The Couching at the Door’ in which an artist appears to be haunted by a mysterious entity.