Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

George Robert Gissing (1857–1903) was a popular English novelist and short story writer who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. The House of Cobwebs is the story of an emerging friendship between two unlikely housemates. A young, struggling novelist and his landlord, a middle-aged retired assistant chemist who has inherited three dilapidated houses which are most definitely not fit for human habitation.

Arthur Somers Roche (1883-1935) was an American writer, best known for his fast-paced mystery thrillers. The Club of One-Eyed Men is an extraordinary crime story. The narrator is determined to turn himself into the master of all super-crooks if he can only find the right opportunity. Then suddenly one day in Paris, a strange set of circumstances which cannot be explained but can be no coincidence occur. He sees an American millionaire talking business with a notorious criminal in a Parisian nightclub.

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. "Batchelors" is a charming tale of two brothers, Robin and Harry, who live in a mutually codependent relationship. Robin is timid and subservient while Harry is brash and hearty.

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist and short-story writer. The Enemy tells the story of a mild-mannered bookseller, Jack Harding, whose life is completely ordered and unremarkable except that he has a terrible enemy - a man named Tonks, who pursues him with uninvited joviality, driving Harding to distraction.

George William Curtis (1824 - 1892) was a traveller, essayist and fiction writer who was particularly renowned for his short stories. He combined a highly polished style with a great sense of humour and his works we enthusiastically received in the heydays of American Periodical Literature. In the marvellous story

Titbottom's Spectacles, Curtis displays the individual charm of his work as well as the delicate atmosphere of sympathy and humour in which he sets his scenes and his characters.

A collection of seven classic short stories in which felines play a central role. Includes: "Tobermory the Cat That Walked by Himself", "The Vampire Cat", "The Young Man Who Stroked Cats", "A Cargo of Cat", "The Black Cat", and "The Paradise of Cats".

When Herbert Blamyre is summoned back from his vacation for an urgent mission, he knows it is a matter of great importance to his firm. And indeed, he is to travel to Naples with two trunks, secured with cryptic letter locks, containing a million in gold. His instructions are to speak to nobody and make no friends on his journey. But already when he boards the boat to Calais, he strikes up an acquaintance with the blustery Major and his domineering wife, as well as the rather odd Mr. Levinson, a commercial traveller in waterproofs....

When a gigantic stoorworm appears in the sea off the coast of a peaceful kingdom, the only way to appease the monster seems to be to offer the princess as a sacrifice. The king declares that anyone who can rid his land of the stoorworm shall have half his kingdom and his daughter's hand in marriage. Only one young lad is prepared to make the attempt...

Three disconcerting culinary masterpieces from the fevered brain of the inimitable Mr. Lear.

A delightful collection of classic poems that will delight young and old alike, including: "How Beauty Contrived to Get Square with the Beast" by Guy Wetmore Carryl, "How Little Red Riding Hood Contrived to Be Eaten" by Guy Wetmore Carryl, "How Rudeness and Kindness Were Justly Rewarded" by Guy Wetmore Carryl, "If No One Ever Marries Me" by Lawrence Alma TademaI’m, "Nobody, Who Are You?" by Emily Dickinson, "Lochinvar" by Sir Walter Scott, "The Akond of Swat" by Edward Lear, and more.

A fascinating collection of classic short stories featuring unusual ways of making a living, including 'The Umbrella-Mender' by Beatrice Harraden, 'The Triumphs of a Taxidermist' by H. G. Wells, 'A Pair of Silk Stockings' by Kate Chopin, 'A Skinful of Trouble' by Arthur Morrison, 'White Magic' by Ella d'Arcy, 'A Deal in Ostriches' by H. G. Wells, and many more.

Bithia Mary Croker (1848-1920) was an Irish-born novelist and a notable writer of ghost stories; most of her work concerns life and society in British India. This collection contains six of B. M. Croker's best ghost stories, including four of her iconic tales set in British India: 'Number Ninety', 'To Let', 'The Former Passengers', 'If You See Her Face', 'The Khitmatgar', 'The Dâk Bungalow at Dakor'.

In this tale of Jeannot and Colin, Voltaire not only tells an instructive tale, warning of the dangers of sudden wealth and social climbing, but also directs his satirical comments at the vacuous and fickle nouveau riche of his day, the catholic church, private education, and society in general. Jeannot and Colin are childhood friends. Both come from working-class backgrounds in a rural part of France, but Jeannot's parents, on a trip to Paris, strike it lucky in business and within a short time become very wealthy.

A remarkable short story by the Nobel Literature Prize winner W. B. Yeats, steeped in Irish magic and folklore. When Red Hanrahan, the itinerant schoolmaster, drops into a remote barn where Irish farm labourers are drinking and singing, he receives a message from his sweetheart to make haste to her. Her mother has died and she must marry at once or be turned out of her home. Red Hanrahan gets up to start immediately, but a strange old man sitting by the door delays him by starting a game of cards with him.

When the prematurely middle-aged J.P. Huddle is recommended to take an “unrest-cure” by a friend, he little realizes that the other passenger in the railway compartment, the prank-loving Clovis, will take this as a personal challenge. The havoc which Clovis’s macabre and at times shocking practical joke causes is beyond anything that the sleepy hamlet of Tilfield has seen before. Hector Hugh Munro at his most macabre.

Six creepy horror stories of sinister, murderous and ghostly cats. 'The White Cat' by Hugh Walpole; 'The Cat' by E. F. Benson; 'The Cats of Ulthar' by H. P. Lovecraft; 'The Black Cat' by William James Wintle; 'The Grey Cat' by Barry Pain; 'The Black Cat' by Edgar Allan Poe.

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. 'A Dream of Armageddon' is a strange tale of a man who is haunted by a prophetic dream of life in the future in a time when the world is rushing towards a catastrophic and apocalyptic war...and only he has the power to stop the calamity. But stopping Armageddon would mean abandoning the woman he loves....

Fitz James O'Brien (1828 - 1862) was an Irish-born American writer, some of whose work is considered the forerunner of today's science fiction. The Diamond Lens is his most famous short story and tells the strange story of a scientist who invents a powerful microscope and discovers a beautiful woman in an enchanting microscopic world inside a drop of water.

Mary Ann Lamb (1764 – 1847) was an English writer who battled with mental illness all her life. In 1796 during a nervous breakdown, she stabbed her mother to death and was sent to an asylum. Six months afterward, her brother Charles took over her care, and she went to live with him, and the two of them collaborated on many works of literature together.

Seven strange stories of intriguing optical illusions. The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O'BrienThe Devil's Spectacles by Wilkie CollinsThe Secret of the Smoked Spectacles by William Le QueuxMy Black Mirror by Wilkie CollinsThe Man who was Blind by Edwin PughA Coincidence by A. J. AlanTitbottom’s Spectacles by George William Curtis.