Showing results by narrator "Robin Nixon" in All Categories

The Brothers Grimm retold the story "Rumpelstiltskin" from folktales that they were told. This is the story of a miller who gets his daughter in hot water by falsely telling the King she can spin straw into gold. The king locks her in a room and forces her to prove her abilities or die.

The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain. Published in 1869, it humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City (formerly USS Quaker City) through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American travelers in 1867. The five-month voyage included numerous side trips on land.

For sheer storytelling delight and pure adventure, Treasure Island has never been surpassed. From the moment young Jim Hawkins first encounters the sinister Blind Pew at the Admiral Benbow Inn until the climactic battle for treasure on a tropic isle, the novel creates scenes and characters that have fired the imaginations of generations of readers and listeners. Written by a superb prose stylist, a master of both action and atmosphere, the story centers upon the conflict between good and evil - but in this case a particularly engaging form of evil.

A rooster and hen go to eat nuts. They make a carriage of nutshells to come back in; the hen rides and the rooster draws it. The duck attacks them for eating nuts, but the rooster defeats him, and he lets himself be harnessed to the carriage instead. A pin and needle join them. They offer an innkeeper the hen's egg and the duck to let them stay, but in the morning, they eat the hen's egg, stick the needle in the innkeeper's chair and the pin in his towel. The duck also goes off. The innkeeper is pricked by both the needle and pin and the eggshell from the hen flies at his eyes.

The main attraction of an upcoming exhibition on ancient Egypt vanishes shortly before opening night at the British Museum. The pharaoh sarcophagus, which would normally contain an ancient mummy, is empty. At the request of the distraught museum director, Holmes and Watson take up the case.

"Rapunzel" is a fairy tale about the love between a young prince and a girl with long, blond hair that conquered all of the Witch's evil intentions. They were persistent in their intentions on being happy together, and the Witch was their biggest obstacle. Years passed by, and their love grew stronger.

A peasant girl named Karen is adopted by a rich old lady after her mother's death and grows up vain and spoiled. Before her adoption, Karen had a rough pair of red shoes; now she has her adoptive mother buy her a pair of red shoes fit for a princess. Karen is so enamored of her new shoes that she wears them to church, but the old lady scolds her: it's highly improper and she must only wear black shoes in church from now on. But next Sunday, Karen cannot resist the urge to put the red shoes on again.

The story first appeared in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and was included in the many subsequent editions of that collection. It was also published in Papyrus in 1909 under the title of "Bisesa". A beautiful young Indian woman, Bisesa, has been widowed very young, and longs for a lover. An Englishman, Trejago, who is knowledgeable about things Indian, wanders into the gully where she sits behind a barred window, and has a flirtatious exchange with her.

"The Emperor's New Clothes" (Danish: Kejserens nye Klæder) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don't see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as "unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent". Finally, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"

A mother goat leaves her seven children at home while she ventures into the forest to find food. Before she leaves, she warns her young about the Big Bad Wolf who will try to sneak into the house and gobble them up. The wolf will pretend to be their mother and convince the kids to open the door. The young children will be able to recognize their true mother by her white feet and sweet voice.

"The Little Match Girl" (Danish: Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) is a short story by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. On a cold New Year's Eve, a poor, young girl tries to sell matches in the street. She is already shivering from cold and early hypothermia, and she is walking barefoot having lost her too large slippers. Still, she is too afraid to go home, because her father will beat her for not selling any matches, and also as the many cracks in their shack can't keep out the cold wind. The girl takes shelter in a nook or alley and sits down.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame or Notre-Dame de Paris is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. The story is set in Paris in 1482 during the reign of Louis XI. The gypsy Esmeralda (born as Agnes) captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, but especially Quasimodo and his guardian Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Frollo is torn between his obsessive lust for Esmeralda and the rules of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales are like exquisite jewels, drawing from us gasps of recognition and delight. Andersen created intriguing and unique characters -- a tin soldier with only one leg but a big heart, a beetle nestled deep in a horse's mane but harboring high aspirations. Each one of us at some time, has been touched by one of Andersen's Fairy Tales. Here you'll find his classic tales such as: "The Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, "and "The Ugly Duckling," 38 of your favorite tales in all.

The elderly owner of a Scottish whisky distillery receives an anonymous death threat by mail. Holmes and Watson travel to the Highlands to get to the bottom of it and put an end to this dangerous game.

This book will provide the ultimate guide to achieve happiness by eliminating stress, anxiety, and depression. This book will also explain how to make mindfulness your way of life and provide you with some tricks to reduce anxiety. It will show you how to overcome anxiety and worry through mindfulness. Quick practice and exercises to overcome anxiety, worries, and panic situations.

The Brothers Grimm, or Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, knew how to spin a good fairy tale. In this story, a fox and a horse team up to convince a farmer that the horse still had a lot of strength left in him. Students will read the story and answer questions on the theme, the language, and the plot.

A rich widow lived with her daughter and her stepdaughter. The widow favored her younger biological daughter, allowing her to become spoiled and idle while her older stepdaughter was left to do all the work. Every day the stepdaughter would sit outside the cottage and spin beside the well. One day, she pricked her finger on the point of the spindle. As she leaned over the well to wash the blood away, the spindle fell from her hand and sank out of sight. The stepdaughter feared that she would be punished for losing the spindle, and in panic she leapt into the well after it.

This story was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 11 May 1887, and collected in the first edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888 and in subsequent editions of this collection. Miss Jhansi McKenna is six foot high, all yellow freckles and red hair, a formidable figure on the dance floor. She is held in great regard in the regiment, as Mulvaney explains, because of her mother, Bridget McKenna, wife of the Colour Sergeant of 'B' Company, called 'Ould Pummeloe'.

Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister abandoned in a forest, where they fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a house made of gingerbread, cake, and candy. The cannibalistic witch intends to fatten the children before eventually eating them, but Gretel outwits the witch and kills her. The two children then escape with their lives and return home with the witch's treasure.

The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist's 'eternal imagination'. Both an insight into Joyce's life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face.