Showing results by narrator "Walter Covell" in All Categories

The House of the Dead is a fascinating portrait of life in a Siberian prison camp - a life of great hardship and deprivation, yet filled with simple moments of humanity showing mankinds ability to adapt and survive in the most extreme of circumstances. Dostoevsky tells his story in a chronological order, from his character's arrival and his sense of alienation to his gradual adjustment to prison life.

Edgar Allan Poe, American poet and master of the horror tale, is also credited by many with inventing the American mystery story. "The Gold Bug" is one of his most famous stories. It was first published in the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper in June 1843, after Poe had won a competition held by the paper and received a prize of $100.

The setting is before the American Revolution when Robin, a youth arrives in Boston seeking his kinsman, Major Molineux, who is an official in the British Colonial government and has promised him work. Yet no one in town tells him where the major is and he begins to hear some strange stories and finally meets his kinsman under very unusual circumstances.

On an ocean liner bound for Natal, adventurer Alan Quatermain is engaged as a guide. Supplied with arms, courage, and determination, he and his group set out through Africa's beautiful but often dangerous and inhospitable wilderness. Their trek culminates in the discovery of a lost sacred mine that could bring them all riches...or death!

A comet speeds toward earth, a deadly, glowing orb that soon fills the sky and promises doom. But mankind is too consumed with greed and violence to care. The Earth slips past the comet by the narrowest of margins, but all succumb to the gases in its tail. When mankind wakes up, everyone is completely and profoundly different.

Gaston Leroux is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera. However, he also wrote some excellent detective stories. In fact,Leroux's contribution to French detective fiction is considered a parallel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's in the United Kingdom and Edgar Allan Poe's in America. In this, his most popular mystery, rival detectives try to crack a case.

The Four Million was written in 1906 when roughly four million people lived in New York City. It opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's "assertion that there were only "400" people in New York City who were really worth noticing.

"The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the second of the 12 Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in most British editions of the canon and second of the eight stories from His Last Bow in most American versions.

If you look at any listing of the ten most important books of detective stories published in the United States, chances are you will find Uncle Abner on most of them. It is generally recognized as one of the most important contributions to American dectective fiction between Poe and Hammett. In fact, there are some critics who call it the single finest collecton of American detective stories ever written.

Wilke Collins was the author of two of the greatest mysteries ever written, The Moonstone and The Woman in White. However, like Poe before him and Conan Doyle after, he shifted easily from rational domains to the 'superrational'. Like them, he often preferred to indulge his occult predilection, a lifelong indulgence.

Hear some of the greatest American essays ever written! This unabridged collection covers a multitude of subjects, including philosophy, politics, turkeys, and dogs.

"The Old Man" rivals Sherlock Holmes in his insightfulness but is much closer to Sherlock's brother, Mycroft, in his methods. Like Mycroft, the old man reasons through mystery cases but leaves the legwork to others.

These six adventures of Sherlock Holmes' greatest rival will keep you guessing and listening.

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".

This third collecton of great American short stories includes titles by authors such as Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, and Edgar Allan Poe.

The story involves a huge diamond, the moonstone, originally stolen from an Indian shrine. The gem is given to an English girl on her 18th birthday but disappears that same night. What follows is a spellbinding mystery that to this day has the power to draw the listener into its world of danger, suspense, and surprise.

Maurice Leblanc, a writer of detective fiction during the same period as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, created Arsene Lupin, a sort of French Robin Hood. An inventive genius, a master of disguise, and an accomplished actor, Lupin operates in the choice chateaux and salons. He scorns sham and with great disdain leaves his card in a baron's residence. The card reads, "Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."

Like Charles Dickens' other early novels, The Old Curiosity Shop was a huge success, even eclipsing The Pickwick Papers. The melodramatic saga of the flight of Little Nell and her grandfather captured the public's attention, so much so that people would wait in long lines for the release of the next installment of the saga. For the character of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, Dickens drew on a tragedy in his own life.

A devastating depiction of obsessive love and a haunting portrait of a captivating but dangerous woman. When the young Chevalier des Grieux first sets eyes on the exquisitely beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut they fall passionately in love. But his happiness turns to bitter despair when he...

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was one of the giants of French literature. This collecion of three of his most famous stories illustrates the incredible range of his writing. "Captain Burle" is a dramatic story illustrating the importance of honor in French society; "The Miller's Daughter" is a tale of romance and heroism; and "The Death of Oliver Becaille" recounts the horror of a man who wakes up to find himself buried alive!