Showing results by narrator "Edward E French" in All Categories

Herbert George "H. G." Wells (September 21, 1866-August 13, 1946) was a prolific English writer in many genres. He is sometimes called the “Father of Science Fiction.” His stories have been filmed many times. His best-known classics are The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898).

At a genetics lab where a revolutionary strain of corn is being developed, FBI Special Agent Jack Dawson's best friend and fellow agent is brutally murdered, his body torn apart. Jack is convinced that Naomi Perrault, a beautiful geneticist and suspected terrorist, is behind the murder. But when Jack is framed for setting off a bomb that devastates the FBI lab in Quantico, Naomi becomes Jack's only hope of survival.

"Prisoner of war, sea captain, moral reformer, and itinerant preacher, Joseph Bates led a varied and fascinating life and, as recognized by several scholars, achieved historical significance by co-founding the Seventh-day Adventist Church". So begins Gary Land in his Introduction to this audio version of the autobiography of Joseph Bates (1792-1872). The story first appeared as a series of 51 articles in The Youth's Instructor, a Seventh-day Adventist publication, between November 1858 and May 1863.

The Most Dangerous Game, also published as The Hounds of Zaroff, is the classic horror yarn about big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford, from New York City, who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where a sadistic Russian aristocrat hunts humans for sport. Rainsford must fight for his life.

The famous story of a mysterious nighttime journey where Young Goodman Brown contends with elderly witches, devil worshipers, a Black Mass, and a showdown with the Devil himself. Like so many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories and novels, "Young Goodman Brown" takes place in Puritan New England, specifically in Salem, Massachusetts, during the infamous witch trials, during which dozens of women and men were accused of witchcraft and executed in grisly fashion.

Early American satire from Washington Irving author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. The classic short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” is the dark and eerie tale of a foolish man’s greed, hypocrisy and ambition. Tom is a debased man, miserly and cruel to his fellows, and even to his wife. The Devil shows him a grove of rotting trees, representing souls. They make the customary deal, with Walker becoming one of the richest men around and Walker begins to work at keeping his soul, despite a lifetime of usury and the dark deal to which he agreed.

Author Gaston Leroux, born May 6, 1868, published his most famous work, The Phantom of the Opera, as a serial in 1909 and as a book in 1910 (with an English translation appearing in 1911). Phantom, with its occult overtones, has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name.

Abraham Merritt's Burn, Witch, Burn! is like a detective novel masquerading as a dark fantasy novel. It’s a cross-genre experimentation from the late '20s blending horror, fantasy, and crime drama. An unfortunate neurologist named Dr. Lowell finds himself confronted with a series of mysterious deaths. Each victim falls into a state of paralysis before later convulsing and finally expiring, stiffening into an abrupt rigor mortis. Merritt weaves a mix of creeping dread, action, and mystery of animated, demonic, murderous toy dolls.

Writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809 and became a literary sensation in 1845 with the publication of his poem "The Raven," considered a great American literary work and one of the best of Poe's career.

The year is 1920. Dr. John Petrie, a physician and our narrator, meets his friend Denis Nayland Smith, who served as British police commissioner in Asia. Smith seems to know all things Asia and has the innate ability to get all the support he needs from British government officials. Smith stands for everything good, proper, and most importantly, British. Petrie is, of course, knowledgeable in medicine, forensics, and chemistry and an ace with a pistol - for good measure. Together they must thwart Dr. Fu-Manchu’s diabolical plan to restore China to its former glory.

A year has passed since the Sutter Buttes incident. Jack Dawson and Naomi Perrault, having failed to find the elusive bag of lethal New Horizons seed, are fired and the secret agency established under President Curtis to study the harvesters is shut down. As the harsh controls on biotechnology and genetics research imposed under President Curtis are rescinded by the new President, Naomi is recruited by a self-made billionaire in the pharmaceuticals industry who wants her to continue her original work in developing a food-based delivery system for vaccines.

The whimsical tale of a witch and an enchanted scarecrow come to life from the otherwise serious author Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804-May 19, 1864), whose themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity. He is best known for The House of the seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter, a story of a proud adulteress sentenced by her stern Puritan judges to wear a scarlet A on her breast, published in 1850.

Orson Welles is a one-person play in two acts about the life and times of Orson Welles. Some say that Orson Welles was a genius, but he always denied that. He did give us Citizen Kane, considered by most critics to be the best film ever made, but after that, his career took one long downward plunge. The play finds Welles trying to find the financing for one of his film projects. It's a difficult task, since most of the Hollywood community considers him to be a "screwball".

Author Ambrose Bierce (June 24, 1842-c. 1914) was a prolific and versatile writer regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction. His horror writing is ranked alongside Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. He may well be the greatest satirist America has ever produced.

“In Amundsen's Tent" is short horror fiction inspired in part by various expeditions to the South Pole, beginning in the late 1890s. These culminated in the famous effort led by Roald Amundsen, who was the first to reach the South Pole on December 14, 1911. "In Amundsen’s Tent" is about a three-man expedition to Antarctica arriving at the deserted camp of an earlier trio of explorers. In the tent is the journal of Robert Drumgold, who with two other men, perished mysteriously near the South Pole....

Louisa May Alcott, born on November 29, 1832, was a 19th century American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. Louisa May Alcott was also an aficionado of “blood and thunder tales,” sensational short stories that she could sell to magazines.

Arthur Machen, born March 3, 1863, in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Wales, The United Kingdom, was a leading author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. "The Great God Pan," published in 1894 made him famous and controversial in his lifetime.

Writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809 and became a literary sensation in 1845 with the publication of his poem "The Raven," considered a great American literary work and one of the best of Poe's career. His creative talents led to the beginning of different literary genres, earning him the nickname "Father of the Detective Story" among other distinctions. He produced thrilling tales, such as “The Cask of Amontillado," and poems such as "Ulalume" and "The Bells."

A weird tale that anticipates the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. There's terror on the high seas when crewmen on a ship encounter a man whose body is slowly being absorbed by a gelatinous cosmic horror.

Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat. Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat, and several other novels.