Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Kipling’s Just So Stories are among the most enduring classic children’s tales. They follow the traditional genre of stories which explain how unusual natural phenoma came about, often using fantastic and highly magical explanations. Kipling himself was born and spent his very early life in India, and some of the inspiration for these stories comes from traditional tales he heard from his ayah and the family’s other servants.

Max Carrados is called in to investigate a mysterious ghost which haunts an empty flat in Massingham Mansions in London. Every night gaslights are seen in the apartment, even though the gas has been disconnected. Also water runs in the bath every night, even though the water supply has been turned off. Carrados quickly realises that the detectives on the case are barking up the wrong tree....

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Set in 1915 in France, 'An Indiscreet Journey' is a tale of travelling behind the lines in war-torn Europe, where soldiers and civilians are living a strange precarious existence.

John Buchan (1875-1940) was a Scottish writer, barrister, and member of Parliament and later become Baron Tweedsmuir and governor-general of Canada. While he was most famous for adventure stories, such as 'The Thirty-Nine Steps', he was also popular for his supernatural stories, of which 'The Far Islands' is a prime example. The young boy, Colin, throughout his isolated childhood on the western coast of Scotland, has dreams of a strange path out to sea which leads into a mysterious sea fog.

Mary Postgate is a horrifying story, and like much of Kipling's work it can be interpreted in different ways. It was written as propaganda in 1915 during World War I against the background of German atrocities and massacres in France, and just after German aircraft had engaged in bombing raids on English towns. Mary Postgate was intended to inspire English readers with just such cold-blooded courage and ruthlessness as Mary herself displays.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. 'The Lady's Maid's Bell' is a classic ghost story about Alice Hartley, a servant who takes up a new position in a remote country house as companion to an invalid lady. Almost immediately she realises that there is something not quite right in the house.

A comprehensive and varied collection of the best vampire stories from the Victorian era by the greatest Gothic writers of the time. Includes: 'The Horla' by Guy de Maupassant; 'Mrs. Amworth' by E. F. Benson; 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by John Keats; 'Dracula's Guest' by Bram Stoker; 'The Bride of Corinth' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; 'Will' by Vincent O'Sullivan; 'Ken's Mystery' by Julian Hawthorne.

One of the most enduring themes in literature through the ages has been the internal conflict between two sides of a single character. It manifests itself in different ways, from the classic werewolf story to souls which are invaded by evil spirits to the pseudo sci-fi of Jekyll and Hyde to strange tales of total amnesia as in Barry Pain's masterpiece "The Missing Years". This collection brings together a selection of different tales, in each of which tension is created when a human soul is split into more than one part.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's dark tale of an unsolved murder, revenge and the supernatural. When the young Friedrich Mergel goes to work for his uncle, he is quickly drawn into a world of shady business dealings and a ruthless band of wood-thieves. But on the night when Friedrich quarrels with Aaron the Jew, he subsequently disappears, together with his illegitimate cousin John Nobody. Shortly afterwards, Aaron is found murdered. Friedrich's disappearance is considered suspicious

Stranded in London during the summer vacation period and caught up in a sudden rain shower, two friends sought shelter in an archway. One of them vaguely remembered having heard that there was a club down this alleyway. From this point events become very strange. A mutual friend appears, who is able to introduce the two into the mysterious club. All the members are well known figures in London society...and they are all there for a bizarre and terrifying ceremony. Each member must open an old book, and whoever turns up the black page will face an unknown and horrifying fate.

'Major Wilbraham' is the extraordinary tale of a respectable ex-army officer whose mysterious death is shrouded in the greatest mystery of all. What could have led to Major Wilbraham to behave like that? Causing a scene on Piccadilly, staying out all night in Green Park with a street fighter and a prostitute, causing a fight at Covent Garden Market in which he was fatally injured....

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction. 'Torture' is a horror story about a schoolboy with a dangerous secret fantasy.

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. 'The Valley of Spiders' is the creepy tale of three men who ride into a remote and deserted valley in pursuit of a fleeing woman they are tracking. Before long they discover that the valley holds a terrifying secret...it is the home of a myriad of huge spiders. Will any of them get out of the valley alive?

Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels, and is credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Stolen Bacillus' is the tale of an eminent bacteriologist whose test-tube of live cholera bacteria is stolen by an anarchist who plans to release it into London's water supply.

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. 'The Last Trump' is an engaging and tense story about a man who believes he has calculated the exact date and time of the end of the world. It will occur at 11:45 p.m. on January 20, 1929.

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author of horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction. Hodgson used his experiences at sea to lend authentic detail to his short horror stories, many of which are set on the ocean. He became one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. He died in World War I at age 40. 'A Tropical Horror' is the vivid story of a ship which is attacked by a hideous sea serpent.

A spine-chilling collection of creepy, unsettling and unnerving stories. 'If You See Her Face' by B. M. Croker. 'The Ghost at the Blue Dragon' by William J. Wintle. 'The Shadows' by Henry S. Whitehead. 'The Grey Cat' by Barry Pain. 'The Yellow Globe' by Alexander W. Drake. 'The Devil of the Marsh' by H. B. Marriott-Watson. 'The Spectre Spiders' by William J. Wintle. 'The Curious Vehicle' by Alexander W. Drake. 'Number Ninety' by B. M. Croker. 'The Black Cat' by William J. Wintle. 'The Permanent Stiletto' by W. C. Morrow. 'Passing of a God' by Henry S. Whitehead. 'The Chamber of Doom' by William J. Wintle. 'The White Cat' by Hugh Walpole. 'The Loosened Cord' by Alexander W. Drake. 'Mrs. Brassington-Claypott's Children's Party' by F. Anstey. 'The Inmate of the Dungeon' by W. C. Morrow. 'The Red Rosary' by William J. Wintle. 'Caveat Emptor' by F. Anstey. 'The Former Passengers' by B. M. Croker...and over 20 more unsettling tales.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the 19th century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. "Green Tea" is an iconic gothic horror story which tells the story of a tea-drinking clergyman, haunted by a terrifying black monkey, which follows him wherever he goes, urging him to dreadful deeds and blighting his life in every way.

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.

Four gripping tales by the master of Adventure Stories, Joseph Conrad. "The Tale", "The Inn of the Two Witches", "The Secret Sharer", "The Idiots".