Showing results by narrator "Bryan Godwin" in All Categories

The story traces the history of the titular street in a New England city, presumably Boston, from its first beginnings as "but a path" in colonial times to a quasi-supernatural occurrence in the years immediately following World War I. As the city grows up around the street, it is planted with many trees and built along with "simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood", each with a rose garden. As the Industrial Revolution runs its course, the area degenerates into a run-down and polluted slum, with all of the street's old houses falling into disrepair.

"The Statement of Randolph Carter" is the first person testimony of the titular character, who has been found wandering through swampland in an amnesiac shock. In his statement, Carter attempts to explain the disappearance of his companion, the occultist Harley Warren. Warren has come into the possession of a book, written in an unknown language, the exact contents of which he never revealed to Carter. Carter mentions that Warren has other "strange, rare books on forbidden subjects", several of which are in Arabic.

Thomas Olney, a "philosopher" visiting the town of Kingsport, Massachusetts with his family, is intrigued by a strange house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It is unaccountably high and old and the locals have a generations-long dread of the place which no one is known to have visited. With great difficulty, Olney climbs the crag, approaches the house, and meets the mysterious man who lives there. The only door opens directly onto a sheer cliff, giving access only to mist and "the abyss".

The story opens with the unnamed narrator preparing to commit suicide. Lamenting his fate, he reflects upon the events which led him to this moment. The narrator and his friend, St. John, are a pair of loners who both have a deranged interest in robbing graves. They constantly defile crypts and often keep souvenirs of their nocturnal expeditions. Since they reside in the same house, they have the opportunity to set up a sort of morbid museum in their basement. Using the objects collected from the various graves they have robbed, the two men organize a private exhibition.

"Ex Oblivione" is a prose poem by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in late 1920 or early 1921 and first published in The United Amateur in March 1921, under the pseudonym Ward Phillips. It is written in first person and tells of the dreams of a presumably dying man. In his dreams, the man is walking through a valley and encounters a vine-covered wall with a locked bronze gate therein. He longs to know what lies beyond the gate.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.. Written while Irving was living abroad in Birmingham, England, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was first published in 1820.

The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical novel written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. - It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. The Pathfinder, published 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War), when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America.

The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by American writer Jack London. The book's protagonist, Humphrey van Weyden, is a literary critic who is a survivor of an ocean collision and who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him. Its first printing of forty thousand copies was immediately sold out before publication on the strength of London's previous The Call of the Wild.

A Journey to the Interior of the Earth is an 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano.

Book 2: The Green Vapors: In the days of the Comet in 1906 is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is exalted when a comet causes the nitrogen of the air, the old azote, to change out of itself and become a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain. The result The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men.

In the days of the Comet in 1906 is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is exalted when a comet causes the nitrogen of the air, the old azote, to change out of itself and become a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain. The result The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men.

Book 3: The New World: In the days of the Comet in 1906 is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is exalted when a comet causes the nitrogen of the air, the old azote, to change out of itself and become a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain. The result The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men.

Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer's timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

Oscar Wilde (16 October 1854 - 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories is a collection of short semi-comic mystery stories that were written by Oscar Wilde and published in 1891.

Ion is a very short Platonic dialogue between Socrates and a rhapsode by the name of Ion who specializes in reciting the poetry of Homer. The dialogue explores the nature of poetic and artistic inspiration in a most playful way.

In those houses which are strictly double houses that is, where the hall is in the middle the fireplaces usually are on opposite sides; so that while one member of the household is warming himself at a fire built into a recess of the north wall, say another member, the former's own brother, perhaps, may be holding his feet to the blaze before a hearth in the south wall the two thus fairly sitting back to back. Is this well? Be it put to any man who has a proper fraternal feeling. Has it not a sort of sulky appearance?

Herman Melville's "Israel Potter" is the fictionalised tale of a man who really did fight in the American Revolution, a man who lived a life of very real adventure. After fighting in the revolution, he went on to be a part of the newly established United States Navy, ended up serving as a secret courier for Benjamin Franklin.

Dante's Inferno by Dante Alighieri. The first part of Dante's Divine Comedy , the "Inferno" (or "Hell"), begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, "halfway along our life's path". Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical life expectancy of 70, lost in a dark wood, assailed by beasts he cannot evade, and unable to find the straight way to salvation. Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a deep place where the sun is silent, Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld.

Durante degli Alighieri, usually referred to simply as Dante, was born in Italy, and lived from c. 1265 to c. 1321. He was a major poet during the Middle Ages. He wrote the famous Divine Comedy, which was originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia). The work was later christened Divina by Boccaccio. It is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. In the late Middle Ages, the overwhelming majority of poetry was written in Latin, and therefore accessible only to affluent and educated audiences.

"I was under the impression that you were dead," said Sherlock Holmes to the man who had entered the front room of 221B Baker Street. "I am now inclined to think that you were not murdered after all." The gentleman was of the same age as Holmes and me but sported a full beard, gray-on-its-way-to-white hair, and a short suit jacket that immediately identified him as an American. He grinned and gave his fingers a snap.