検索キーワード： ナレーター "Cathy Dobson" すべてのカテゴリー

Skinflint is a bittersweet tale of an embittered middle-aged woman who has never recovered from being jilted as a young woman. Since that sorry episode she has thrown herself into the micro-management of her grocery and drapery business. Then one day she learns that her former lover is on the brink of ruin...and the memories of her youth come surging back....

A Keen Sense of Rumour is a tongue-in-cheek love story with strong elements of a bedroom farce. Kenneth Harvey, a notorious philanderer and proficient golfer is on holiday with a group of friends. His roving eye is drawn to a pretty girl who is staying at the same hotel. After a day of golf, Kenneth leaves the billiard room to have an early night - though his friends think it more likely that this is a pretext for some amorous adventure and take it upon themselves to catch him out.

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost and horror stories. "At the Farmhouse" tells the story of a landscape painter, who after twenty years of hideous marriage to an abusive and drunken local woman who is rumoured to be a witch, sets off to murder her.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845) was an English writer and great friend of Lamb, Hazlitt and De Quincey. Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, the Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. "A Tale of the Great Plague" is an ironic piece set in the time of the Black Death, about how an old man outwits a gang of ruthless cutthroats.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer best known for his fictional priest-detective, Father Brown. In The Paradise of Thieves Father Brown is travelling in Italy when he comes across a strange situation. An English family on vacation is in the guidance of a local courier, and the daughter is also flirting with an Italian poet and musician who appears to be something of a lothario. But Father Brown senses that something is not right.

When Darcy, recuperating from a serious illness, goes to stay with an old friend of his, Frank, in the New Forest, he discovers a puzzling change in the man. He appears to have become significantly younger and is also filled with exuberance and joy. Frank explains that he has spent the last six years studying Nature and has discovered a new philosophy of life around the joy of nature.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American novelist, Dark Romantic, and prolific short story writer. 'The Adventure of the German Student' is a ghost story set during the French Revolution. A young German student who is depressed and lonely has a recurrent dream about a beautiful female face. He begins to obsess over the features day and night. Then one evening as he is walking home through the Place de Grève, where the guillotine stands....

Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936), who wrote as M. R. James, was an English author, mediaeval scholar, and provost of King's College, Cambridge, and of Eton College. He is best known for his outstanding ghost stories. James reinvented the ghost story for the modern audience by moving away from Gothic elements and using realistic contemporary settings. His protagonists and plots often reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story".

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (1864 – 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. This is his poignant description of a journey through the country during a period of severe drought in Australia, describing the rugged determination and imperfect grasp of basic economics of the "cockies" or rural settlers.

William Chambers Morrow (1854-1923) was an American author, famed for his short stories of horror and suspense. 'His Unconquerable Enemy' is the story for which Morrow is best known, and it tells the story of the determined revenge of a servant whose limbs have been amputated on the orders of a cruel rajah.

A fascinating collection of short stories by some of the greatest Victorian female writers. This anthology covers every theme from spirits and the occult to love and sexuality to sentimentality and romance to social observation and critique. 'The Operation' by Violet Hunt, 'Satan's Circus' by Eleanor Smith, 'A Dream of Wild Bees' by Olive Schreiner, 'A Dill Pickle' by Katherine Mansfield, 'Squirrel in a Cage' by E. M. Delafield, 'Afterward' by Edith Wharton, 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman....

Morgan Andrew Robertson (1861-1915) was a popular American author of short stories and novels who claimed to have been the inventor of the periscope. 'The Trade Wind' is the strange and unsettling story of a ship where all the crew are mysteriously struck blind after a night of drinking rum in the tropics...a condition called moon blindness, for which there is no available cure.

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. 'Mr. Huffam' is a heartwarming story about a delightful stranger who, on account of his personal bonhomie and his wonderful ability to tell stories, charms the household of Sir Roderick Winslow, from the haughty aristocratic relatives to the domestics.

William Le Queux (1864 - 1927) was an Anglo-French journalist and writer, diplomat, traveller, flying buff and wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his own station long before radio was generally available. He was phenomenally successful as a novelist and short story writer, and many of his tales are based on his own exploits, albeit vastly exaggerated.

Vincent O'Sullivan (1868-1940), born in New York to an Irish American family, moved as a child to London. As a young man, he soon became well recognised as the master of decadent and macabre fiction. 'The Business of Madame Jahn' is a macabre ghost story of a suicide, a terrible murder and an awful revenge.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), who wrote as H. P. Lovecraft, was an American author of horror fiction who achieved posthumous fame as one of the most influential writers of his day. "The Terrible Old Man" is the gruesome story of three robbers who set out to steal from a mysterious and reclusive retired sea captain who has a circle of strange stones in his garden and conducts even stranger rituals in his house.

A fast-paced and varied collection of captivating short stories ranging from action thrillers to poignant tear-jerkers to the downright weird, including: "Jerry Bundler" by W. W. Jacobs, "The Umbrella Mender" by Beatrice Harraden, "Green Ink" by J. S. Fletcher, "Why Herbert Killed His Mother" by Winifred Holtby, "The Red Mark" by Israel Zangwill, "The White Kid Glove" by J. S. Fletcher, "Sophy Mason Comes Back" by E. M. Delafield, plus many more.

A superb collection of captivating short stories by leading classic writers, including 'The Cone' by H. G. Wells, 'The Dream Woman' by Wilkie Collins, 'Fortunes Adrift' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Kidnapping of Phil Altamore' by Ella Hepworth Dixon, 'The Table Under the Tree' by E. Phillips Oppenheim, 'In Yeddo Bay' by Jack London and many more gripping short stories by famous writers.

William James Wintle (1861-1920) was already a recognised writer before he became an Oblate for the Abbey of Caldey Island in Wales. It was there that he wrote a series of horror stories for the entertainment of eight boys who attended the abbey. In the foreword of this collection, Wintle explains that the stories were originally told on Sunday nights while "crouching over a wood fire on a wind-swept island off the Western shore."

A highly unsettling collection of macabre stories in which death and the dead are key themes. Moon’s Gibbet by Egerton Castle, A Strange Goldfield by Guy Boothby, The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy, The Pistol Shot by Alexander Pushkin, The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe, The Dead Hand by Wilkie Collins, The Famous Race between the Hearse and the Steamroller by Sidney Keyes, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, Nine O’Clock by Wilkie Collins, The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin.