Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Anthologies

This recording is of the 11 essays and stories contained in Volume Five and includes two examples of Poe’s activity as a literary critic. Poe’s dry wit is laced through many of these tales and will bring a wry smile to your lips even as you shiver at the consequences of “betting the devil your head”.

From the mind of the author of "The Wizard of Oz". Oddly humorous, this story presents what seems a delightful fairy tale, but ends with the acknowledgment that this well developed tale lacks an identifiable moral. Good clean fun narrated by Glenn Hascall.

A dare and a wager to spend the night locked up in a room with a corpse: What could go wrong? Be prepared to be surprised.

From The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers, and set in the Latin Quarter of Paris, artist Jack Trent lives with his model Sylvia. The story takes place during the Seige of Paris in 1870, ending with the Germans shelling the Latin Quarter, and Trent arriving home to see a child scrawling "Here fell the first shell".

Brian Dalrymple returns home after three weeks of pursuing the retreating Germans at the end of World War I. His hometown considers him a hero, and gives him a hero’s welcome. After basking in his quickly disappearing notoriety, he goes looking for job. Seems all those wonderful offers have gone away, and Brian takes a job as a stock clerk in Mr. Macy’s wholesale grocery. It doesn’t take Brian long to find that advancement is going to be difficult, and he is stuck in a no-win job with few prospects.

Grasp All, Lose All tells the story of a poor oil-seller in India named Dena, who is in debt to a banker for three hundred rupees. This banker persists in harassing Dena and his wife so much that Dena decides to run away, not knowing where he will go. He climbs a tree to sleep and wakes up the next morning not in the forest in which he went to sleep but on a deserted beach.

While not being not particularly scary by the standards of today many of the ghost stories of the Victorian Era are very entertaining, and represent escapist literature of the highest quality. In To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt, which first appeared in the 1865 Christmas Edition of All the Year Round, the master novelist presents a lively portrait of the spectre of a murder victim with a desire for vengeance.

Narrator Glenn Hascall magnificently captures the characters of this O. Henry short story about holding up a train.

Written in 1914 by Rudyard Kipling, "For All We Have and Are" exhorts the British people to rally together with courage and strength in the coming desperate struggles.

The narrator pledges to donate 50% of his proceeds to The Royal British Legion Poppy Day Appeal - please support. "The United Front", by Alfred Noyes [1880-1958], was published in Poems of the Great War, in 1914, on behalf of The Prince of Wales' national relief fund. Unable to join the fighting forces due to defective eyesight, Noyes worked on propaganda and by wrote morale-boosting short stories.

Mike Murphy sat in the Governor's office seeking a pardon for his son. Murphy knew that if the Governor remembered who he was there wouldn’t be a chance of success. The Governor did remember Murphy, and the bullying he received at the hands of his much younger self. He also remembered how the struggle they had as boys helped him become the man who governed a state.

Before there was 'mall watching' there was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Watching a poor apple seller at the local railroad allows the author to share how he became connected to the old man and what he learned from him. There is no indication that the author actually spoke to the man, but you may just leave empathizing with a man observed.

Who determines what stops the presses? Enter the world of Mark Twain who was handed an item from an emotional man late one night. The presses were stopped, the item run, and Twain was in trouble with his editor. Enjoy the humor as Twain tries to understand the importance of "Mr. Bloke’s Item".

This short story from The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers, skilfully narrated by Mark Turetsky, concerns an artist, Severn, who lives alone in the Latin Quarter of Paris who befriends a stray cat. Not an ordinary cat, but a pampered cat with a mysterious and lovely owner.

A good man committed a very bad crime. Murder, and he is sent to prison. We never learn his name, he is now inmate No-14,208. Although he has committed a terrible crime, inmate No-14,208 refuses to commit another. He will not lie, he will not cheat, and he pays dearly to maintain that last spark of humanity, his honor. Read by award winning Narrator Mike Vendetti, this is a must-listen.

Christmas hadn't been celebrated in this old New England Puritan Church for years. Not until Nathan Stoddard arrived at work one morning, Christmas morning, to see an old man knock upon the door and have the door of the empty church flung open. Nathan rushes to a window at the rear of the church only to peer in to see the interior of the church filled with people dressed from a bygone era decorating the church. A lovely ghost story by Anna Wales Abbot.

A woman is visiting a friend who travels widely, and he offers her a package of Egyptian cigarettes he received as a gift while in Cairo. The package has never been opened and has no print of any kind to indicate a brand, its origin, or its ingredients. The woman decides to try one of the cigarettes in the man's private smoking room. Her experience when she smokes one of the cigarettes shakes her to her core.

A young Confederate soldier is given a solid gold locket before he heads to war. He and the woman who gave it to him are passionately in love and long for the time when they can be together. The locket is noticed by some of the other soldiers and plays an important part in what transpires as battle looms over their camp.

Another excellent short story from the mind and pen of Ambrose Bierce. This story will draw you in like a fish on the line, then play you out and back in again. Bierce is a master of surprise and suspense.

William Hope Hodgson began his working career as a seaman, where he learned to fear and hate the sea. This short story takes place in the laboratory of a scientist who is in contact by one-way wireless telegraph with an unnamed friend who is on a ship trapped in a terrible storm. The sea becomes an evil thing, and the entity is determined to destroy the living, and the ship they came on. But before death comes to those aboard the doomed vessel, it brings out the very worst in the passengers.