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

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 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.

Satan-worshiping Prince Prospero in 12th-century Italy holds a macabre masked ball in the midst of a deadly plague. The hedonistic nobles believe that Prospero's castle walls will keep out not only the countrysides's peasants, but the lethal Red Death as well.

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.

“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....

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.

In the ancient country of Orn an old man called the Bee-man spends his life in the company of bees. He lives humbly and contentedly until a Junior Sorcerer happens by with some disturbing news: The Bee-man, he says, has been transformed - he once was someone (or something) entirely different. But who? Or what? A giant or a prince? A dog or a dragon? The now restless Bee-man sets out on a quest to ascertain his original form, telling himself, "When I see it, I shall be drawn toward it."

After Eustace Borlsover’s blind uncle dies, the nephew receives in the mail the uncle's severed hand as part of his inheritance. It soon emerges that the hand is alive in some sense, intelligent and very mobile. Eustace and his secretary immediately assume the hand is evil, but to be honest it seems more mischievous than malevolent. Until, of course, Eustace nails the hand to a board and sticks it in a safe for several months, whereupon the hand seeks vengeance and a final showdown between men and appendage ensues.

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.

Author Abraham "Bram" Stoker, born on November 8, 1847 was an Irish civil servant prolific writer, critic, journalist and theatre producer. He was a sickly child and spent a lot of time in bed. Growing up, his mother told him a lot of horror stories which may have influenced his later writings. He is of course most famous for creating one of the most memorable monsters in literary history. The gothic masterpiece, Dracula, was published by Archibald Constable in 1897. The book has continued to grip the public's imagination ever since, and it has never been out of print since its publication.

Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 7, 1812-June 9, 1870) enjoyed a wider popularity during his lifetime than had any previous author. A Christmas Carol was conceived and written in a few weeks in late 1843. His many volumes include such works as David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend. His popularity has never ceased. The most abundantly comic of English authors, he was much more than a great entertainer.

One of the first noted American authors to be highly acclaimed in Europe during his life time, Washington Irving (April 3, 1783-November 28, 1859) wrote numerous short stories, biographies, histories, and tales of his travels. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," first published in 1820, is variously regarded as a Gothic tale and a modern folk story about the early history of the United States of America.

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."

This charming, funny and clever Christmas Holiday fantasy is narrated by Oscar nominated and Emmy Award Winning Special Makeup Effects Artist Edward E. French. Author Frank Richard Stockton, born April 5, 1834, was an American writer and humorist, best Remembered for his most famous fable, "The Lady, or the Tiger?" (1882), about a man sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king's beloved daughter.

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.

H. P. Lovecraft, born August 20, 1890, began composing rudimentary horror tales by the age of 8. He’s best remembered for cooking up his very own genre, Cosmic Horror, featuring monsters so powerful and terrifying that just seeing them will likely drive you insane. Lovecraft in early adulthood was established in a reclusive 'nightbird' lifestyle without occupation or pursuit of romantic adventures. He was 31 at the time of his first publication in a professional magazine. By age 34, he was a regular contributor to newly founded Weird Tales magazine.

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.” Pollock and the Porroh Man is a ghostly and gory tale much in the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, but seasoned with macabre black humor.

The Ring of Thoth is a tale of fantasy, mystery, the supernatural and horror by the creator of Sherlock Holmes.