Showing results by narrator "Roy Macready" in All Categories

Presenting a selection of sonnets by William Shakespeare. There are 24 in number in this first selection. They are, in order: 18, 33, 11, 3, 5, 6, 29, 10, 22, 2, 4, 7, 1, 9, 27, 8, 30, 116, 34, 54, 12, 66, 77, 60.

The story follows the eponymous hero and his tutor Doctor Pangloss through a series of adventures and misfortunes, all the time doggedly attempting, against the odds, to adhere to the doctor's philosophy that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds".

Robert Browning (1812-1889), playwright and poet, is known and admired for his dramatic monologues in blank verse, of which he is a recognized master. He also wrote many lighter poems with a humorous touch. Here is one of his best known, The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Here is a collection of nine tales of the macabre and the supernatural from the acknowledged master of these genres. They are: "The Black Cat", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", "The Premature Burial", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Oval Portrait", "Berenice", and "Ligeia".

E. Nesbit is rightly best known for her children's books, but she also wrote works for adults, including short stories in the genres of the uncanny, macabre, and supernatural. There are five of these in this collection.

The Toys of Peace and Other Papers by "Saki" (H. H. Munro) is a collection of 33 "papers" or short stories, which were originally published separately in various journals and later issued in one volume in 1919, three years after the writer's death in the Great War. They are some of the most delightful of literary miniatures.

Nicholas Goade, the Scotland Yard detective, takes a well earned rest after his recent work in arresting single-handed a notorious criminal who had for five years defied the police forces of New York and London. He has been awarded a cheque for $25,000 and six months leave of absence and is enjoying a touring holiday in the West of England in his ancient Ford car with his companion Flip, a small, fat, white dog. But his holiday soon becomes “a busman's holiday”, as he himself puts it, as at each turn he is called upon to deal with crimes.

Henry Seton Merriman was the pen name of Hugh Stowell Scott (1862-1903). He was a successful and popular Victorian novelist. His only book of short stories, Tomaso's Fortune, was published posthumously in 1904, the stories having appeared originally in various magazines. This recording contains a selection of seven stories from that volume. They are: “Tomaso's Fortune”, “Sister”, “For Juanita's Sake”, “In a Crooked Way”, “The Tale of a Scorpion”, “The Prodigal's Return”, and “Stranded”.

Barry Pain was noted for his humorous tales of “Eliza” and her husband, but his tales of the weird and supernatural are equally noteworthy. This volume, More Tales in the Dark, contains eight of them.

Fitz-James O'Brien, born in Cork, Ireland, in 1826, is considered an important early writer of science-fiction. His three probably best-known stories are included in this volume. They are “The Diamond Lens”, “What Was It?”, and “The Lost Room”.

Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches was published in 1910 and was the second of Saki's collections of short stories following Reginald (1904). It consists of 15 stories or “sketches” as the author calls them and contains two of his most famous tales: “Gabriel Ernest” and “The Reticence of Lady Anne”.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is celebrated for his tales of the macabre and the supernatural. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of his most famous. In it, the narrator tells how, without any motive, but merely because he is obsessed with his eye (“The eye of a vulture”), he murders an old man, and of the consequences when the murdered man's heart seeks revenge.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was born in Dublin, Ireland and is acknowledged as an influential writer in the genre of gothic and supernatural fiction of the 19th century. Many of his short stories were originally published in various magazines. Here are six of them: “The White Cat of Drumgonnial”, “Dickon the Devil”, “The Drunkard's Dream”, “The Secret of the Two Plaster Casts”, “The Vision of Tom Chuff”, and “An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House”.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is celebrated for his tales of the macabre and the supernatural. “The Cask of Amontillado” is one of his terrifying tales of premature burial. In it, the narrator, Montresor, has suffered from “insults and injuries” from his “friend” Fortunato and plans to murder him while he is drunk at the carnival by luring him to a wine tasting in the cellars of his palazzo. He chains him to the wall in a niche that he seals up with mortar, thus entombing him alive.

In this example of the genre, the narrator tells of his adored wife, Ligeia, of her tragic death, and of his remarrying another beautiful woman, Rowena, who after a short and loveless marriage also dies but returns from the dead metamorphosed into his true love, Ligeia.

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic in his time but today is remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. Here is one of them: "A Warning to the Curious".

Robert Browning (1812-1889), playright and poet, is known and admired for his dramatic monologues in blank verse, of which he is a recognized master. He was not always popular in his own time but is now considered one of the foremost poets of Victorian England.

Ambrose Bierce's collection of short stories of the supernatural and macabre Can Such Things Be? was first published in 1893 and republished in a revised edition in 1910. This selection contains two of his most famous tales: "The Moonlit Road" and "The Death of Halpin Frayser" together with 10 others.

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. His Fairy Books, each named after a color, were 12 volumes of tales collected from many sources and published between 1889 and 1910. The eight stories in this collection are taken from the Blue, Red, and Green Fairy Books: "Rapunzel", "Toads and Diamonds", "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rumpelstilzkin", "Three Bears", "Jack, Giant-Killer", and "Bronze Ring".

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer, born in Italy and educated in the USA. He also studied at the universities of Cambridge and Heidelberg. He was a prolific writer in many fields, but it was his novels that were most popular, commanding a large following. His stories of the macabre and supernatural are very highly regarded. Roy Macready reads five of them from Uncanny Tales.