Showing results by narrator "Susan Iannucci" in All Categories

When Mr. Burton Crane leases a house in the country, he expects it to be fully staffed. Except—it isn’t. Mr. Crane enlists the help of his friend, Mrs. Falkener, to interview his prospective cook, butler, housemaid, and general helper. She, however, doesn’t like them—but Mr. Crane is especially drawn to the cook and overrules his friend. But was Mrs. Falkener right to be suspicious? Who are these servants, really? Soon the helper, the housemaid, and the butler are dismissed, leaving only the cook—a most improper scenario!

Gogol's phantasmagorical tale about a man whose nose decides to abscond and begin living a life of its own is one of the earliest and most celebrated examples of absurdist literature. Apart from its recondite humor, it is remarkable for Gogol's skill in characterization and his ability to paint a picture of contemporary life in Russia in a few verbal brushstrokes.

A Woman of No Importance takes place in a 24-hour period during a house party hosted by Lady Hunstanton at her country estate. The upper echelons of English society mix, mingle and flirt, including Lady Caroline Pontefract (who is on her fourth husband), the witty and ironic Mrs. Allonby and the dandyish Lord Illingworth. Wilde balances these worldly characters with a visiting young American woman, Hester Worsley.

Queen Marguerite de Navarre was one of the most powerful women of her age. Her masterpiece, The Heptameron, is a collection of some 72 stories told by five gentlemen and five ladies who find themselves stranded in an abbey. Proposed as an edifying way of passing the time while a bridge is being repaired, the tale-telling - as well as the conversations that follow each story - quickly becomes a battle of wits between the sexes, with tales concerning illicit lovers, romantic conquests, lecherous monks, manly honor, and women's virtue.

A merchant of Syracuse has twin sons and buys twin servants for them. His wife, with one twin and one servant, is soon separated from him by a shipwreck, and comes to live in Ephesus. When grown, the other son and his slave start out to find their brothers, and the father, some years later, starts out in turn to find them. Once in Ephesus, an amusing series of errors begins.

The always delightful and entertaining classic Anne of Green Gables is performed by actors from The Online Stage! Anne Shirley is an 11-year-old orphan adopted by a middle-aged brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. They had wanted to adopt a boy to help with their farm on Prince Edward Island in the fictional town of Avonlea. Matthew persuades Marilla to give Anne a chance. Anne is a handful, and they fall in love with her.

In A Strange Disappearance, we have a small cast of characters, richly described and all engaged in discovering how and why a servant woman has disappeared from Mr Blake’s mansion in the middle of the night. A classic mystery!

A baker‘s dozen of futuristic and space travel tales await you in this audiobook of short stories, originally published in the science fiction magazine, IF (1960-61). These stories are both a sign of their times and a testament to the imaginative powers of writers in the era between Sputnik and Neil Armstrong’s steps on the moon. Death and Taxes are inevitable, of course, but you’ll also find a (Mind)snake, and maybe even a Garden of Eden within.

Dorothy Scarborough was an academic and author who had a particular interest in the supernatural. The following collection, first published in 1921, features stories that have a strong comical or satirical focus.

Anne and Gilbert begin their life together in Anne's House of Dreams, a continuation of the story that began with Anne of Green Gables. First published in 1917, the L. M. Montgomery series continues with Anne as a new bride making new friends wherever she finds them. They settle on the seashore at Four Winds Point, an area near the village of Glen St. Mary on Prince Edward Island, Canada. She is befriended by the capable Miss Cornelia Bryant, kindly old sea Captain Jim, and the beautiful, mysterious figure of Mrs. Dick Moore.

In the not-too-distant future, 2185 AD, anti-gerisone is the new drug that stops ageing. People are now living into their hundreds until it's time to take their own big trip up yonder, and in the case of the Ford family and Gramps, the notable patriarch, families are living and fighting together in one home for much longer. Eventually there are no prisons, slums, asylums, poverty, wars, or disease. and 200 years later the population of the US is set at 40 million people. But since no one gets any older, someone must volunteer to die if a baby is born.

According to legend, the Pyncheon family has been cursed by their 17th century ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who stole the land from Matthew Maule. Maule was later put to death after being accused of witchcraft and the deed for the land could not be found. Now living in the New England mansion fraught with haunted miseries of the past, Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a small shop to pull herself from the poverty-striken curse she has lived under while her brother, Clifford, was serving a decades-long prison sentence for murder.

Following Anne of Green Gables (1908), this book was written by Lucy Maud Montgomery in 1909. From the age of 16 to 18, Anne is about to start her first term teaching at the Avonlea school. The book soon introduces Anne's new and problematic neighbor, Mr. Harrison, and his foul-mouthed parrot, as well as the twins, Davy and Dora. Other characters introduced are some of Anne's new pupils and Miss Lavendar Lewis, a sweet but lonely lady.

The Boor (sometimes translated as The Bear) is an atypical romantic comedy by Anton Chekhov. A surly landowner visits a widow who is one of his debtors - with unexpected results.

The story from which this collection takes its title describes the adventures of an imaginative boy who discovers an omnibus that enables him to travel to the past in the company of famous historical personages. When at his invitation, an incredulous adult accompanies him on a journey, the astonishing new vistas unfolding alarm the security-conscious older man, who wishes himself back in his comfortable suburban home.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a science-fiction drama that was first presented in Czech in 1921. It introduced the term "robot", which is derived from a Czech word meaning "worker," to international vocabulary. The action opens in a factory that has successfully produced thousands of robots, who are essentially mindless drones. An idealistic humanitarian activist launches a plan to imbue some of the robots with human traits. The robots which have been humanized then assume leadership over the other robots and seek to organize them in a revolution to take over the world.

In 1907 New Thought author James Allen published a verse anthology entitled Poems of Peace. Included in the collection is his sole dramatic work, Eolaus, which describes the journey of a troubled pilgrim from the wilderness of worldly despair to the heights of personal realization.

First published in 1881, the subtitle of this book tells us that it was written “for children and those who love children”. Heidi, a 5-year-old orphan, is handed off by her young Aunt Dete to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Though her new life is foreign, Heidi soon falls in love with her grandfather, and he with her. They share a contented life of goat-herding. But when Grandfather refuses to allow Heidi to attend school in the small village below, quarrels ensue.

It is WWI and Canada has entered the war. Young men enthusiastically join up while mothers and sweethearts stay behind and fill the jobs that once were only for men. Rilla, the youngest of Anne and Gilbert’s children, struggles to find how she can possibly contribute. At first frustrated by being the “baby sister,” she soon is challenged by opportunities that will change her beyond her wildest imaginings. This is a coming-of-age story with all the lovable aspects of the first Anne book, yet with a compelling sense of historical immediacy.

When Olaf Jenson discovers a secret hidden world within the bowels of the earth, he has no idea that it will be as hard to leave as it was to find it. This subterranean, Edenic civilization is inhabited by a race of scientifically advanced giants who worship the “smoky God” in the center of the earth.