Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A collection of short stories written by prominent supporters of the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom....

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. While a young curate, he met and fell in love with a beautiful 16-year-old mill worker. He paid for her education and married her, and they subsequently had 15 children. Their relationship formed the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which was turned into the musical My Fair Lady.

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. 'The Ceremony' is the eerie tale of a standing stone which exerts a supernatural pull towards young females and draws them fearfully to make offerings there. Strange and mysterious offerings, at secret erotic ceremonies.

'Mustapha' is a ghost story set in Egypt during Victorian times. Mustapha has taken a solemn vow to avoid alcohol. A British tourist trying to make a fool of the locals tricks him into drinking brandy. What seems to the Englishman a trivial prank has terrible consequences for Mustapha...and his ghost is determined to exact its revenge....

John Davys Beresford (1873-1947) was an English writer, now remembered for his early science fiction and short stories in the horror and ghost story genres. 'The Cage' explores the reaction of an ancient caveman ancestor of ours to a surprise glimpse of the modern world.

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. While a young curate, he met and fell in love with a beautiful 16-year-old mill worker. He paid for her education and married her, and they subsequently had 15 children. 'The Leaden Finger' is the tale of a young woman persistently and cruelly haunted by the sinister ghost of a previous admirer who committed suicide when she refused his marriage proposal.

Percival Christopher Wren (1875 - 1941) was an English writer of adventure fiction mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. 'Presentiments' is the story of a legionnaire who knows he will be killed the following day but does not want to die without telling somebody about a set of terrible events which occurred in his childhood and which have overshadowed his life.

'A Double Return' is a classic doppelganger tale. A successful artist, Hallswell, is returning by train from a painting trip in the southwest of England. As the down train passes him at a junction, he imagines he catches a glimpse of his own face in the train rushing past his window. When he reaches home, a strange and sinister mystery awaits him....

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. His strangest and most enduring works are those which are based on fantastical medieval myths and folklore. 'The 9.30 Up Train' is a peculiar ghost story about a strange ghost which haunts both the road near the railway station and also a particular carriage of the train itself.

'The Other Sense' is the story of a young man, Angus MacIntyre, whose ability to see phenomena - ghosts in particular - which other people cannot has caused his guardian to think he is insane and send him to stay with Dr. Schreiber, who is specialised in mental disorders. While there, Angus begins to see the spectre of a pale young man who appears to be seeking something in the doctor's house and garden. Together with the doctor, Angus sets out to solve the mystery.

May Sinclair was the nom de plume of Mary Amelia St. Clair (1863-1946), a British writer of novels, short stories and poetry and an active suffragette and spiritualist. 'The Mahatma's Story' is a strange supernatural story about an oriental magician who switches the memories of two couples, with bizarre results.

'The Red-Haired Girl' is a ghost story about an eerie and ominous servant-girl who stalks the house watching its inhabitants malevolently.

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales. 'Matthias the Hunter's Stories' is one of the sets of tales he collected and tells accounts of encounters with the Hulda (woodland or bogland fairy) and the brownie.

A superb anthology of 40 great classic humorous stories.

'Relics of General Chassé' is a humorous tale of a corpulent and somewhat dandified clergyman who, while visiting the castle at Antwerp, inadvertently becomes separated from his breeches. What follows shakes him to the core. The breeches fall into the hands of a group of female English tourists who decide to take some sample of the cloth as a souvenir.

'Number Fifty-Six' is a humorous tale of a Chinese laundryman who gets to know his clients through their laundry habits. He is able to infer much from the state of the various shirts, handkerchiefs, waistcoats which are delivered to him for washing. Of all his clients he is most fascinated by number 56...a man with strangely fluctuating shirt habits. And then one fateful day, a dreadful set of laundry is delivered to him....

'The High Seas' is the story of two brothers, Bran and Agar Yeld, twins, both sailors, sworn and bitter enemies. Agar has stolen Bran's sweetheart and married her while he was away at sea. Bran is determined to kill his brother. But circumstances keep them apart for many years. Then one day both Bran and Agar find themselves hired aboard the same ship. All Bran needs to do is wait for the right moment....

'A New Cook' is one of Munro's hilarious tales of Para Handy, Sunny Jim and the rest of the crew of the Vital Spark. The ship is welcoming a new cook whose talents include dancing, melodeon playing, practical joking...but sadly not culinary skill.

Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902) was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short stories set against the background of the California gold rush. He himself set off at the age of 15 to become a gold miner and absorbed the rough atmosphere of the mining camps, which he used as a setting against which the interplay of human emotions stands out poignantly. 'Miggles' is an outstanding example of his humorously tender style which made his stories so popular.

'The Puzzler' is a humorous tale of a young man who is trying to engineer a meeting with an influential law lord whom he hopes will support him with a great business idea. A fortuitous chance means he happens on the law lord while he is conducting a lighthearted experiment with a group of old school friends. They are attempting to see whether a monkey can climb an araucaria (monkey puzzle) tree. The experiment ends in farce as the monkey escapes and gets into the house...exactly at the moment when the owners of the house appear.