Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

'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.

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales. 'An Old Fashioned Christmas Eve' describes a young Norwegian soldier recovering from an illness who finds himself stranded on Christmas Eve with a family who sit around the fire telling a series of quite extraordinary folktales and ghost stories.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet and novelist. The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat is one of Kipling's rare humorous stories. A group of friends out for a motor jaunt find themselves up on a trumped up speeding charge exacerbated by some outrageously insulting sarcasm from a country town magistrate. The group pit their ample wits and resources to exact their extraordinary revenge....

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist and journalist who wrote his comic novels and humorous short stories under the pseudonym F. Anstey. 'A Bohemian Bag' is the story of a piece of luggage with a perverse mind of its own. The Gladstone bag in question goes on its own travels every time it is left in the care of a railway porter or station master...usually catching up with its hapless owner only days later.

Aylward Edward 'A.E.' Dingle (1874-1947) was a sailor and writer. His own maritime adventures were as fascinating as the sea stories he wrote. He was shipwrecked five times, including being stranded on a desert island for several weeks. 'Bound for Rio Grande' is a classic swashbuckling tale about an old sailor who is shanghaied onto a ship heading round the Cape...but on his return he determines to get his revenge....

'The Brute' is the tale of a jinxed ship, a ship which seems to have its own malevolent personality. A ship which deliberately murders its own crew and passengers....

'The Old Ancient Ship' is a mysterious and ghostly sea story. A strange old mariner, Bill Blood, has hitched a ride on a boat travelling to a remote set of islands in the Pacific. When they make a forced stop at one island to repair a leak in the ship, the crew are eager to go aboard the deserted island and explore. Bill Blood goes with them and leads them to an ancient ship full of skeletons lying in the middle of the tropical forest and overgrown with creepers and foliage. Blood tells them the peculiar and terrible tale of the ancient vessel and those who died in her....

John Griffith 'Jack' London (1876 - 1916) was a popular American novelist, journalist and social activist. 'In Yeddo Bay' is the adventure of a young sailor who has lost his purse while ashore in a Japanese port. How is he to get back to his ship without the 'ten sen' required as advance payment by the sampan men?

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812 - 1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folk tales. The Lads who met the Trolls in the Hedale Wood is one such folk story. Two teenage lads are stranded in the Hedale Wood overnight. Before long they hear heavy footsteps and sniffing. Three enormous trolls are on the scent of human flesh...how can they manage to escape?

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was an English writer of 957 short stories and over 170 novels. He is widely recognised as one of the most prolific writers of his age. 'The Man with the Canine Teeth' is a classic murder mystery. A mild-mannered scientist has been found, apparently strangled to death in his laboratory overnight. But there are some strange circumstances. Where are the old man's spectacles? And why is he wearing thick gloves?

'Make Westing' is a story of a ship, the Mary Rogers, struggling to round Cape Horn in adverse weather. The way to round the Horn is always to 'make westing'. As time goes on, Captain Dan Cullen becomes more and more obsessed with making westing at all costs. When a sailor accidently falls overboard, he refuses to stop and rescue the drowning man. The ship's only passenger, Mr George Dorety, is horrified by this and determines to see justice done.

'The Table Under the Tree' is the story of a mysterious murder which takes place one evening on a crowded restaurant terrace in France. The moon disappears behind a cloud, and in the momentary darkness a cry rings out.

Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was one of France's finest writers of short stories. 'The Pope's Mule' is the amusing story of an animal which waited patiently for seven years to repay a man who mistreated her.

Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne (1866-1944) was a British writer of popular adventure fiction and fantastic literature. Here we present five of his best and most gripping adventure stories.

Great Animal Stories, featuring 25 beastly tales.

'The Kidnapping of Phil Altamore' is a humorous story of a young man who has inadvertently made an ill-advised marriage proposal to a chorus girl in Paris. When the girl appears in London, he has more or less forgotten about the obligation...but his willingness to go through with the marriage induces close family friend and busybody Mrs. Jack Ormesby to save him from this dreadful fate by kidnapping him and smuggling him to Russia.

'Fortunes Adrift' is the story of a small trading steamer than comes across a broken down passenger liner off the coast of Africa just as a hurricane is bearing down on the two vessels. Never one to miss a commercial opportunity, the captain of the steamer strikes a deal. For £100,000, to be paid by the wealthy cruise passengers, he will attempt to tow the liner to safety. But will their groaning engines hold? And if not...will they even survive the storm?

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer best known for his fictional priest-detective, Father Brown. In 'The Mistake of the Machine', Father Brown pits himself against an early polygraph device to solve a highly puzzling crime.

Cap'n Jollyfax, a retired sea captain, has a brass cannon which he likes to fire on special occasions. New Year, Waterloo day, the anniversary of Nelson's funeral, Trafalgar day, everyone's birthdays, weddings, christenings and every other occasion. His neighbour, the widow Mrs Billing, has a great dislike for the gun. So when Cap'n Jollyfax and Mrs Billing become engaged to be married it is perhaps not surprising that there is a dispute about the future of the gun...a dispute with hilarious consequences.

Bobby is an accomplished and charming pianist who has befriended a number of rich elderly widows and spinsters, each of which he refers to as 'aunt'. He already has his own Bechstein grand piano, plus another concert grand which was (touchingly but highly inconveniently) left to him by a late 'aunt'. Now various of his other 'aunts' are also keen to offload their grand pianos on him....