Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

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....

"The Outsider" is one of Lovecraft's earliest and creepiest stories. A man exists alone in a mysterious dark castle, with no memory of how or why he is there. One day he decides to climb the highest tower in the hope of seeing the sky...and in doing so briefly learns the terrible, ghastly, unbearable truth....

'The Blue Pearl' is an adventure story set in the Dutch East Indies. 'Bad Luck' Jim Barton is slaving in a chain-gang and facing five more years of penal servitude under the Dutch. Suddenly, on a short break, his neighbour on the chain gang whispers quickly that Barton is about to be released and that he must take a mystery object and a coin to Quong Meng, the richest Chinese tycoon in the district.There follows a breathless and racy series of daring adventures, brutal murders, narrow escapes and pirate attacks.

'The Young Bull' is the story of a farmer on the Welsh border who is trapped in a hostile and combative marriage which is nonetheless charged with suppressed sexual tension. An episode where he is forced to do battle with his enraged bull and his wife steps into the fray to help serves both as an allegory of his marriage and the catalyst to breaking the barrier between the couple.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. 'Little Tobrah' is a disturbing murder story set in India. The eight-year-old Tobrah stands accused of the murder of his younger blind sister. The evidence is purely circumstantial...and then he recounts his own tale of what happened.

'The Green Door' is a classic O. Henry tale. A young adventurer, strolling one evening along Broadway, is handed a card by a man advertising a dentist's services. But when he inspects the card he discovers that the card given to him has on it only three words: 'The Green Door'.

Andrew Soutar (1879 - 1941) was a British author and journalist best known for his novels and short stories. The Jade Earrings is the story of an elderly antiques collector with a young and pretty wife, Rosetta. One day he presents her with a pair of jade earrings with a legend attached to them. It is said that any faithful wife who wears them will become unfaithful.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 - circa 1914) was an American author, journalist, short story writer and satirist who disappeared in 1913 under mysterious circumstances and was never seen again. "John Bartine's Watch" is the strange and terrifying tale of an evening guest who reacts with horror when his host asks him the time. But why is John Bartine so reluctant to look at his own watch?

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings. In this story, Miss Martha's good deed in helping a man whom she takes for an impoverished artist goes very wrong.

Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916) is better known by the pen name Saki. He remains hugely popular as a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. 'The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh' is a tale recounted by a traveller on a train to a fellow passenger. It concerns the bizarre circumstances of the mysterious disappearance...and reappearance after eight years...of his formidable and tyrannical aunt.

Timothy Shay Arthur (1809 - 1885), who wrote as T. S. Arthur, was a popular 19th-century American author. 'An Angel in Disguise' is an uplifting story of a childless couple who reluctantly take in a disabled child and discover what joy and fulfilment it brings them.

Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage. When the Duke of Serbia does her the honour of joining her house party, despite her left-wing leanings, Sophie is determined to make a good impression. So she hires an emergency chef who is an expert in making Byzantine omelettes. Within a very short time the entire household is thrown into disarray....

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories, known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and surprise endings. 'The Robe of Peace' is a story which explains the mysterious disappearance of New York's leading swell, the fashion king Johnny Bellchambers.

'A Comedy of Capricorn' is a humorous romantic tale. When Gwendolen invites the supremely eligible animal lover Lord Bampton to meet her parents so that he can ask permission to court her, she warns her family of the visitor's fondness for pets. Even the butler is warned to allow any strange or exotic animal which might accompany his Lordship into the drawing room without batting an eyelid. So when a stray goat turns up by chance at the same time as Lord Bampton, chaos, confusion and hilarity are predestined.

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings. 'A Newspaper Story' is an ingenious tale about a lost newspaper blowing through the streets of New York. Each passer-by who comes into contact with any part of it is personally impacted by one of the stories in the paper - but not in the way one would expect.

Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916) is better known by the pen name Saki. He remains hugely popular as a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture. The Lost Sanjak' is the last-minute account by a condemned man, speaking to the prison chaplain, telling the astounding story of how he came to be condemned to hang for the murder of...himself!

'Ways of Escape' is a mystery story. The strange Mrs. Trevarrian lives in a lonely cottage on the moors with her elderly housemaid. The villagers are beginning to suspect that there is something rather odd about the lady. In particular, she has a studio photograph of a maidservant on her mantelpiece and tells all visitors that she hopes to get this maid to return to her house again in the future.

Mrs. Scarr is a tense and mysterious ghost story set in Mauritius, a place where local mythology and European morals sit uneasily alongside one another. Mrs. Scarr is a beautiful woman of French origin who defies local cultural norms. She goes out alone at night and wears white rather than the traditional black. And her husband, who is a debauched sea captain, is mysteriously plagued by a single white moth wherever he goes.