Showing results by narrator "Garrick Hagon" in All Categories

Here are eight stories from master American writers of the 19th century. They vary from sinister tales by Ambrose Bierce - why is that window boarded up? - and a reflective moment in the life of a woman without children, but forced to look after children, to classic short stories by O. Henry and Stephen Crane. There is even an elegiac description of an eclipse by James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans.

Darkness falls. The undead rise to feast on the succulent blood of the living. For years vampires have fascinated great writers of the occult such as De Maupassant, Count Stenbock, E. Nesbit, and E.F. Benson. This is The Story Circle's collection of some of their spine-chilling tales told by award-winning actors.

Johnny's grandfather has taken far too much time to check his trap lines in the Alaskan snow. The old man is proud and stubborn, and determined to be as independent as ever. But Johnny is right to worry - his grandfather is caught in his own trap. Wolves, plummeting temperatures, and sheer hunger all menace him. Does he have enough wilderness craft, strength, and survival instinct to stay alive? Will Johnny find him in time?

Born in the wild, the wolf-dog White Fang quickly learns the law of nature: eat or be eaten. Captured by Indians, bullied by another dog, and then turned into a killer, he becomes vicious and fiercely independent. Rarely has the raw realism of life on the edge of civilization been so vividly captured.

A man and woman are sitting together on a rustic seat, talking. He is trying desperately to persuade her to marry him, but she is adamantly refusing. Finally, she tells him her real reason for refusing: she is insane. As he listens, she recounts the terrible tale behind her stark statement.

Out walking one winter morning, a traveller meets a priest in a black robe, hurrying towards the churchyard. As he scurries ahead, the traveller notices that despite his speed, he is lame, and wonders what can be behind his unexpected haste. The next day, he encounters the priest again, and invites him in for a meal. The priest eats ravenously, and when he has finished, begs his host to bar the doors at night and let no one in - and soon, the reason behind his dire warning becomes clear.

Jeff Peters, huckster and money-maker extraordinaire, decides to make a living selling patent medicines of the snake-oil variety. But will his theory of ‘personal magnetism’ prove too hard to swallow?

This is the classic story of a boy's adventures growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi river over a hundred years ago. The cheerful, adventurous hero plays truant to form a pirate band and, together with his best friend, Huckleberry Finn, finds fun and excitement, and buried treasure, along the shores of the great river.

Ethan Scofield returns to the place of his birth to bury his father. Hidden in one of the upstairs rooms of the old man’s house, he finds a strange manuscript, a collection of stories that seems to cover the whole of his father’s turbulent life. As his own starts to unravel, Ethan works his way through the manuscript, trying to find answers to the mysteries that have plagued him since he was a child.

Represented here are 16 short stories by seven great American writers, dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. Different in atmosphere and writing style, they nevertheless caught the mood and concerns of the day in a way that was distinctly American.

Having murdered his brother-in-law, Orrin Brower of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice. He had escaped from the county jail where he had been confined to await his trial. And as soon as he was out of the town he had the folly to enter a forest....

His name is a byword for unspeakable horror and dread. Across ten stories this dark master holds a fascinating lure for all of us. Word by word, line by line we are drip-fed stomach-churning terror of a mesmerizing kind…