Showing results by narrator "Mitchley Richard" in All Categories

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862, in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms, including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her short story ‘The Coach’ is an excellent example of her black comedy writing. This cramped setting turns into a macabre tour de force delivering literary punch and emotional heft.

Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator. Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism. In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s stories to plays and long novels is clearly seen.

During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers. Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’.

During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers. Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’.

The creation of a human hybrid with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, has not been ruled out as an impossibility, but would any laboratory want to be involved? Why invite global condemnation and raise social, moral, and legal storms? It was certainly not the intention of the Strickland family, who are innocently involved with research and a veterinary practice in rural England.

Between then and now poets have written verse, both serious and humorous, in attempts to keep a poetic track both of feelings and as a tribute to our four-legged friends and their adventures.

Henry James was born 15th April 1843 in New York City. His youth was spent travelling with his family receiving what was an "extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous" education as they journeyed through London, Paris, Geneva, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Newport, Rhode Island, according to the father's current interests and publishing ventures. James studied primarily with tutors and only briefly attended schools. Undoubtedly the quality of his writing has ensured his name is enshrined in the American literary tradition.

As private as she was eccentric, Emily Dickinson published only a handful of poems in her lifetime. Most of her work, much of which dealt with themes of death and immortality, was published posthumously, to mixed reviews. But it would be her unconventional poetic style, which was most criticized early on, that would ultimately gain her recognition as one of the greatest American poets of all time. Here, a lovely sampling of the poems of Emily Dickinson is presented for your listening pleasure.

This volume proves that the assertion that women are the gentler sex is frequently an unfounded and unlikely description. From the minds and pens of some of the best female writers of the last century comes a series of macabre, twisted tales that are anything but gentle. But as they weave their magic - usually black - and entrance you with their narratives you just know that “sugar and spice and everything nice” are not likely to be what all girls really are made of - and certainly not these femme fatales....

If ever a writer needed an introduction, Arthur Conan Doyle would not be considered that man. After all, Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the most well-known literary detective of any age. Add to this canon his stories, his historical novels, his political campaigning, and his efforts in establishing a Court Of Appeal, and there is little room for anything else. Except he was also a poet. Not perhaps the finest but his distinctive voice is certainly evident amongst his lines and verses. And it’s a voice worth listening to; something very different from what you might expect.

Peter Pan is a classic story. The Admirable Crichton is a classic play. And here, in this volume, are two classic short stories. They are certainly of their day and perfect pieces of their craft. And really that’s not surprising, for JM Barrie was a writer of great note. Short stories are often overlooked as being the poor, under-developed relatives of greater works. But from writers of the calibre of Barrie, this is just not so. He creates stories and characters that drive, meld, and develop into narratives that in their numerically shorter length are, in fact, the perfect length.

Jackson Fortune has always followed the lead of his tough older sister, 11-year-old Tracey. Then he receives the first of a series of secret messages and he suddenly has a mystery to solve all by himself. Without Tracey. But the messages to Jackson are not the only mystery. Who is the stranger on a motorbike seen hanging around their cousin Tessa's house? And why does Tracey suddenly decide she wants to wear a dress?

May - the fifth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and popular for May Day and Workers Rights celebrations. for our poets, including Milton, Hopkins, Von Goethe, Wordsworth, and Longfellow, much else is on their minds, and of course, it's beautifully put.

August - the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and the full palette of nature is on glorious display. Our poets, Wordsworth, Swinburne, Alford, Riley, and Hardy, describe and reveal their thoughts on the month and notable dates within it.

September - the ninth month of the year in our Gregorian calendar and with it arrives the autumn equinox and the first glimpses of the new season. there is much for our poets, including Browning, Kingsley, Yeats, Lanier, and Lindsay, to say and write about.

November - the 11th month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, when the land becomes bleaker, harsher but no less beautiful for that. For our poets, including Hood, Arnold, Melville, Alford, and Hardy, there is much to write and comment on.

October - the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, and the land prepares to give up more it its colourful coverings. On this and other themes, our poets, including Wordsworth, Rossetti, Arnold, Bryant, and Alford, have much to say.

December - the 12th and closing month in the Gregorian calendar. Winter is upon the land, and the poets, including such as Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Shakespeare, and Stevenson, share their views and thoughts.

I think I'm going to be a Fortune again,' Lolly said. I mean really a Fortune. I think I'm going to be called Fortune like you...'Ten-year-old Loreli Bancroft has always longed to be part of the Good Fortunes Gang - a real Fortune, just like her four cousins, Tracey, Jackson, Tessa and Pete. After all, she's still their cousin, even if her mother, a Fortune, did marry a Bancroft. But then her parents have a terrible argument - a real, hot Fortune kind of fight - and her father leaves home.

A story about Blanco Polo, the great-nephew of Marco Polo, and his journey from Venice to Spain to build flying machines with the villainous Count Maleficio. Along the way he meets Eva, also bound for Spain - for an arranged marriage.