Showing results by narrator "Christopher Ragland" in All Categories

Francis Bret Harte was born on 25th August 1836 in Albany New York. As a young boy Harte developed an early love of books and reading. He first published at the tender age of 11, his satirical poem ‘Autumn Musings’. Expecting praise he received anything but and later wrote "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse." By age 13 his formal education was at an end and four years later the family moved to California. It was here that he found the stories and inspiration for the works that would seal his fame across the literary world.

As the world’s most popular annual Bible commentary for more than three decades, Standard Lesson Commentary (SLC) provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume and combines thorough Bible study with compelling illustrations and questions.

As the world’s most popular annual Bible commentary for more than three decades, Standard Lesson Commentary (SLC) provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume.

As the world’s most popular annual Bible commentary for more than three decades, Standard Lesson Commentary (SLC) provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume.

As the world’s most popular annual Bible commentary for more than three decades, Standard Lesson Commentary (SLC) provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume.

As the world’s most popular annual Bible commentary for more than three decades, Standard Lesson Commentary (SLC) provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume.

As the world’s most popular annual Bible commentary for more than three decades, Standard Lesson Commentary (SLC) provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume.

The Definitive War Novels Collection is a collection of 11 works that all centre around the destruction of war, and span out to encompass themes from family to love and beyond. Read by esteemed cast of award-winning narrators, included here are novels and epics from Ernest Hemingway; Erich Maria Remarque; Leo Tolstoy; Homer; Stephen Graves; Rebecca West; and many more.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is among the greatest American masters of fantasy and the supernatural. Since his early death in 1937 his stories have continued to attract attention and praise from an ever-growing audience. The Rats in the Walls is one of his finest stories. Its tones are dark and chilling and its revelations upsetting and numbing. It is pure Lovecraft.

Talent bursts from this decade with astonishing ease. From America across Europe to Russia each and every story is an indelible mark of story-telling flecked with genius that enthralls us all. Whatever their chosen genre their stories break new ground, cover new topics and carry a legacy that cannot be disputed.

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…

Many authors have been cited as inventing the detective genre. Perhaps the strongest claimant is the American Edgar Allan Poe. His creation of the Parisian sleuth C. Auguste Dupin with his quite astounding analysis and deductive powers allied to Poe’s great imagination and wit create a literary tour de force.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

In this collection of short stories some of our most popular and well-known authors are grouped together with an unfortunate tag: dead at 40. These authors are not run-of-the-mill or ten a penny; many are literary leviathans who left enduring works of literature and sadly may have left us many more had they lived. We will never know.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life, Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.

William Austin was born on 2nd March 1778 in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. Although he was a frequent contributor to local periodicals on various subjects from Unitarian theology to chemistry to legal history, nothing quite approached the popularity of ‘Peter Rugg: The Missing Man’. This story and its sequels, constructed as long letters, were originally published in the New England Galaxy periodical between 1824 and 1827. So credible was his writing premise that they were accepted as a factual recounting of local legends rather than Austin’s fiction.

In this series we listen to short stories that are NOT by perhaps the most well-known author of this type. But the many other rich talents in the volume may have treated the subject matter a little differently, or were perhaps just overlooked in the stampede to applaud the winner, but these authors are of equal merit.

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society. In this volume we offer up a small selection of talents from the literary landscape of the American male author whose time has now come again.

The American West. A landscape hewn in vastness as its rips from Plains, to deserts, to mountain, to ocean overlaid by waves of emigration of peoples either dispossessed or searching for a new life and the American dream. These are their stories. Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.