Showing results by narrator "Roy Macready" in All Categories

Nicholas Goade, the Scotland Yard detective, takes a well earned rest after his recent work in arresting single-handed a notorious criminal who had for five years defied the police forces of New York and London. He has been awarded a cheque for $25,000 and six months leave of absence and is enjoying a touring holiday in the West of England in his ancient Ford car with his companion Flip, a small, fat, white dog. But his holiday soon becomes “a busman's holiday”, as he himself puts it, as at each turn he is called upon to deal with crimes.

Barry Pain was noted for his humorous tales of “Eliza” and her husband, but his tales of the weird and supernatural are equally noteworthy. This volume, More Tales in the Dark, contains eight of them.

The narrator is in deep sorrow, mourning his lost love, and is slowly sinking into despair when he is visited by a talking raven from whom he seeks comfort and hope, but whose only utterance is a single portentous word - "nevermore."

The delicious, biting wit of Saki's short stories satirizing Edwardian high society are some of the funniest and most delightful of exquisite literary miniatures. In this second volume, there are 22 glittering examples.

Hugh Walpole is best known for his Herries Chronicle, a saga of four books relating the history of the Herries family and set in the Lake District in the north of England, where Walpole settled in his later life. The Chronicle was extremely popular, as was another series of books for children, the Jeremy trilogy. Many of his novels were in the psychological horror genre. He also wrote many short stories that were published in several collections.

E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is probably best known today for his sparkling, comic "Lucia" novels. In his own day it was his ghost stories which were his most popular works. The Sanctuary exemplifies Benson's fine literary style and his ability to create the most frightening of supernatural and macabre tales, this one being particularly disturbing.

The story follows the eponymous hero and his tutor Doctor Pangloss through a series of adventures and misfortunes, all the time doggedly attempting, against the odds, to adhere to the doctor's philosophy that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds".

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic but is today remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. His short novel for children, The Five Jars, is a bewitching fairy tale in the form of a letter to a young friend, telling of the writer's strange experiences after discovering a box containing five jars with labels that indicate the mysterious powers of their contents.

Barry Pain was noted for his humorous tales of "Eliza" and her husband, but his tales of the weird and supernatural are equally noteworthy. This volume contains seven of them.

E. Nesbit is best known for her children's books such as The Railway Children, the "Psammead" series, and the stories of the "Bastable" family. She was also a poet and wrote many works for adults including short stories in the genre of the supernatural and the macabre. The Haunted House is one of her most weird with its theme of vampirism.

The delicious, biting wit of Saki's short stories satirizing Edwardian high society are some of the funniest and most delightful of exquisite literary miniatures. In this third volume, there are 21 glittering examples.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was a poet, critic, novelist, and playwright. He was born in London and educated at Eton and Oxford and was a contemporary of the Pre-Raphaelites. "Hymn to Proserpine" was published in 1866 in "Poems and Ballads", Swinburne's first collection of poems which was a great success but which contained subjects that were, at the time, very controversial. Other poems in this collection are: "A Ballad of Dreamland", "A Leave-Taking", "At Parting", "August", "Genesis", "Itylus", "Rococo", "Sapphics", "An Interlude", "The Nightingale", "Three Faces", and "Before the Mirror."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is of course famous for his creation of the great Sherlock Holmes. The stories of the master detective are justifiably well known but he also wrote many short stories which are not so well known but deserve to be. The four stories in this recording were first published singly in magazines, principally The Strand. They later appeared in the collection “The Great Keinplatz Experiment and Other Tales of Twilight and the Unseen” in 1919. They are: “The Brown Hand”, “Playing with Fire”, “How It Happened”, and “De Profundis”.

H. G. Wells, best known for his science fiction novels, wrote many short stories which had the same engaging qualities as his major works. Strange, disturbing, but full of wit and humour, here are nine of them: "The Moth", "In the Avu Observatory", "The Stolen Bacillus", "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid", and five more.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is renowned for his tales of the macabre and the supernatural. "William Wilson" is the disturbing story of a doppelganger and how he leads the eponymous narrator through a series of experiences that annoy, infuriate, and finally drive him to a violent reaction with a fatal conclusion.

Ambrose Bierce's collection of short stories of the supernatural and macabre Can Such Things Be? was first published in 1893 and republished in a revised edition in 1910. This selection contains two of his most famous tales: "The Moonlit Road" and "The Death of Halpin Frayser" together with 10 others.

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. His Fairy Books, each named after a color, were 12 volumes of tales collected from many sources and published between 1889 and 1910. The eight stories in this collection are taken from the Blue, Red, and Green Fairy Books: "Rapunzel", "Toads and Diamonds", "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rumpelstilzkin", "Three Bears", "Jack, Giant-Killer", and "Bronze Ring".

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is known principally for his creation of the renowned detective Sherlock Holmes, but he also wrote many other novels and short stories in many genres. His short story collection Tales of Terror and Mystery was published in 1922. This present volume features the six tales of terror, which are: "The Brazilian Cat", "The Case of Lady Sannox", "The Terror of Blue John Gap", "The Leather Funnel", "The Horror of the Heights", and "The New Catacomb".

Henry Seton Merriman was the pen name of Hugh Stowell Scott (1862-1903). He was a successful and popular Victorian novelist. His only book of short stories, Tomaso's Fortune, was published posthumously in 1904, the stories having appeared originally in various magazines. This recording contains a selection of seven stories from that volume. They are: “Tomaso's Fortune”, “Sister”, “For Juanita's Sake”, “In a Crooked Way”, “The Tale of a Scorpion”, “The Prodigal's Return”, and “Stranded”.

Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches was published in 1910 and was the second of Saki's collections of short stories following Reginald (1904). It consists of 15 stories or “sketches” as the author calls them and contains two of his most famous tales: “Gabriel Ernest” and “The Reticence of Lady Anne”.