Showing results by narrator "Eve Karpf" in All Categories

Sadie Smith would love to do the things that other children can, but a degenerated hip prevents her from walking. On her way to a Dr Barnardo's home, her mother buys her a pair of scarlet ribbons which bring Sadie solace in the difficult years ahead.

In the seaside town of Temple Regis, seagulls are wheeling overhead and the holidays are getting close. And then the body of political candidate Odile Clifford is discovered on the balcony of the lighthouse. Fearless Riviera Express reporter Judy Dimont goes in search of the killer - but who is it? And where will they strike next?

For holidaymakers it’s a glorious time of breathtaking scenery, picnics on beaches, and flocks of tourists on their summertime holidays. But for Miss Judy Dimont, this is all a trifle dull. As a reporter for local rag, The Riviera Express, she needs scandal and intrigue - and one morning, as the clock strikes the quarter hour, she gets it. A woman has been shot dead in one of Buntorama’s upmarket holiday huts, the toffee-nosed rival hotelier next door is rubbing his hands with glee, and Judy and her trusty moped, Herbert, are off like a shot to survey the scene of the crime.

Perhaps England's greatest literary family. To find one brilliant novelist in a family is extremely rare. But two? Three?

The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily Jane and Anne, together with their brother Patrick, are famed throughout the world. And amongst their many talents was poetry. Of course, being Brontë's, they were rather good at that too.

When Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis' father is arrested for a crime he did not commit and they have to start a new life in the country, they fear the happy times are gone forever. Little do they expect the exciting adventures and the new friends that await them. By the end they have learned more about life and themselves than they had ever dreamed possible. This full-cast, dramatized version of E. Nesbit's children's classic delightfully brings to life the adventures of The Railway Children.

Looking out upon the backstreets, the suburbs and the high society haunts of Edwardian London, the delightfully witty and independent spinster Miss Ley surveys a tangled web of lives; she sympathetically observes the struggle under the pressures of convention, and the complex interplay between love and reason. Through Miss Ley's eyes we witness the brief but happy marriage of a dying poet; a woman's adulterous passion for a young rascal; and finally, an honourable man's decision to take virtue to extremes.

Able to write comfortably in a number of genres, HG Wells was especially applauded for his science fiction works such as The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, but his forays into the social conditions of the times, with classics such as Kipps, were almost as commercially successful. His short stories are miniature masterpieces, many of which bring new and incredible ideas of science fiction to the edge of present-day science fact. Wells also received four nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began as a group of painters, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, who wished to reject the stern and academic strictures of current painting and return to the simpler and more uncomplicated days before the Italian High Renaissance and the days of Raphael. The movement was short lived but very influential and, as well, was taken up by a number of different arts.

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn’t much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill.

The fourth story featuring the madcap ten-year-old, Flossie Teacake. Her older sister's magic fur coat transforms Flossie into Floz, a teenager who can go anywhere and do anything - including buying a lottery ticket and winning a million pounds.

These 11 stories include, amongst others, a terrifying Nordic curse and a country garden inhabited by a deadly ghost. Aiken's other works include 'The Kingdom Under The Sea', 'Mortimer Says Nothing' and 'Past Eight O'Clock'.

Francis Edward Ledwidge was born on 19th August, 1887, in the small village of Janeville in Slane, County Meath, in Ireland to parents that believed strongly in education. At the age of 5 his father died and the entire family, already desperately poor, were forced into work and by 13 the young Ledwidge took whatever job was to hand—from farm hand to road labourer. Throughout this time he applied himself to his poetry writing whenever and wherever he could. His poems were published on a regular basis from the age of 14 in the Drogheda Independent, his local paper.

The art of writing a short story can be barely noticed by a reader or listener - such is the quality with which they are usually written. It is a difficult trade, an unforgiving discipline, but for those who master it, the rewards are many. In this series of works by our greatest female writers we bring you a selection of those we consider the best. In Volume 1 we bring you the classics 'A Dill Pickle' by Katherine Mansfield, 'The Storm' by Kate Chopin, and 'The Sexton’s Hero' by Elizabeth Gaskell.

George Robert Gissing was born on November 22, 1857, in Wakefield, Yorkshire. He was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield. Gissing loved school. He was enthusiastic with a thirst for learning and always diligent. By the age of 10 he was reading Dickens, a lifelong hero. In 1872, Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College. Whilst there, Gissing worked hard but remained solitary. Unfortunately, he had run short of funds and stole from his fellow students. He was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in 1876.

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 in Bromley in Kent. He was the youngest of four siblings and his family affectionately knew him as ‘Bertie’. The first few years of his childhood were spent fairly quietly, and Wells didn’t display much literary interest until, in 1874, he accidentally broke his leg and was left to recover in bed, largely entertained by the library of books his father regularly brought him. Through these Wells found he could escape the boredom and misery of his bed and convalescence by exploring the new worlds he encountered in these books.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. This volume is dedicated to one such recognised master of the short story, namely Katherine Mansfield, whose innovative stream of consciousness and symbolic narrative style profoundly influenced Virginia Woolf. She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand, the middle child of five. A gifted cellist who at one point considered taking it up professionally, her first attempts at writing were published in school magazines.

In this selection of some of Saki's best short stories, we enter a fictional world in which the Edwardian gently are pitched against the rude forces of nature and maiden aunts struggle unsuccessfully to contain the merciless antics of children in their charge. Saki is perhaps the ultimate master of writing complete stories in just a few pages and his sublime craftsmanship is accompanied by a wicked black humour.

Gerald Hennessey - silver-screen star and much-loved heartthrob - never quite makes it to Temple Regis, the quaint Devonshire seaside town on the English Riviera. Murdered on the 4.30 from Paddington, the loss of this great man throws Temple Regis' community into disarray. Not least Miss Judy Dimont, corkscrew-haired reporter for the local rag, The Riviera Express. Investigating Gerald's death, she's quickly called to the scene of a second murder.

When Devon farmer's daughter Roxanne Hawkins attends a local summer concert, the 14-year-old is blindingly stage-struck. On the day of St Petroc's autumn fair, Roxanne runs away to seek fame and fortune in the bright lights of London. There she stumbles across suave and sophisticated music-hall fixer Harry Bright, who persuades her to adopt the stage-name Annie Breeze. The popular double act Bright and Breeze is born.

We all love animals, even if sometimes its only from afar on TV or at a zoo. But many of us have felt a closer friendship and companionship with our friends in the animal world. We talk and react to them as if they really do understand us. Perhaps they do. In this volume Hardy, Thackeray, Carroll, DH Lawrence, Emily Dickinson, and many others share their words with our ears.