Mostrando resultados por narrador "Cathy Dobson" en Todas las categorías

Set during the Franco-Prussian war, de Maupassant's story tells of a group of German soldiers occupying and gradually vandalising a stately home in Normandy. Bored of the dull location and incessant rain, the group of young officers decide to send to the nearest town for a group of prostitutes, so that they can hold an orgiastic dinner party. Among the women is the spirited young Rachel, whose willingness to fraternize with the Prussians is put to the test, with catastrophic results.

A dysfunctional and amoral family murders its alcoholic father and buries him in the yard, before embarking on a hobby of befriending strangers whose bodies they bury in the cellar. When the stocks of liquor and provisions kept in the cellar start to deplete mysteriously, they put it down to the partying of the restless spirits of their murder victims...but a stranger truth emerges. Written in Bierce's witty style, this story is a laugh-a-minute comedy.

When the Momeby family’s baby goes missing, their neighbour Miss Gilpet undertakes to find the child. Her immediate success turns out to be less of a miracle and more of an embarrassment for all.

When the prematurely middle-aged J.P. Huddle is recommended to take an “unrest-cure” by a friend, he little realizes that the other passenger in the railway compartment, the prank-loving Clovis, will take this as a personal challenge. The havoc which Clovis’s macabre and at times shocking practical joke causes is beyond anything that the sleepy hamlet of Tilfield has seen before. Hector Hugh Munro at his most macabre.

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. 'The Ceremony' is the eerie tale of a standing stone which exerts a supernatural pull towards young females and draws them fearfully to make offerings there. Strange and mysterious offerings, at secret erotic ceremonies.

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction. The Red Hand is a mysterious horror story which tells the peculiar tale of the strange murder of Sir Thomas Vivian, the famous heart surgeon. Why was he murdered with an ancient flint weapon when there was an unused, brand-new knife at the scene? What was the meaning of the bizarre letter in the dead man's pocket, written in a very strange hand? And what could be the meaning of the peculiar symbol of a red hand chalked on the wall above the corpse?

Four gripping tales by the master of Adventure Stories, Joseph Conrad. "The Tale", "The Inn of the Two Witches", "The Secret Sharer", "The Idiots".

When Darcy, recuperating from a serious illness, goes to stay with an old friend of his, Frank, in the New Forest, he discovers a puzzling change in the man. He appears to have become significantly younger and is also filled with exuberance and joy. Frank explains that he has spent the last six years studying Nature and has discovered a new philosophy of life around the joy of nature.

Edgar Wallace (1875 - 1932) had no equal in the realm of the pure "thriller." The Man of the Night is a classic example of Wallace's genius. Stepping purposefully out of the dark shop, with a large sharp knife hidden under his coat, the wanted man met a stranger. But it was quite a different kind of stranger than he could have imagined... and what happens next is incomprehensible and inspiring.

Story is the narrative of a princess, whose husband has gone out hunting. She is inspired by her uncle showing her paintings of a nearby ruined castle which has become overgrown with trees to ask him to take her there on their afternoon ride. On the way, they pass through the busy market and see that there is a showman exhibiting a range of wild beasts. When they reach the base of the castle, they have a fine view back towards their own castle and the town beneath it, but they quickly spot that something is wrong. A fire has broken out in the marketplace.

An eerie tale of how early pioneers in Canada are threatened by a pack of native werewolves. The watchman at the fort spots what he takes to be an Indian campfire on the other side of the frozen river. He fires warning shots and rouses the camp, but a party sent to investigate finds no trace of any human activity. The sentry is arrested, but an old tracker's story suggests the circumstances could be much more sinister than it appears. In his experience, the disappearance of the campfire suggests that a pack of werewolves is in the neighbourhood...

Conrad's truly first short story, written during his honeymoon (1896), published in The Savoy periodical, 1896, and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898. A Breton farmer, returning from national service, takes over the family farm and marries a local girl, hoping to have sons who will inherit the family farm and carry on his own traditions. All appears to be going to plan, when the first pregnancy produces twin boy. But the children turn out to be mentally disabled....

A delightful collection of 10 of Guy de Maupassant's most famous tales: "The Parrot", "The Love of Long Ago", "Mademoiselle Fifi", "Miss Harriet", "An Uncomfortable Bed", "A Queer Night in Paris", "My Uncle Jules", "The Piece of String", "The Necklace", and "Found on a Drowned Man".

An impoverished French family awaits the prodigal return of their long vanished Uncle Jules from his travels in America. From his letters it would appear that he has made his fortune and when he returns the family hopes their fortunes will change too. A boat trip to Jersey provides the opporunity for a reunion...but nobody could anticipate the twist in events.

A fast-paced and engaging narrative about a medical assistant who despairs of finding the funds for his final year of medical school until, while defending himself against the belligerent spouse of a patient, he ends up knocking out the town's best candidate to defeat the local boxing champion, the Croxley Master. Learning that the impending fight carries prize money which would see him through his education, he agrees to step in as the new challenger and see whether he can defeat the Croxley Master.

Kipling’s classic tale taken from the Just So Stories. The stickly prickly hedgehog and the slow solid tortoise devise an exercise regime which will enable them to avoid becoming lunch for the painted jaguar. The effects surprise everyone, especially the painted jaguar.

In The Adventure of the Speckled Band, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are faced with a most unusual case. Two years earlier a young woman died under mysterious and unexplained circumstances while alone in her locked bedroom. Her last words to her sister referred to a 'speckled band'. She had previously complained of hearing a strange whistling sound in the night. Now the sister is sleeping in the same room, and she too has heard the mysterious whistling. But what can it be? And what is the 'speckled band'?

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales. The Cormorants of Udröst is one of the stories he collected. It tells of a fisherman who found the mythical island of Udröst and befriended its strange and wonderfully generous inhabitants.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer, now best remembered for his science fiction novels, and is often credited as being the father of science fiction. 'Aepyornis Island' is the strange tale of a naturalist who finds himself adrift in a canoe in the Indian Ocean, with three mysterious rare giant eggs which he has collected. He knows they are the eggs of the aepyornis - a bird which has been extinct for hundreds of years. He is amazed, when hunger forces him to try one of the eggs, to find that it is fresh.

Dr Henry St Clair Whitehead ( 1882-1932) was an American clergyman and teacher who became famous for his creepy tales of magic and voodoo published in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1920s. 'The Shadows' is a tale from the West Indies about Mr. Stewart, an American who moves into an old house, locally known as Morris' House. Morris has been dead for several decades, but nobody seems keen to tell Mr. Stewart anything about the circumstances of Morris' death.