Showing results by narrator "John Chatty" in All Categories

When it comes to short stories, Edgar Allan Poe is considered by many to be the master of terror and the macabre. This is one of his most famous stories. A man is tormented by a cat and decides to take a terrible vengeance, but things do not go as planned.

The Purloined Letter is one of Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories. It is the third of the three stories featuring the detective C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget. These stories are considered important forerunners of the modern detective story. The Method Poes detective, Dupin, uses to solve the crime was quite innovative. He tried to identify with the criminal and to "think like he would."

Poe is best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre and this story is no exception. In it, a man's life is seemingly ruined by one he considers an arch enemy - until a startling revelation at the end of the story.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe's only complete novel, published in 1838. Set in 1827, it is an exciting blend of science, romance, adventure, realism, and supernaturalism. It is based on the actual experiences of J.N. Reynolds, whose book Poe consulted.

This unabridged recording of the classic adventure novel from 1914 tells of an aristocratic English infant, abandoned in the African jungle upon the death of his shipwrecked parents, who is reared by apes. Given the name "Tarzan", meaning "white-skin" in the language of the apes, Tarzan is raised without knowledge of his own kind, until the beautiful socialite Jane Porter sets foot into his secluded life.

When it comes to short stories, Edgar Allan Poe is considered by many to be the master of terror and the macabre. This is one of his most famous stories. It is set during the torturous times of the Spanish inquisition and is a first-person account of a terrifying psychological ordeal. It a masterpiece of suspense and fear, with just a hint of the supernatural.

Hester Prynne commits adultery in a Puritan settlement and, as a result, is "branded" for the rest of her life by having to wear a scarlet letter "A" on her breast. Throughout the story, a complex relationship develops between Hester, her lover, her husband, and her daughter.

Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is of the best "macabre" tales ever written. It is presented here in its entirety along with eight other incredible tales.

Here is one of London's famous stories of the Klondike, where men had to battle the elements, and often each other, to survive.

C. Auguste Dupin is a Frenchman who decides to solve the mysterious brutal murder of two women in Paris. Numerous witnesses are quoted in the newspaper as having heard a suspect, though the witnesses each think it was a different language. As the first true detective in fiction, the Dupin character established many literary devices which would be used in future fictional detectives including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

This recording features some of the best known narrative poems ever written. It includes: "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning, "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Gunga Din" by Rudyard Kipling, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats, "Kubla Khan" by William Taylor Coleridge, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde, and "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson.

Black Beauty, The Autobiography of a Horse, was written in 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. The book became an immediate bestseller and is one of the best-selling books of all time. In addition to being a wonderful story for both children and adults, it teaches both animal welfare, and how to treat people and animals with kindness, sympathy and respect.

Robert Louis Stevenson was best known for novels like Treasure Island and Kidnapped, but he also wrote a number of fascinating short stories, many dealing with the supernatural.

The Body Snatcher (1884) was first published in the Pall Mall Christmas Extra in Dec 1884. It is a horrifying story of students paid to "snatch" bodies for a medical school. Strange things begin to happen and the story builds to an exraordinary and startling conclusion. A movie version of the story was made in 1945. It was directed by Robert Wise and starred Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.