Showing results by narrator "Roy Macready"

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 author of the famous Alice books also wrote many poems notably in the humorous and nonsense genres. "The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in Eight Fits)", published in 1876 and possibly his best known and most accomplished verse, is presented here together with another of his longer poems, "Phantasmagoria" and "Melancholetta", "Sea Dirge", "Size and Tears", plus five poems from Alice.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was first published anonymously in 1821 in the London Magazine and was published in book form a year later. A revised edition was published in 1846. It is an account by the author of his addiction to laudanum and the effects it had on his life. This recording presents an abridged version of the 1856 edition.

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.

The stories Told After Supper, related by the guests at a Christmas Eve party, are about ghosts and have all the wit and whimsy of Jerome K. Jerome's more famous works.

The Screaming Skull is one of F. Marion Crawford's Uncanny Tales, which was first published, posthumously, in London in 1911 and was issued two weeks later in America as Wandering Ghosts.

Reginald, published in 1904, was the first of Saki's collections of short stories. The eponymous Reginald is an effete, cynical young man-about-town whose character is a vehicle for Saki's delicious biting wit satirizing Edwardian high society.

Robert Browning (1812-1889), playright and poet, is known and admired for his dramatic monologues in blank verse, of which he is a recognized master. He was not always popular in his own time but is now considered one of the foremost poets of Victorian England.

A collection of 17 classic tales of the macabre and supernatural by some of the best known writers in these genres.

Another collection of 16 classic tales of the macabre and supernatural by some of the best-known writers in these genres.

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."

The "Songs of Innocence" were published in 1789 and republished in 1794 together with the "Songs of Experience". They represent Blake's two perspectives on the world, that of the child (innocence) and that of the adult (experience). Blake's poetical works were largely neglected in their own time but are today considered some of the most brilliant of English verse. The "songs" are presented here together with "Auguries of Innocence".

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. This collection of 10 stories exemplifies Benson's fine literary style and his ability to create the most frightening of ghostly and macabre tales.

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".

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author known for his works of horror and the fantastic. He is recognized as an influence on modern writers of supernatural fiction. Holy Terrors (published in 1946, a year before his death) is a collection of 14 short stories of which nine are very short and are included in this recording. They are: “The Rose Garden”, “Psychology”, “The Soldier's Rest”, “The Cosy Room”, “The Ceremony”, “Holy Things”, “The Turanians”, “The Happy Children”, and “Munitions of War”.

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic in his time but today is remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. The six stories in Volume Two are: "The Ash Tree", "Martin's Close", "Lost Hearts", "The Tractate Middoth", "After Dark in the Playing Fields", and "Wailing Well".

collection of favorite classic poems by some of our best loved poets, including Robert Browning, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Thomas Love Peacock, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and others.

Presenting a selection of sonnets by William Shakespeare. There are 24 in number in this first selection. They are, in order: 18, 33, 11, 3, 5, 6, 29, 10, 22, 2, 4, 7, 1, 9, 27, 8, 30, 116, 34, 54, 12, 66, 77, 60.

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author known for his works of horror and the fantastic. He is acknowledged as an influence on modern writers of supernatural fiction. His story "The Red Hand" (1895) tells of a grisly murder committed with the most unusual of weapons, an ancient stone axe.

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.