Showing results by narrator "David Shaw Parker" in All Categories

Christina Georgina Rossetti remains one of the most important poets in the British tradition, both for her own work and those she influenced, most notably Virginia Wolfe. Rossetti is praised for her willingness to explore different genres and poetic forms within her body of work. Thematically, her poems run the gamut from frustrated love, to religion, to the Gothic, and beyond. Her choice of form is equally eclectic. Here, a reading of some of her best work by David Shaw-Parker and Ghizela Rowe.

Almost always when we think of Ghost Stories, we first think of those written by the Victorians. If you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, that feeling that in an empty house we are not quite alone and that sometimes the sharp, sheer shock of what just happened is upon us then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your listening pleasure.

Vernon Lee was born Violet Paget on 4th October 1856 in Boulogne, France, to intellectual expatriate British parents. In common with several other very talented literary women of the day she felt it necessary to publish under a masculine pseudonym in order for her writing to be taken seriously. Her literary talents were extensive and she wrote a number of novels and plays. Perhaps her best remembered works are her haunting and powerful short stories exploring the supernatural. Lee has often received accolades for these and glowingly compared to other authors such as M R James.

When two teenagers - Johannes and Mari - are found murdered inside their school, in the small Norwegian village of Fredheim, the finger is soon is pointed at 18-year-old Even, whose relationship with Mari ended just before she died. Mari was writing a story for the school newspaper about Even and his dad, who died in a car accident 10 years earlier. But was it really an accident? And had Mari uncovered information that someone was willing to commit murder to protect?

Despite William Shakespeare being regarded as the most significant figure in the Western literary canon, relatively little is known about his early life and his later ‘lost years’. Even the exact date of his birth is uncertain. 23rd April generally accepted to be the date of his birth, could be a scholarly mistake amplified by the coincidence of it also being the date of his death. His iconic status now spans global literature and stems directly from the magnitude of his plays, both tragedies and comedies, and his poetry which is often cited as some of the greatest love poetry ever written.

On a summer’s day we have perhaps all wished to take flight and view life and the world from the vantage point of a clear blue sky. Our feathered friends do it as a matter of course, and in this volume some of our finest wordsmiths speak with imagination, longing and desire on their behalf.

In Framley Parsonage, the fourth novel of Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire, the author leaves the confines of Barchester and looks to the countryside, where he relates the moral difficulties of Mark Robarts, the young clergyman who has recently been appointed Vicar of Framley. Desperate to keep up with the local aristocracy, the country parson is persuaded to underwrite the debts of Sowerby, a well-respected peer.

During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers. Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’.

With classics such as ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ Robert Browning’s status as one of the great Victorian poets will always be secure in popular culture, while for the more literary he is considered a master of dramatic verse and dramatic monologues. It is interesting to note that his career bloomed late. Indeed, it was only after the death of his wife Elizabeth in 1861 and his return to England from their life in Italy that his work came into wider acceptance and critical acclaim.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that are difficult to achieve elsewhere. The Gothic short story is one of the most enduring of genres. In this volume we explore works by classic authors from all corners of Europe as they explore and exploit narratives with their undeniable talents.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854, in Dublin, Ireland. The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Trinity College and then at Oxford. His only novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with ‘Salome’ in 1891. His society comedies were enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London. This collection of light-hearted and witty stories was written by Oscar Wilde in 1891.

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on the 2nd February 1882, in Dublin, into a middle-class family, and the eldest of ten surviving siblings. After publishing a poetry volume, ‘Chamber Music’, in 1907, his short story collection ‘The Dubliners’, in 1914, helped establish his talent in the rapidly changing world. Although far from home Joyce’s literary heart and works were set in his recollections of Dublin. Characters are close resemblances of family and friends and indeed enemies.

Visible Gods is an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and four fictitious modern-day characters. Socrates' worldview is of a living cosmos with man only half-way up the hierarchy of all beings; above him reign suprahuman beings of great majesty and power - the visible gods. The moderns with whom Socrates converses disdain his ancient Greek cosmos as primitive and false.

In this volume we gather together verse from lesbian poets that is deeply personal and at times overwhelming. It is not just a search for physical love but a journey through the spiritual to completeness, to becoming whole. However we recognise that the label lesbian might be anachronistic and so also include those who stand by their sides or who have a view in verse that helps us to revel in their love. For in the end that is all our journey is about.

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.

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours. Everyone needs it. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day - a chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again. Our poets, from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others, explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod.

Spitfire Ace provides a vivid portrait of the few that flew in the Battle of Britain. The battle, in 1940, was one of the most famous air battles in the history of warfare. It is a story of ruthless organisation, and brilliant control and command. And at its heart is a legendary figure, the RAF fighter pilot, and one particular plane, a piece of machinery of almost mythic historical glamour: the Supermarine Spitfire.

Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family. Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father. His literary works are few in number but towering in influence. His masterpieces include ‘The Trial’, ‘The Metamorphosis’ as well as a number of short stories which reveal facets of humankind that truthfully could only be born from Kafka’s brain and pen.

In the jungle of Southern India the Seeonee Wolf-Pack has a new cub. He is not a wolf - he is Mowgli, a human child, but he knows nothing of the world of men. He lives and hunts with his brothers the wolves. Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther are his friends and teachers. And Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger, is his enemy.Kipling’s famous story of Mowgli’s adventures in the jungle has been loved by young and old for more than a hundred years.

Peter Fleming, brother of James Bond author Ian Fleming, was one of the greatest adventurers and travel writers of the 20th century and author of several classic and best-selling books. This is the first paperback edition. It presents an exciting adventure that could never be made today - it will appeal to all interested in the region.