Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

A comprehensive collection of superb classic 30-minute short stories. Perfect for commuters, joggers or bedtime listening.

John Buchan (1875 - 1940) was a scottish writer, barrister, Member of Parliament and later become Baron Tweedsmuir and Govenor-General of Canada. While he was most famous for adventure stories, such as The Thirty-nine Steps, he was also popular for his supernatural horror stories, of which The Watcher by the Threshold is a prime example.

Edward Alexander Crowley (1875-1947) was a British occultist and writer who wrote as Aleister Crowley. His stories and novels shocked Victorian England with their focus on demonic magic and sexual deviance. The Vixen is a traditional werewolf story but with Crowley's typical cruel and savage erotic twist on the classic theme.

'The Red-Haired Girl' is a ghost story about an eerie and ominous servant-girl who stalks the house watching its inhabitants malevolently.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. "The Empire of the Ants" is a disturbing tale about a new species of giant ants in South America which have evolved to use tools and weapons, wear clothes, communicate and organize themselves as a deadly fighting machine. And their chosen enemy is mankind....

Adeline Virginia Woolf (January 1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the preeminent modernists of the 20th century. Her stories often seem to take the form of a stream of consciousness. 'A Haunted House' tells the story of a ghostly couple flitting from one room to the next in search of their hidden treasure...but what is it?

A yellow dog narrates his escape from his camembert-cheese-scented New York mistress to a new life in the Rocky Mountains... taking her long suffering husband with him.

Sixty-five short stories by the master storyteller, Saki.

The extraordinary story of Robert Jeffrey who was press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1808 at the age of 18. On his first voyage on board the Recruit under the strict Captain Lake, Jeffrey gave in to temptation and stole a sip of rum. For this he was clapped in irons for two days and then given two dozen lashes. A few days later however, he drank two quarts of spruce beer belonging to the midshipmen. For this repeat misdemeanor, Captain Lake ordered him to be put ashore on a barren rock on the outskirts of the Leeward Islands.

When young Gillian inherits a sum of one thousand dollars from his late uncle, with the condition that he should spend it and return to the lawyers' office with a detailed account of his expenditure, he is at a loss what to do with the money. He seeks ideas and advice from many...but eventually the solution dawns on him.

'Relics of General Chassé' is a humorous tale of a corpulent and somewhat dandified clergyman who, while visiting the castle at Antwerp, inadvertently becomes separated from his breeches. What follows shakes him to the core. The breeches fall into the hands of a group of female English tourists who decide to take some sample of the cloth as a souvenir.

Dear old Raggedy Ann! The beloved rag doll who comes to life and along with the other toys in the nursery has a series of exciting adventures. Generations of children have listened round eyed and open mouthed as Raggedy Ann flies away on a kite, rescues the family dog from the pound, helps the hens hatch out chicks and lands up in the paint pot. Johnny Gruelle (1880-1938) was an American artist, cartoonist and children's author. One day his daughter Marcella found a dusty, faceless rag doll in the attic.

First published in 1924, Charles E. Pearce’s account of some of the most gruesome and intriguing unsolved murders of the 19th century continues to captivate amateur sleuths to this day. Pearce guides us through a fascinating world of wicked assassinations, missed clues, ingenious stratagems, and cunning deceits in one last attempt to track down historical villains who evaded justice. It is impossible to establish the truth beyond reasonable doubt in any of the cases at this distance, but the light which Pearce sheds on the investigations and contemporary testimony, encourages us to evaluate the evidence anew.

A terrifying collection of classic werewolf stories, ranging from ancient legends to Victorian and Edwardian adaptations on the theme. •Gabriel-Ernest by Saki •The Wolf by Guy de Maupassant •The Werewolf by Eugene Field •The Other Side by Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock •The Werewolves by Henry Beaugrand •Jean Grenier the French Werewolf by Sabine Baring-Gould •The Man-Wolf by Leitch Ritchie •The She-Wolf by Saki •The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales. 'An Old Fashioned Christmas Eve' describes a young Norwegian soldier recovering from an illness who finds himself stranded on Christmas Eve with a family who sit around the fire telling a series of quite extraordinary folktales and ghost stories.

When a mysterious craft appears from the clouds over Rotterdam and an odd looking tiny being with no ears drops a letter at the feet of the Burgermeister, nobody can possibly imagine the strange and wonderful account which it contains. The letter is from a certain Hans Pfaal, a citizen of Rotterdam who went missing five years earlier under strange circumstances, and who was widely believed to have been the victim of a bizarre and grisly murder. But Hans Pfaal's story is even more astounding than anyone could possibly imagine.

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American author who was best known for his macabre horror stories and weird tales. This collection brings together a highly representative selection of his creepy stories, written very much after the Lovecraftian style. 'Rattle of Bones', 'Sea Curse', 'Pigeons from Hell', 'In the Forest of Villefore', 'The Dream Snake', 'The Fearsome Touch of Death', 'The Right Hand of Doom' and 'The Thing on the Roof'.

A haunting collection of strange and macabre short stories, ideal for listening to around the fire on a cold winter evening.... 'The Last Leaf' by O. Henry, 'On the Northern Ice' by Elia W. Peattie, 'The Fire' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Tiger' by Hugh Walpole, 'Cool Air' by H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Missing Model' by Lettice Galbraith, 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon, 'The Snow' by Hugh Walpole, 'Over an Absinthe Bottle' by W. C. Morrow, 'The Coffin Merchant' by Richard Middleton.

Originally published anonymously in the form of a pamphlet, the intriguing ghost story entitled: "A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day after her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury the 8th of September, 1705" has long been the cause of academic speculation and dispute. The theme of the story is an uncanny interaction between the spiritual world and the physical world, as well as the nature of death itself. The story describes a posthumous visit by Mrs. Veal to her friend Mrs. Bargrave, during which strange insights and confidences are exchanged.

Adeline Virginia Woolf (January 1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the preeminent modernists of the 20th century. 'The Mark on the Wall' is a description of a chain of thoughts inspired by catching sight of a mysterious mark on the wall. It does not matter what the mark actually is.... What is important is the imaginative images and philosophical considerations which it stimulates in her brain.