検索キーワード： ナレーター "Cathy Dobson" すべてのカテゴリー

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings. In this story, Miss Martha's good deed in helping a man whom she takes for an impoverished artist goes very wrong.

'Dream Life and Real Life' is a haunting short story about a little orphan girl in servitude to a cruel Boer family. One night, following a beating, she runs away and hides in a cave. But there she overhears three men plotting to rob and burn down the Boer's farm and kill the family. What should she do? Warn them, or let them burn to death?

In The Marquise, Sand displays her instinctive feeling for the true sense of the "conte" or short story. She neither analyses nor explains the character of the old noblewoman who fell in love with an actor, she merely suggests the strength of passion in the cold, cynical, aged beauty. She leaves the listener's imagination vibrating with its own images thrown up by the hints she gives. A truly exceptional short story.

Edward Frederic Benson (1867 - 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic occult story. "The Face" tells the story of a woman, Hester, who has a strange recurring nightmare. The night before the nightmare she dreams of walking a path across fields, over wooden stiles, through a wind-blown wood, to a grey stone church at the top of the cliff.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of wonderful and varied stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'Mr. Brisher's Treasure' is a humorous tale about a man who finds a chest of buried treasure while making a rockery for his future father-in-law, but circumstances repeatedly and hilariously conspire against him as he tries in vain secretly to retrieve it.

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (1857-1946) was a prominent and prolific American author of novels, short stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers. Her horror stories are particularly popular. 'The Striding Place' (1895) tells the story of a man who is searching for his best friend ,who's gone missing. The search takes him to a dangerous waterfall in the forest called The Strid, from which many have fallen and drowned. There he discovers something most terrifying and surreal.

A. J. Alan's delicious narrative of a strange adventure on a cold winter night in Norfolk. The narrator is spending a night in an unfamiliar bungalow on the Norfolk Broads. He hears the sound of a car outside, and on investigation finds a young woman whose vehicle has broken down. Attempts to fix the car fail, but they flag down a milk lorry which offers the lady a lift to Norwich, while the broken car is wheeled into the narrator's garage for the night.

William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres. Born into a wealthy Quaker family in Yorkshire, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, and took a degree in medicine at Leeds. Ill health dogged him, however, and he devoted much of his recuperation to writing short stories. Unwinding is a strange story based around a simple parlour game.

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist and journalist who wrote his comic novels and humorous short stories under the pseudonym F. Anstey. 'At a Moment's Notice' is the amusing tale of a young man who is involved in a cab accident on Pall Mall. When he comes to after the crash, he has mysteriously been transformed into an organ grinder's monkey. His adventures in his new state are extraordinary and hilarious.

Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his ghost and horror stories. Rose Rose is a hauntingly beautiful ghost story about an artist and his exquisite if somewhat unreliable model, Miss Rose Rose, who is sitting for his great painting of Aphrodite. Miss Rose Rose, on this occasion, is not as unreliable as expected....

'The Malachite Jar' is a detective story. An eminent magistrate, an antiquarian book and antique collector, has been found dead. The post mortem indicates that he was poisoned. But who could possibly have a motive for the murder? Various members of the community come forward with information, each of which points to a different solution to the puzzle...but which is correct?

Ferdinand was born blind. Now aged 25, he hears of an Italian doctor who is rumoured to be able to cure cases like his own. His family persuade the doctor to travel to England and attempt to heal his eyes.The cure is lengthy and arduous. Ferdinand must lie in a darkened room for weeks, his eyes bound up in an irritating plaster and wet bandages. The doctor is optimistic of success, but warns that any cure might only be temporary. Worse still, just as the cure is almost at an end, the doctor vanishes secretly and in great haste to another, more profitable patient in South America. Ferdinand completes the cure according to the directions left by the absent doctor and finally the day arrives for him to remove the bandages and see whether the cure has worked....

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost and horror stories. 'Mrs. Amworth' is arguably Benson's most famous story...and certainly one of the most terrifying. It tells the story of a mysterious outbreak of vampirism in the heart of a quiet English village.

One of Joseph Conrad's most haunting sea-stories, describing a haunting life or death decision at sea which is made in a moment... and takes a lifetime to doubt it's wisdom.

Ten classic short stories from the quills of great bird-loving authors.

Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) was, amongst other things, an eccentric archaologist, historian, architect, antiquarian collector and author of Gothic horror stories very much after the fashion of M. R. James. 'The Dolls' Castle' is the creepy story of a haunted house with a sinister past which uses old, rotting dolls to lure unwary children away from their parents.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928, and 1930. Among her most popular and terrifying tales are the many masterly ghost stories which she wrote in her early career. During a convivial evening during which all the guests recount their own personal ghost stories, nobody expects the dry old host, Andrew Culwin, to contribute any supernatural experience.

When the narrator finds a mysterious brass box in a curiosity shop, he is intrigued. It is heavy, round, and shaking it shows that it clearly contains something...but it cannot be opened. He buys the box and takes it home. With some effort, he manages to open it and discovers a plait of mysterious hair. After cleaning and examining the hair, he discards it on a piece of blank cardboard... or so he thinks. But then mysterious and sinister events begin to take place, and he discovers that the hair has terrifying powers, which he sets out to harness. Gripping and perverse!

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American author well known for his weird tales and horror fiction. In the Forest of Villefore is a grisly tale of a traveller passing through a dark forest at dusk who meets a mysterious masked stranger. The stranger offers to show the traveller the way to Villefore... but the path is dark and overgrown, and the circumstances become increasingly weird and threatening. As the tension builds, it becomes clear to the listener that something horrific is about to happen....

'A Double Return' is a classic doppelganger tale. A successful artist, Hallswell, is returning by train from a painting trip in the southwest of England. As the down train passes him at a junction, he imagines he catches a glimpse of his own face in the train rushing past his window. When he reaches home, a strange and sinister mystery awaits him....