Showing results by publisher "Red Door Audiobooks" in Comedy & Humour

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, critic and writer of fiction and is particularly well known for his morbid and supernatural stories. 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head' is a tale which reveals Poe's sense of humour - a gruesome and fantastic humour. It is a witty take on the Faust theme - an antihero inadvertently enters into a terrible wager with the devil.

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.This collection presents six of his most popular and well known tales: 'The Talking Horse', 'The Black Poodle', 'An Undergraduate's Aunt', 'The Gull', 'Caveat Emptor', 'Mrs. Brassington-Claypott's Children's Party'.

At the deathbed of Ursula, the eldest of three sisters, the dying women declares that she will return from the dead when the time comes to accompany each of her younger siblings into the afterlife. The two survivors and their old housekeeper, now live on in fear of encountering Ursula's ghost, and strange happenings in the house bring this terror to an unholy climax.

When master chef Monsieur Aristide Saucourt presents his signature dish to diners at the Grand Sybaris Hotel, he anticipates they will acknowledge this as the pinnacle of his career. But the moment does not go as planned and ends in a fatal tragedy involving hot soup.

Harry Graham was an English writer of light verse, popular fiction and history. He is best remembered for his grotesque and humorous verses which parody the children’s cautionary verses of his day. His most successful work was his series of hilariously cruel Ruthless Rhymes, first published in 1898 under the pseudonym Col. D. Streamer. Billy in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.

Mark Twain's hilarious account of life with a malfunctioning burglar alarm.

A masterful collection of 28 short stories by Edwardian satirist Hector Hugh Munro, who wrote under the pseudonym “Saki”. The Chronicles of Clovis includes many of Saki’s best known tales, exemplifying his witty and multi-layered storytelling, satirizing the habits and morals of British society of his day.

A dysfunctional and amoral family murders its alcoholic father and buries him in the yard, before embarking on a hobby of befriending strangers whose bodies they bury in the cellar. When the stocks of liquor and provisions kept in the cellar start to deplete mysteriously, they put it down to the partying of the restless spirits of their murder victims...but a stranger truth emerges. Written in Bierce's witty style, this story is a laugh-a-minute comedy.

Five classic examples of the sheer comic genius of Mark Twain. "The One Million Pound Bank Note", "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm", "The Stolen White Elephant", "Cannibalism in the Cars", and "The Awful German Language".

A quartet of short stories by the mastermind of practical jokes, Hector Hugh Munro, better known under his pseudonym “Saki”. This collection brings together four of his most ingenious tales, all of which involve one character playing a prank on the others. The results range from the comic to the macabre… but all are brilliantly narrated with Saki’s superb ironic wit. The Stampeding of Lady Bastable.

Mrs. Sangrail is determined to offload her wayward son Clovis onto Lady Bastable for six days while she takes a trip to Scotland. Is desperation she resorts to cunning bribery, but Clovis has other ideas and devises an ingenious scheme to thwart his mother’s plans. Another piece of genius humour writing by Hector Hugh Munro, peppered with his humorous observations on British Edwardian society.

When the prematurely middle-aged J.P. Huddle is recommended to take an “unrest-cure” by a friend, he little realizes that the other passenger in the railway compartment, the prank-loving Clovis, will take this as a personal challenge. The havoc which Clovis’s macabre and at times shocking practical joke causes is beyond anything that the sleepy hamlet of Tilfield has seen before. Hector Hugh Munro at his most macabre.

My Aunt Patience, who tilled a small farm in the state of Michigan, had a favorite cow. This creature was not a god cow, nor a profitable one, for instead of devoting a part of her leisure to secretion of milk and production of veal she concentrated all her faculties on the study of kicking. The demon cow of Michigan will attack any living being she comes across...and when Aunt Patience resolves to marry, every single man in the county goes to extreme lengths to become unavailable for the honour. Such was their fear of being married alive by my Aunt Patience.

The Yellow Wallpaper is Charlotte Gilman's best known work. Written from the perspective of a woman suffering post-partum psychosis, it draws the listener into a world which is both terrifying and fascinating, where strange events occur and where even the wallpaper takes on a sinister and creepy significance. The narration and language are masterful, but it is the way the listener is invited to empathise and almost experience the mental illness first hand which make a lasting impression.

When the Momeby family’s baby goes missing, their neighbour Miss Gilpet undertakes to find the child. Her immediate success turns out to be less of a miracle and more of an embarrassment for all.

When Henri Deplis comes into a small inheritance and celebrates his new found wealth by getting an elaborate tattoo, he little realizes what a series of catastrophic events will ensue. The tattoo is recognized as a masterpiece of modern art and given to the city of Bergamo. This is the start of a series of restrictions on Henri Deplis’ lifestyle which gradually but inevitably lead to his downfall.