Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Literature & Fiction

Some pictures tell a story, and a certain old print acquired by a collector proves to have a very dark tale to relate, and in a most uncanny fashion. A classic tale from the master of the English ghost story M. R. James. Originally written to read by the fireside to the members of the Chit Chat Club of Cambridge, this story was first published in James's first collection The Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in 1904. This telling comes with a short afterword which provides some notes and commentary on the text.

Mia Rhodes created Ameritocracy to make it possible for anyone to become president. But as her online political competition races towards its finale, it’s poised to elect a Machiavellian manipulator with a winning smile, leaving Mia to wonder whether she’s changed anything at all. As the competition builds to its spectacular final debate in Washington, DC, Mia and her team must question everything they’ve done so far, and defeat a threat to democracy they had never imagined.

Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854) is a satirical novel, as well as a romantic one. It is a commentary on social issues of the Industrial Revolution. He sets the tale in his imaginary northern location of Coketown. Gradgrind, father of Tom and Louisa, as the superintendent of schools wants education and life to be founded on facts alone. Bounderby, a Banker, and Industrialist is a boastful, bullying, self-proclaimed vagabond made good

Experience the classic tale of a young mermaid's quest for love and humanity. Rebecca H. Lee narrates this traditional Hans Christian Andersen story of magical creatures and merfolk. The story has been translated into English, but not modified from its original version, which may contain darker themes than its modern retellings.

Thirteen classic stories of horror and the supernatural by some of the greatest writers in the genre. This compilation includes a mix of well-known classics by authors such as Edith Nesbit, J. Sheridan Le Fanu and M. R. James, alongside several tales by less familiar names who were hugely popular and prolific in their day.

Written when Vita became homesick for her beautiful home in Kent, it had six print runs within three years of its publication in 1926. Vita has always been popular for her gardening, her lifestyle, and bohemian companions like Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group. Her nostalgia for farming and the beauty of the seasons is described with an artist’s eye for detail.

A young man receives a great windfall but is prevented from fully exploiting his good fortune until he has met certain exacting preliminary conditions. In this case, Montgomery Brewster, an eligible but impecunious young bachelor, receives a bequest of $1,000,000 from a relative. Shortly afterward he is notified that he has been nominated as the beneficiary of another and much larger bequest, but under a strict qualification: He must dispose of the initial bequest in total within a year.

Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of a party she is to give that evening. As she makes preparations, she is flooded with memories and reexamines the choices she has made over the course of her life. On the same day, the war-inflicted Septimus is struggling to keep his dark thoughts and vivid flashbacks from overwhelming him, leading to a catastrophic turn of events.

The subject and argument of the poem are clear from the title. However, unlike Juvenal, Johnson espoused the view that Christian values are an essential aspect of a life well lived. While Johnson passes harsh judgement on the foolishness of greed and social pretensions, his scorn is much tempered by that natural compassion that has made him one of the most lovable figures in English literature.

An exciting story of intrigue, betrayal, and love set in two countries, England and France, during the French Revolution where people, men, women and children, of the aristocracy are being put to death by Madame Guillotine in astonishing numbers. Our English hero, The Scarlet Pimpernel, is doing his best to rescue and save as many people as possible. Can Chauvelin the Scarlet Pimpernel's arch enemy discover who our hero really is and bring him to an appointment with Madame Guillotine.

Charles Fontenay's finely crafted The Case of Sunburn brought to audio by Joseph Tabler for your listening enjoyment. The Case of Sunburn is a classic short story from the heyday of the sci-fi digest size magazines, originally published in the April 1957 issue of IF Worlds of Science Fiction. Fontenay (1917-2007) worked for several newspapers, was editor of the Nashville Tennessean, was with the Associated Press and Gannett News Service at one time.

This fictitious memoir, detailing the desperately suburban life of an obnoxious prig, was published anonymously in 1924. While it resembles the much better known The Diary of a Nobody, the satire is more far-reaching and devastating, and the main character is one of the most memorable in comic fiction. The actual author was later discovered to be Sir Henry Howarth Bashford (1880-1961), who enjoyed a distinguished career in medicine and served as personal physician to King George VI.

The predominant theme in this Shakespearean tragedy, believed to have been written in about 1603, is jealousy and the destruction it causes when allowed to run rampant. It features one of Shakespeare's most compelling villains, Iago, who skillfully manipulates his commander, Othello, into believing that he has been betrayed by his wife, Desdemona, and his closest friend, Cassio.

An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedy by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor. The action is set in London, and takes place over the course of 24 hours.

Dominated by her father’s rigid ways since a twist of fate stole her sight, Isabella uses the magic of Christmas to steal away for an adventure of her own when invited to join friends for the holidays. Oh, how she adores Christmastime!

According to legend, the Pyncheon family has been cursed by their 17th century ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who stole the land from Matthew Maule. Maule was later put to death after being accused of witchcraft and the deed for the land could not be found. Now living in the New England mansion fraught with haunted miseries of the past, Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a small shop to pull herself from the poverty-striken curse she has lived under while her brother, Clifford, was serving a decades-long prison sentence for murder.

Slowbridge's customs have been set in stone by Lady Theobald, who has decreed that young ladies should always wear white muslin to social events and that their only decoration should be fresh flowers - which invariably wilt by the end of the evening. Enter Octavia, bedecked in yards of lace and ribbons and with a profusion of diamond jewelry. She is soon informed that only married ladies wear diamonds in England. She makes other mistakes: Young ladies do not ask men to join them on terraces; they do not invite men to play croquet on their lawns.

North and South follows the young Margaret Hale as she is caught in the middle of the brutal world between employers and local workers following the Industrial Revolution. She finds herself at odds from the very start with John Thornton, a local factory owner and self-made man, as she believes him to be unfeeling and callous about the poverty and suffering of the workers while John sees Margaret as haughty and entitled. Further conflicts arise when the workers strike and Margaret feels compelled to intervene with no regard for her own safety.

Mansfield Park is the third published and perhaps most subtle of Jane Austen's novels. It tells the story of Fanny Price, who, at the age of 10, is sent from her impoverished household to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle and be raised alongside her cousins. Fanny grows up as a misfit, not truly a member of the Bertram family, but too genteel to feel comfortable with her parents.

Headlong Hall was the first of his seven novels, all of which display the same structure. There is a faint semblance of a plot, which is merely a device to bring together a bunch of voluble eccentrics, who converse on a wide range of topical issues. Headlong Hall is the rural seat of the ebullient Squire Headlong, who invites a number of philosophers, a clergyman, a musician, a novelist, and a phrenologist, to dine with him and share their views.