Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Anthologies & Short Stories

Seven more cases for HC Bailey's eclectic golden age sleuth Mr Reginald Fortune: surgeon, general practitioner, and advisor to Scotland Yard wherever surgery, medicine or kindred sciences can elucidate what is or is not crime. Including: a sudden death at Royal Ascot; a young doctor accused of a diamond theft; a strange country house burglary; an incident at the British Museum leading to a far darker crime; a vanished actress; and a diabolical murder at an orphanage, linked to an apparently accidental death and a near-fatal poisoning.

Perhaps there is a knack to being able to talk coherently to a two year-old, but this skill is lost on the storyteller in this highly relatable and humorous short story from the creator of Winnie the Pooh. Narrated by Glenn Hascall.

Jack London draws upon his own experiences of a long Klondike winter to tell the story of two men, complete opposites in almost every way, who break off from their gold-searching party to spend a long winter together in a remote cabin. Thinking it will be easier than pushing on further north with the rest of the party, they fight against the cold, dwindling supplies, endless days of complete darkness, encroaching madness, the ubiquitous "Fear of the North", and ultimately, each other.

In her first-ever solo anthology, New York Times best-selling author Rebecca Cantrell demonstrates her award-winning skill with four wonderful stories - including the prequel to her Hannah Vogel series where Ernst Vogel explores the shadowy world of Weimar-era Berlin as he investigates the murder of a young cigarette boy at his cabaret. The collection also includes a journey through the wreckage of postwar Berlin in a search for hope, a fated meeting on a train to a concentration camp, and a supernatural warrior protecting a shtetl in wartime Czechoslovakia.

A poignant tale of love and loneliness takes place during the 'White Nights' of St. Petersburg: a time in the summer months when the nights do not darken beyond twilight due to the city's northern location. The story is told by an unnamed narrator, a young man of 26, a self-professed dreamer and introvert, who lives alone in St. Petersburg. Wandering the streets at night he meets a young lady, lonely like himself, and they strike up a friendship. Meeting on successive nights the friendship develops and begins to show signs of love.

Guy de Maupassant today remains among France's renowned short story masters. He excels at recounting the banal daily lives of Frenchmen, which yet reveal deep moral truths. The first of these three classic tales is Boule de Suif, which relates the desperate attempts of several French citizens intent on escaping the rule of invading Prussian forces. The coach heading for Havre is conveying people of varying classes—nobility, rich and merchant—to a woman of comfort, whose heart and dignity prove larger than any of her fellow passengers'.

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) may be considered the Canadian counterpart to Mark Twain. For many years he was professor of economics at Magill University and published a number of well-regarded texts on economics and political science. However, he is best known today for his many volumes of humorous fiction. During the 1920s he was one of the most widely read authors in the English-speaking world and was considered by Jack Benny and Groucho Marx to be one of the greatest comic writers of all time.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the first published collection of short stories featuring the famous consulting detective and his friend and colleague Dr. Watson.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was the most notable literary figure of his time, just as John Dryden (1631-1700) had been of the preceding age. He was born in London, the son of a prosperous linen merchant, and to his dying day, he remained the poet of the town rather than of the country.

First published in 1893 as a children's book to encourage the humane treatment of animals, Beautiful Joe has taken it's place along with Black Beauty, becoming a favorite of several generations of youngsters. Beautiful Joe narrates the story of his mutilation at the hands of a cruel master and the love he finds in the home of a caring family full of kids and animals.

A breathtaking piece of luck, coupled with an unlikely coincidence, secured by a piercing intellect and curious nature, lead three friends to believe they might possibly uncover pirate gold! With all the insight and reasoning of a Sherlock Holmes, Poe's William Legrand plucks faint clues seemingly from mid-air and carefully arrives at a conclusion of exactly where in the world to dig.Has he reasoned - and guessed - correctly? Or, will the only gold he sees be the color of his eponymous beetle?

F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. He wrote this collection of eight short stories in 1920 for magazines such as Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. This collection includes: "The Offshore Pirate", "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong", "Head and Shoulders", "Benediction", "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", "The Cut Glass Bowl", "The Four Fists", and "The Ice Palace".

Welcome to The Brass Teapot and Other Stories - the best of Season 1 of the Fiction on the Web audiobook series. There are so many people out there making beautiful literary art, so many niches snugly filled, so many jokers and prophets and lovers and fighters, so many wonderful stories finding an audience. Literary magazines are packed full of love, craft, art for art's sake, art for life's sake. In a world full of divisions, where we're bombarded by shallow media and tyrannised by selfish politics, literary magazines are antidote, antithesis, haven.

A father and son argue, the father strikes the son upon the face, and the son promises to kill the father. When the father disappears, the son goes to trial for murder, but how can there be a conviction when there was no body, and the father appeared several miles away.

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.

The theme of this volume is Bad Therapy. In Volume 11, we explored the transformative and cathartic world of Good Therapy. But what happens when therapy goes bad? Let's find out together.

In January 1817, Jane Austen began work on Sanditon, but died a few months later, leaving it unfinished. The surviving fragment begins the story of Charlotte Heywood, a sheltered young woman who is invited to the up-and-coming resort town of Sanditon. While there, she meets a host of memorable characters, drawn with Austen's classic wit and insight, including a fortune-hunting fop, a domineering dowager, and a hoard of hypochondriacs.

At the end of the 19th century, Jewish writers began writing in Yiddish and creating for the first time popular literature that brought alive the small dramas, struggles, and joys of ordinary life. Sholem Aleichem was one of the very few modern writers who spoke for an entire people. This collection of stories includes the title piece and seven other tales.

A prolific writer of Christian romances, Grace Livingston Hill also excelled in creating novels of suspense. These tales highlight three women who, through pluck and cleverness, strive to escape the menace that envelops them. (Of course, being GLH stories, there are always romantic possibilities!)

Auguste Groner is a woman who wrote short detective novels in the early 20th century in Austria—these stories have been translated well and they fit in with an interesting group of early detectives. These stories capture the beginnings of the stereotypical detective who appears to be too humble and unintelligent to solve complicated mysteries.