Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Anthologies

Nella Braddy (1894-1973), a pioneer among female editors, compiled this seven-story collection and published Masterpieces of Adventure: Tales of the Sea and Sky in 1921. It features seven authors: Frank Norris, W. Clark Russell, Major General E.D. Swinton, Donn Byrne, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Guy de Maupassant, and Edgar Allan Poe. A century since publication, we can perhaps have a new appreciation for tales of the sea (on ships both wrecked and abandoned, in lighthouses and with ferocious currents) and the sky (with warfare in dirigibles and using balloons).

In the introduction to this selection of tales of the macabre, anthologist Arthur Reeve writes: "What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story? Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories of the ages were blotted out, man would invent new ones. For, do we not all stand in awe of that which we cannot explain, of that which, if it is not in our own experience, is certainly recorded in the experience of others, of that of which we know and can know nothing?"

Nella Braddy, a pioneer among female editors, compiled this eight-story collection and published Masterpieces of Adventure: Adventures Within Walls in 1922. It features eight authors: Robert Louis Stevenson, O. Henry, Washington Irving, Anton Chekhov, Honoré de Balzac, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, and Leonidas Andreiyeff.

The classic and heart warming tale which captures the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeonly old man of business about whom a warm word is never said nor given back. One chilly Christmas eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his old business partner who bears a dire warning, and a final chance to change his miserly ways.

Three disparate and suspenseful looks at ourselves in three very different worlds. These engaging short stories by three of the masters of American science fiction literature, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Philip K. Dick, open windows into our psyches, our souls, and our surroundings that presage the world we find ourselves in today. Like episodes of The Twilight Zone, cinematic in their language and characters, the stories connect with our times in surprising ways.

In The Humour of America, 88 short stories, poems, anecdotes, and essays from the 18th and 19th century will keep you smiling and chuckling!

Guy de Maupassant, French master of the short story, had a simple, efficient style of writing and, like Anton Chekhov, found inspiration for his stories in the daily lives of humans, which often reveal our darker nature. Many of his works also centered on the Franco-Prussian War, in which he served. Volume VIII of his Complete Original Short Stories contains the following:

An award-winning audiobook narrator and producer reads Anton Chekhov's "The Beggar", a moral tale in which the arrogant and self-righteous lawyer thinks he has "saved" the beggar by teaching him how to work for a living. In fact, he would have never continued the original task (or even begun it) if it weren't for the example of the lawyer's compassionate cook, who quietly chopped the wood for him without expecting anything in return. It was Olga's example of self-sacrifice, not Skvortsoff's example of "do-goodism" that inspired the man to change his life.

These stories are a unique, early study of celebrity and the vast emotional and social divisions of class and power that still exist today. Each story introduces a woman of power and the men who struggle to define them and thus themselves.

The French master of the short story with the twist ending, Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), here lets his main character, an unerring knife-thrower in a carnival act with his wife, tell the tale of his maddening situation. An anonymous English translation.

Mary Shelley had an abiding interest in the mysterious and the supernatural. In this atmospheric tale, she describes the nocturnal wanderings of an enigmatic figure in the woods, and the expectations and conclusions those who have witnessed its activities.

Thought by many to be the greatest Christmas story ever written. Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti takes us to a shabby apartment where love rules. This is a Christmas story but worth a listen any time of the year.

An anthology of chilling, classic horror stories, including "The Tale-Tell Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving; "The Hand", "Was it a Dream?", and "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant; "The Red Room" by H.G. Wells; "Moon-Face" by Jack London; "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

France's master of the short story was prolific, producing 13 volumes of tales of everyday life.

New York-born John Kendrick Bangs was associate editor and then editor of Life and Harper magazines, eventually finding his way into the Humour department. Here, he began to write his own satire and humour. Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others is a delightful humorous collection of short tales relating encounters with ghosts, including "The Mystery of My Grandmother's Hair Sofa", "The Exorcism That Failed", and more.

The first four stories were first published as a collection in 1891. The final story, "The Portrait of Mr W. H.", originally published separately in 1889, was later added to an expanded collection. All the stories deal with personal relationships and their inevitable influence on the course of a person's life.

How easily does love turn to hate? In what is arguably one of Edgar Allen Poe's most disturbing tales, we join our narrator as he cruelly injures and betrays his once beloved cat. Our deeply disturbed narrator shows a malicious streak and lack of conscience that is painful to witness. The narrative forces us to question to what extent we can escape our conscience. As we realize all is not as it seems.

In this unnerving Edgar Allen Poe tale, our narrator insists on his sanity after carefully calculating and committing the brutal murder of an old man because of his monstrous eye. He argues that it is quite sane to cut the body into pieces and hide it under the floorboards. Will our narrator's guilt be his undoing? To what extent will he go to defend his sanity?

The Prophet is Kahlil Gibran's most famous work. He focuses on human relationships, as well as many other topics, including love, friendship, passion, work, good and evil, and time in a beautiful, simple, lyrical style.

Guy de Maupassant, French master of the short story, had a simple, efficient style of writing and, like Anton Chekhov, found inspiration for his stories in the daily lives of humans, which often reveal our darker nature. Volume IV of his Complete Original Short Stories contains the following: "The Moribund", "The Gamekeeper", "The Story of a Farm Girl", "The Wreck", "Théodule Sabot’s Confession", "The Wrong House", "The Diamond Necklace", "The Marquis de Fumerol", "The Trip of Le Horla", "Farewell!", "The Wolf", and "The Inn".