Showing results by publisher "Dreamscape Media, LLC" in Short Stories

Filled with haunting rats, inexplicable tension, and an appearance from Dracula himself, Stoker's short stories uphold his reputation from his previous works and allows new audiences to rediscover the master of horror. This collection includes "Dracula's Guest", "The Judge's House", "The Gipsy Prophecy", "The Coming of Abel Behenna", "The Burial of the Rats", "A Dream of Red Hands", "Crooken Sands", and "The Secret of the Growing Gold".

In visceral, embodied prose, Fragoza's imperfect characters are drawn with a sympathetic tenderness as they struggle against circumstances and conditions designed to defeat them.

Lions, Komodo dragons, dogs, monkeys, and pheasants - all have shared spotlights and tabloid headlines with celebrities such as Sharon Stone, Thomas Edison, and David Hasselhoff. In this critically acclaimed collection, Lydia Millet hilariously tweaks these unholy communions to run a stake through the heart of our fascination with famous people and pop culture.

In A Pair of Silk Stockings, Mrs. Sommers, a once wealthy woman who has fallen on hard times comes into possession of a small fortune of $15. Planning to spend the money on clothing for her children, she becomes sidetracked at a shop counter, entranced by the smoothness of a pair of silk stockings. She goes on to spend the money on the stockings as well as new boots and gloves for herself.

Chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857, The Lightning-Rod Man was the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime, thanks to reissues of this volume. More a parable than a character-driven story, the Lightning-Rod man is a charlatan who tries to profit by selling fearful people lightning-rods during thunderstorms. The narrator has a difficult encounter with the Lightning-Rod man in this story about overcoming fear and superstition.

Written in seclusion following the intense negative public reaction to the publication of his novel Pierre, The Piazza Tales is Herman Melville's accessible and entertaining collection of short stories and novellas concerning love, labor, and loss. The collection includes his three most important achievements in the genre of short fiction: the short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and the novellas Benito Cereno and The Encantadas.

In "The Crystal Crypt", Earth and Mars are poised on the verge of war. On the last spaceship to leave Mars for Earth, law enforcement officials are looking for three fugitives who somehow made a great Martian city disappear. Unable to find the perpetrators, the officials allow the ship to disembark for Earth. A businessman named Thacher strikes up a conversation with a young woman and two men who reveal a very interesting secret to him about the mysterious case.

In "Piper in the Woods", an army doctor is asked to treat a soldier from Asteroid Y-3 who claims he is a plant. This wouldn't be a problem, but the soldier is incapable of any physical activity, preferring to stand still and point himself towards the sun. When more soldiers return from Asteroid Y-3 also claiming to be plants, Dr. Harris travels there to investigate. While there, he learns about a mysterious indigenous people living in the woods called "Pipers", who might be able to shed some light on the subject.

In Mr. Spaceship, humans in the distant future are at war with alien life forms known as Yuks. Using outdated mechanical machines to wage war against the life-based weapons of the advanced Yuks, a research team decides to build a spaceship powered by a human brain. Enlisting a dying professor who agrees to donate his brain to the project, the humans believe they have turned the tables on the Yuks. But the spaceship has other plans.

Originally published in the 1853 Christmas edition of Dickens' journal Household Words, "Nobody's Story" uses the differences between the Big Wig family and the Nobody family to call attention to class-based inequity. This version of "Nobody's Story" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Originally published in the 1853 Christmas edition of Dickens's journal Household Words, The Schoolboy's Story recounts the tale of Old Cheeseman, a schoolboy who becomes the second Latin Master, and his former peers who consider him a traitor for doing it. This version of The Schoolboy's Story was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Originally published in the 1876 Christmas edition of The Graphic, Christmas at Thompson Hall is a Victorian tale concerning the proper Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their journey from southern France to Thompson Hall to celebrate Christmas with their relatives - a trip that becomes a comedy of errors once Mr. Brown's throat condition, a malady that almost prevented the trip entirely, worsens.

Originally published in Harte's 1875 short-story collection The Tales of the Argonauts, "How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar" is set in California in the early 1860s and, like the rest of the tales in that collection, features the gold-seeking Argonauts. In this tale, like many of Harte's others, the folly and grit of human existence balance any good intentions, good cheer, or hope, resulting in a more complicated and somewhat bleak ending than is commonly found in most Christmas tales.

Originally published in an 1896 edition of The Home Monthly, "The Burglar's Christmas" tells the story Crawford, a homeless man in Chicago who has not eaten recently and considers stealing food on Christmas Eve. Reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son, this tale reflects on the nature of forgiveness. This recording of "The Burglar's Christmas" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

When Sonia, the prominent wife of a local cemetery owner, is killed in the worst accident anyone can remember, Hartley Nolan, a lifelong teetotaler, is hardly the person that police expect to find behind the wheel. After all, Hartley is something of an inspiration in a town that hasn't seen much luck in decades-he's the local boy who made it big in Chicago without ever forgetting his struggling family back home. But Tower Hill, Illinois, is a close-knit community that's alive with old rivalries, making it fertile ground for resentments.

First published in an 1843 edition of The Pioneer, "The Tell-Tale Heart" is one of Poe's best-known stories. In it, an unreliable narrator is increasingly troubled by the clouded eye of the old man he lives with. Similar to "The Black Cat", "The Tell-Tale Heart" focuses on the effects of mental instability, crime, and guilt.

First published in an 1843 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, "The Black Cat" tells the story of a man and his increasingly antagonistic relationship with his cat. Akin to "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Black Cat" investigates the psychological effects of guilt as well as the potentially destructive and violent consequences of alcoholism.

First published in an 1849 edition of The Flag of Our Union, "Hop-Frog" is a revenge tale akin to "The Cask of Amontillado". Told from the perspective of a crippled jester who was taken from his homeland and has been abused by the king he serves, the story focuses on the revenge Hop-Frog takes after the king strikes his fellow countrywoman and performer, the dancer Trippetta.

First published in an 1839 edition of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is the story of the declining physical and psychological health of the residents of the House of Usher - and the way in which the house itself reflects that. Gothic in theme and style, the story is an exemplar of Poe's philosophy of composition, which dictates that literary works should be short and methodological and have a unity of effect wherein all the elements of the story are related and relevant.

Always Happy Hour weaves tales of young women who are deeply flawed, intensely real, and who struggle to get out of their own way. These women love to drink and have sex; they make bad decisions with men who love them too much or too little; they haunt gas stations, public pools, and dive bars, seeking understanding in the most unlikely of places; and, although each shoulders the weight of different baggage, they all suspect they deserve better.