Showing results by narrator "Cathy Dobson" in All Categories

Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863 - 1935) was a British journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and nonfiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the Victorian 'Golden Age' of the short story. Brown Rat's Docks is a fast-paced detective story involving murder, double crossing and skullduggery, all set in the heart of the London docklands.

The Yellow Drawing Room is a story told through the eyes of an archetypical Victorian gentleman. He has met and fallen under the spell of the beautiful Vanora Haydon. Vanora has been given permission to decorate and furnish a drawing room and has chosen to do so in brilliant yellow. She has created her own room, reflective of her own personality and individuality - something which the conservative narrator cannot cope with.

Beatrice Harraden (1864-1936) was a British writer and suffragette. 'A Bird on Its Journey' is the story of a mysterious young Englishwoman hiking alone through Switzerland. When she arrives at a mountain hotel, she discovers that the piano is badly out of tune. The young woman, although she is travelling with only a small knapsack, has brought with her a tuning hammer, and she proceeds to tune the piano.

'Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea' is the tale of two enemies abandoned on a deserted island. Pierre Rochelle, a convict escaped from a French penal colony, has been living alone on a remote Pacific island for the past three years, with no means of escape. Then one day he finds a man asleep on the beach on the far side of the island. The new arrival has just been marooned by his mutineering shipmates. Even as he still sleeps, Rochelle recognizes him as Gaston Charette - his own mortal enemy, the man whose false testimony had sent him to the penal colony in the first place.

Eimar Ultan O'Duffy (1893 – 1935) was an Irish writer, economist and satirist. The Mystery of the Octagonal Room is a story about a man who is invited to a remote country house, recently inherited by friends of his. Many of the rooms in the house are rumoured to be haunted. But an unassuming octagonal room in the tower hides a particularly gruesome and terrifying secret. Nobody can stay there overnight - and those who have tried it were insane by morning.

The Last Adventure is the bizarre tale of a young rake who regularly suffers from amnesia while out having adventures. He wakes up with no memory of how he got into his current predicament, nor of what went before it. In this story, he discovers himself in the company of an attractive woman and gradually becomes aware that something very terrible has happened...something that shocks him to the very core....

'The Influence Fails' is a mystery story involving a dastardly plot. A young man finds himself suddenly and unexpectedly in a strange dining room in a house he has never been to before, with no memory of how he came to be there. A moment later, the owner of the house enters the room...and is naturally suspicious about the man's motives. But how did he get there? Why did he come? What can it all mean?

'The Umbrella-Mender' is a disturbing tale about an eccentric man who runs a repair shop for umbrellas. One evening he is surprised by a knock at the door. Outside is a man who tells the umbrella-mender that his son is on his deathbed and wishes to see his father. The umbrella-mender sets off at once with the stranger. In the course of their conversation on the journey, the stranger explains that he himself has murdered the umbrella-mender's son.

The Secret of the Schwarztal is a mystery story. An English traveller had gone missing in the remote valley of Schwarztal in the Alps and was presumed dead. But three years later his brother arrived determined to solve the mystery of what happened to his brother - and what he discovered was very deeply disturbing.

Winifred Holtby (1898-1935) was an English novelist, short story writer and journalist. 'Why Herbert Killed His Mother' is the story of a perfect baby who wins a beautiful baby contest and becomes a tiny celebrity, bringing fame and fortune to his family. When Herbert grows up, he spends most of his life trying to leave 'Baby Herbert' behind him...but his mother cannot quite relinquish the glory days when she was hailed as the perfect mother.

'Green Ink' is a classic Victorian detective story. Carsdale the solicitor receives a mysterious visit from Mr. Flapp, an old Wrychester resident who has just returned from years of travel overseas. The purpose of the visit remains mysterious, although Grice, the clerk, believes that Mr. Flapp left something with Carsdale. When next day Mr. Flapp is found drowned in the canal, Carsdale is surprisingly silent on the subject of his business with Flapp.

'Escape - Three and Sixpence' is a haunting short story which opens with a Yorkshire housewife putting her head into the gas oven to commit suicide to escape her unbearable life of drudgery. We are swept along with the thoughts and emotions which go through her mind...and the roller coaster of emotions as events unfold.

'Dream Life and Real Life' is a haunting short story about a little orphan girl in servitude to a cruel Boer family. One night, following a beating, she runs away and hides in a cave. But there she overhears three men plotting to rob and burn down the Boer's farm and kill the family. What should she do? Warn them, or let them burn to death?

May Sinclair was the nom de plume of Mary Amelia St. Clair (1863-1946), a British writer who wrote novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragette and a spiritualist. 'The Nature of the Evidence' is a ghost story about a first wife who returns to this world when her husband remarries, to protest her disapproval of his choice of second wife and prevent the two of them from ever sharing a bed.

'The Registered Packet' is the story of Martineau, a young man returning home by ship after a two-year absence. On the ship he meets a stranger and volunteers to deliver a small parcel for him to the nearest post office, in order that his fellow traveller might catch his train. But on arrival in Hull, Martineau inadvertently leaves his bag in the cab. He is able to track down the vehicle and find his bag again, but to his horror the packet which was entrusted to him has disappeared.

Charlotte Riddell (1832-1906), who wrote as Mrs J. H. Riddel, was one of the most popular and influential writers of the Victorian period. 'A Strange Christmas Game' is a brilliantly constructed ghost story with a strange twist at the end.

Ella Hepworth Dixon (1855-1932) was a British short story writer, journalist and novelist. 'The World's Slow Stain' is the story of a reconciliation which goes catastrophically wrong. Adela Buller and Anthony Mellingham, whose love affair ended badly 10 years earlier meet again and agree to marry. But after they broke up the first time, Adela published a bitter novel under a pseudonym in which she modelled the lead character - a dreadful cad - on Mellingham.

'The Man Who Missed the Bus' is a creepy horror story about a lonely and eccentric man who finds himself unable to see other human faces. Worse still, gradually he also loses the ability to see his own reflection in the mirror. But this is only the beginning of the horror story. Far worse is to come....

The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Never more so than in this collection of 30 weird and macabre tales.

Neil Munro (1863-1930) was a Scottish journalist, newspaper editor, author and literary critic - a serious writer but now known mainly for his humorous short stories. 'Treasure Trove' is an amusing tale of a time when a whale was beached on a Scottish island just off the coast by Tobermory. The crew of a passing ship, led by the enterprising Sunny Jim, came up with a cunning plan to charge visitors to see the whale. The plan worked brilliantly - until the whale began to decay....