Showing results by narrator "Flo Gibson" in All Categories

To hear Mamie Dickens' memories of her father, Charles Dickens, is a rare privilege and offers a fascinating insight into the private life of one of literature's most beloved authors. His love for his children and animals and the time that he always had to be with them, despite his rigorous writing schedule, demonstrates how well he kept his life's priorities in order.

Four children rescue a mermaid and plunge into a great sea adventure. As with many of Ms. Nesbit's works, behind the "children's" story is some rather incisive commentary on "grown-up" issues.

Prompted by his late-in-life conversion to Christianity, Tolstoy's novella describes the early Christians' philosophy and their difficult road to freedom of religious expression. Also included is a prefatory story, "A Talk Among Leisured People", which presents the divergent views of enthusiastic, optimistic youth as compared to their elder's mundane acceptance of life and its burdens.

Contrasts in British and American manners and customs are cleverly drawn in this novella. We are thrown headfirst into the middle of an erupting marriage and an emerging love match. And we are introduced to the marvelous Lady Davenant.

The discovery of an irregularity in the marriage of a newly hired assistant headmaster and matron at Dr. Wortle's school tests the character of all involved and takes this story from the British countryside across the pond to the Wild West. Caution, this story includes some racial epithets that some of today's listeners may find offensive. Also included with this book is Trollope's charming short story, "Malachi's Cove".

In these letters to an English countess from Lady Helen, who has brought her tubercular brother to the Adirondacks for a cure, there are beautiful descriptions of the mountains, lakes, and natural beauty that surround her. Political, moral and literary discussions are pervaded with a certain British superiority. However, prepare to laugh, even if slightly offended.

The affectations of a nouveau riche, avaricious pair are contrasted with the kindness and consideration of the landed gentry and the neighboring villagers.

The adjustment of a marriage in aristocratic society in the early 1800s is told with abundant humor. A young coupel falls passionately in love, but soon the realities of married life bring them and their dreams back down to earth. The author, Emily Eden, has often been compared to Jane Austen but with Eden's work showing perhaps a morel realistic look at the ups and downs of the human condition. And if you just look closely, you might see some characters who possibly later influenced Oscar Wilde.

This is the hilarious story of the escapades of 12-year-old Penrod Schofield, whose active imagination keeps him in hot water at home and at school.

This unfinished late novel is complex, convoluted, and poses a challenge for both amateur and professional Jamesians alike. In it, Henry James explores the reactions of a native young British heir to his inheritance of an American fortune during the Gilded Age as well as the reactions of members of his family and surrounding community.

The stories in this imaginative collection include: "The Queen's Museum", "The Christmas Truants", "The Griffin and the Minor Canon", "Old Pipes and the Dryad", "The Bee-Man of Orn", "The Clocks of Rondaine", "Christmas Before Last", "Prince Hassak's March", "The Philopena" and "The Accommodating Circumstance".

This varied assortment of Ms. Cather's gorgeous writing includes: "Flora and Her Artists", "The Sculptor's Funeral", "The Garden Lodge", "A Death in the Desert", "The Marriage of Phaedra", "A Wagner Matinee", and "Paul's Case".

Leontes, suspecting his wife's infidelity, imprisons her and exiles her infant daughter to a faraway island. Years later, his wife, presumed dead, is returned to him as a statue.

The indomiitable cleric's gentle expertise in ferreting out the guilty is presented in selected stories, including: "The Absence of Mr. Glass", "The Paradise of Thieves", "The Duel of Dr. Hirsch", "The Man in the Passage", "The Mistake in the Machine", "The Head of Caesar", "The Purple Wig", "The Perishing of the Pendragons", "The Salad of Colonel Cray", "The Strange Crime of John Bounoir" and "The Fairy Tale of Father Brown".

The old world of experience, personified by Felix and his sister, Baroness Munster, meets the innocent new world as they visit their American cousins in New England.

Miserly Scrooge is taken by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to view scenes of how he has affected the lives of such unforgettable characters as Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and the Fezziwigs.

With all of its freshness and genius, this collection of over 200 titles is indeed a "letter to the world". Life, love, nature, time, death and eternity are explored with keen insight and beautiful imagery.

This was Frances Hodgeson Burnett's (author of The Secret Garden) favorite fairy-tale story book! The titles include "The Christmas Cuckoo", "The Lords of the White and Grey Castles", "The Greedy Shepherd", "The Story of Fairyfoot", "The Story of Childe Charity", "Sour and Civil", "The Story of Merrymind", and "Prince Wisewit's Return".

Don't let the title mislead you - this is not a tale of terror. Instead, with Mr. Flosky perhaps representing a caricature of Coleridge, Scythrop Glowry as Shelley, and Mr. Cypress as Byron, the author gathers characters in an old mansion in order to satirize concepts of romanticism in England in the early 1800s.

The book The Language of Flowers, an uncle who writes about magic and a wonderful garden combine to create spells and wonders in the lives of four very imaginative children.