Showing results by narrator "Alan Weyman" in All Categories

Richard Dudgeon, who has become an outcast from his puritanical family due to his religious apostasy, returns home on the death of his father. Much to everyone’s surprise, it is revealed that the father changed his will shortly before his death and has left the bulk of the estate to Richard. Now that he is lord of the manor, Richard asserts himself and declares his opposition to the colonial British authorities. Later, he is arrested by the British and sentenced to death but is rescued in the nick of time by a local militia commanded by Anthony Anderson, who, ironically, is a pastor.

According to George Bernard Shaw, Joan of Arc was in fact one of the first Protestant martyrs. She was one of the first apostles of nationalism, and the first French practitioner of Napoleonic realism in warfare. She also refused to accept the specific woman's lot, and dressed and fought and lived as men did. Shaw's exploration of the story of this ingenuous and eponymous heroine is set in six scenes and an epilogue, which takes place in 1456, when the church cleared Joan of the charge of heresy and condemned her accusers of corruption.

A man was hanged in Reading Gaol during Wilde's imprisonment there. In "The Ballad", written after his release, he tells of the horror of the event and its effect on himself and his fellow prisoners. First published 1898, under the pseudonym C.3.3 - the number by which Wilde was known in the prison, consisting of the cell block, landing number and cell number of his cell.

Listeners are invited to sit back and enjoy this collection of classic Yuletide tales....

When Lord Arthur learns of his awful destiny, how will he deal with the consequences? As this is Wilde, it's not what you might expect.

When a dragon turns up in the English countryside, can the boy who befriends him help him avoid the threatened showdown with Saint George?

A strange happening when a business arrangement goes awry. From In Ghostly Company, published 1921.

A vacation in a quiet country spot; what could possibly go wrong? From Northcote's collection In Ghostly Company published in 1921.

Everything in the world revolves around just him. Or does it? A moral fable on delusions of self-importance. First published 1888 in The Happy Prince and Other Tales.

A moral fable on true and fake friendship. Hugh the Miller is little Hans's best friend...or is he? First published in 1888 in The Happy Prince and Other Tales.

The little Swallow befriends the Happy Prince's statue and learns what love is. One of Wilde's magical morality tales.

He won't let the children play in his garden. What can give him a change of heart?

This is a fable about real and fake love, with a typically Wildean twist.

An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedy by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor. The action is set in London, and takes place over the course of 24 hours.

Shakespeare's King Lear ranks with Sophocles' Oedipus as a tragic hero destroyed by his own good intentions. From the moment when Lear unfolds his darker purpose, we are drawn into an ineluctable chain of events that leads through betrayal, deceit, destructive family conflict, reconciliation, despair, and death. Considered by many to be the most grueling of Shakespeare's tragedies.

Franz Kafka was one of the first and greatest masters of dystopian literature. In his bleak world view, man is presented as helpless and ineffectual, his destiny determined by distant, obscure and essentially unfriendly agencies. In none of his works is this savage and unreasoning enslavement presented more vividly than in Metamorphosis, a novella in which Gregor Samsa, a respectable employee and dutiful son, wakes to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect.

Six lyrical parables, each with a typically Wildean twist: "The Artist"; "The Doer of Good"; "The Disciple"; "The Master"; "The House of Judgment"; "The Teacher of Wisdom". Published in 1894, but written earlier.

Here are 26 tiny classics of English "cruel" humor, in Harry Graham's first book of Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes.

Harrison, an embittered scientist who has access to time travel, wants to remove Christmas from the pages of history. Fortunately for humanity, his senior colleague, Horowitz has other ideas.

Stevenson's brilliantly macabre yet profound story of a man seemingly trapped in evil.