Showing results by narrator "Gerry O'Brien" in All Categories

Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890.

February 1922. Hollywood is young but already mired in scandal. When a leading movie director is murdered, Irish American investigator Tom Collins is called in by studio boss Mack Sennett, whose troubled star, Mabel Normand, is rumoured to be involved. But Normand has gone missing. And, as Collins discovers, there's a growing list of suspects. His quest leads him through the brutal heart of Prohibition-era Los Angeles, from speakeasies and dope dens to the studios and salons of Hollywood's fabulously wealthy movie elite, and to a secret so explosive it must be kept silent at any cost....

This book wants you to know that it is not a grumpy book. The only problem is… it’s not very friendly to others – including you! Will it agree to talk to you – just once — and show you that it is not a grumpy book?

"The Happy Prince and Other Tales" (sometimes called "The Happy Prince and Other Stories") is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".

The classic Oscar Wilde story brought to life. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" begins on a beautiful summer day in Victorian era England, where Lord Henry Wotton, an opinionated man, is observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of Dorian Gray, a handsome young man who is Basil's ultimate muse.

"Green Tea" tells the haunting story of a man plagued by a demonic monkey. The unnamed narrator, a trained surgeon who can’t practice because of the loss of two of his fingers, is organising the papers of his deceased mentor, the famous German physician Dr. Martin Hesselius. In doing so, he stumbles upon a strange case, dating back sixty-four years. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was an Irish writer, known for his ghost and paranormal stories. He studied law at Trinity College in Dublin.

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Künstlerroman in a modernist style, it traces the intellectual and religious philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe.

This classic, early 19th century science fiction masterpiece serves as both a wonderful period presentation of the time as well as a cautionary tale. Called by many a "chilling novel account of a Martian invasion of London in the nineteenth century - a science fiction classic for all time." It was made famous by Orson Welles Mercury Theatre mid 20th Century adaptation that literally had thousands of people running for their lives at the time in the Northeast U.S. H. G.

This classic early-19th-century science-fiction masterpiece serves as both a wonderful period presentation of the time as well as cautionary tale. Called by many a "chilling novel account of a Martian invasion of London in the 19th century - a science-fiction classic for all time".

The inspiration behind Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic pirate tale Treasure Island, this is the long lost and almost forgotten true story of how two murderous pirates ended their days swinging in a gibbet on a small island off the coast of Dublin. From the busy streets of London to the exotic island of Tenerife via the vile slave markets on the western coast of Africa it tells of how a band of pirates murdered all those aboard a ship, stealing a treasure that was being secretly transported back to England and how they nearly got away with it....

Under the Sunset was Bram Stoker's first collection of short stories. It is a collection of eight stories for children with 33 illustrations by W. Fitzgerald and W. V. Cockburn. It was first published in the UK in November 1881 by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (28 August 1814 - 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the 19th century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Künstlerroman in a modernist style, it traces the intellectual and religious philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown up, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe.

Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence, and maturity.

A House of Pomegranates is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde, which was published in 1891 as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888). Wilde once said that this collection was "intended neither for the British child nor the British public."

Gincy, autumn 1916: The 9th Battalion, The Royal Dublin Fusiliers, known rather ominously as The Lambs, go over the top. In 1914, Kevin Flynn had hardly given the war a thought; everyone said it would be over by Christmas. Instead, desperate to impress a girl called Mary, Flynn and his friends begin a journey that leads inexorably to the shattered ruins of Ginchy and suffering beyond imagination.

Many of us are seeking that special something that will transform our lives. Fin, an Irishman living in Cairo, is no exception. Sacked from his mediocre job on a mediocre newspaper, he sets off on the hunt for an elusive story that might just save him. With little more than a rumpled linen suit to his name, he searches for Farouk, the mercurial storyteller who alone knows what Fin wants to hear, but who has managed to get himself kidnapped.

For centuries, Irish matchmakers have performed a vital service, bringing people together in love and marriage. Willie Daly, whose father and grandfather were matchmakers before him, is the most celebrated of them all. Each year his tiny home town of Lisdoonvarna (population 800) hosts a matchmaking festival that attracts 40,000 visitors from around the world.

For Sam Hamilton and Robert Scott, the world has changed greatly since their childhood. Now in their fifties, with families of their own, they are grateful to have work at a time when unemployment is rife. But they have little joy in their wives, and even less support when they are faced with the unhappiness of a son or daughter. Set in the Ulster of the 1930s, For Many a Long Day continues the story of the Hamiltons and their friends.

'Movie czar' Will H. Hays is on a mission to clean up Hollywood by compiling the Doom List - a list of 'undesirables' whom he plans to bar from screen work. Private investigator Tom Collins is hired to protect a leading lady's reputation at all costs and is drawn into a case of scandal, forbidden passion, blackmail and cold-blooded murder.