Showing results by narrator "William Roberts" in All Categories

Written some 40 years after Moby Dick, Melville's Billy Budd is a moving tale of good versus evil. Set aboard a British navy ship at the end of the eighteenth century, a young, innocent sailor's charm and good nature put the men around him at ease. Ship life agreed with Billy. He made friends quickly and was well liked, which infuriated John Claggart, the ship's cold-blooded superior officer.

Along with historical narrative, hear rare recordings of some of the most iconic people in history, including Robert Browning, Kenneth Landfrey, Florence Nightingale, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, PT Barnum, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Edwin Booth, General Nelson Miles, William Jennings Bryan and Garret A. Hobart. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan.

Released to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth in January 1809, this selection of well-loved, chilling tales from the master of the supernatural is a perfect Christmas gift. The short stories include "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Masque of the Red Death", and "The Fall of the House of Usher". This release also features additional poetry by Poe and a new biography especially written for Naxos AudioBooks by Roy McMillan.

When The Great Gatsby was published, commercially it was a failure but critically it was a success. It is still the most admired and well-read of all Scott Fitzgerald’s novels and it is considered a handbook of the 'Jazz Age'. Scott Fitzgerald put much of himself and his life into the book. He created the character of Jay Gatsby to illustrate his own experiences of the illusory and morally bankrupt aspects of 1920s' America, and the character of Nick Carraway to show his disapproval of its destructive effects.

The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares - premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

The epic story of the invention of a global network of weights, scales, and instruments for measurement.

Millions of transactions each day depend on a reliable network of weights and measures. This network has been called a greater invention than the steam engine, comparable only to the development of the printing press.

Frank Dixon’s first novel, Plague Boy, is sinking into oblivion on Amazon and neither his nor anyone else’s literary agent will return his calls. Then Frank discovers online poker, and is soon addicted to the rush he feels as the successful, popular “Chip Zero”. But as he wins thousands of dollars, it soon becomes clear that his Internet success is not the solution to his problems. And when the virtual world comes crashing in on Frank’s real life, it can only mean trouble.

It opens in 1943, when Wells is recording a talk for the Home Service in which he questions mankind's future. After the broadcast, he spends the evening with American journalist Martha, and tells her the astonishing news that his bestselling book The Time Machine was not fantasy but fact. Wells explains that he was actually present at the dinner party in Richmond fifty years earlier, when the Time Traveller returned from his first fateful journey into the future.

In March 1621, when Plymouth’s survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth’s governor, John Carver, declared their people’s friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the 'First Thanksgiving'. The treaty remained operative until King Philip’s War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end.

Tight, tense, and packed with excitement! No director in radio could do more with 30 minutes than William Spier...and no half hour in radio could do more to keep you on the edge of your chair than Suspense!

Great explorers have one thing in common - a desire to leap into the unknown, no matter how dangerous that might be. From Ferdinand Magellan's first circumnavigation of the world 500 years ago to Barbara Hillary's treks to the North and South poles while in her 70s, Explorers documents the trials and hardships of the men and women who rewrote our understanding of the world and showed us what humans are capable of.