Résultats lu par "Cathy Dobson" dans Toutes les catégories

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist and journalist who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. "The Gull" is a strange tale about a man whose sweetheart, on setting sail for Guernsey one evening, romantically promises him that if she should die, she will return to him as a white dove. Next morning he awakes to find a large grey gull has flown into his bedroom overnight....

We all know what happened in the Arabian nights. The King's plan to put his wife to death in the morning was always foiled by her telling an exciting but unfinished story the night before the execution... until finally after 1001 nights, he agreed not to have her killed. But at this point the traditional story ends. In this tale, Poe conjurs up an amusing and macabre scenario for what happened on the thousand and second night.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Lord of the Dynamos' is the story of an immigrant worker who becomes captivated by the huge electric dynamo in the shed where he works. He begins to see it as a great deity...a god who demands human sacrifices.

The Marionettes tells the story of two disreputable men. One, Dr. James, is a suave doctor and also an assassin and safe-breaker. The other, Mr. Chandler, is a consumate wastrel, gambler and wife beater. Each of the two adheres to a strict code of conduct and despises the other for their lack of morals. A chance encounter between the two of them not only throws their differences into sharp relief, but also leads to a monumental crime and bizarre atonement.

Leslie Harrison Lambert, who wrote under the name of A. J. Alan (1883 - 1941), was an English magician, intelligence officer, short story writer and radio broadcaster. He kept the secret of his identity secret, while as a spinner of yarns, humorous, fantastic or mysterious, he became ever more popular, especially via his regular radio broadcasts. The Cabmen's Shelter is the humorous tale of a doomed amateur dramatics performance which aims to raise money for a cabmen's shelter at the local station.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799 – 1837) was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. He was notoriously sensitive about his own personal honour and is believed to have fought as many as twenty-nine duels... the last of which proved fatal for him.A duel is the crux of his masterful short story "The Pistol-Shot" - but it is a duel with a difference.

Lettice Galbraith is as mysterious as the stories she wrote. She appeared on the literary scene in 1893 with a rash of short stories and one novel, published another story four years later, and then disappeared without a trace. Yet despite the brevity of her presence on the literary stage, her supernatural stories have remained popular to this day. 'The Ghost in the Chair' tells the story of a strange shareholders' meeting at a troubled mining company.

When a gigantic stoorworm appears in the sea off the coast of a peaceful kingdom, the only way to appease the monster seems to be to offer the princess as a sacrifice. The king declares that anyone who can rid his land of the stoorworm shall have half his kingdom and his daughter's hand in marriage. Only one young lad is prepared to make the attempt...

The Stone Chamber is a classic vampire story telling the strange and terrifying tale of a young man who takes up residence in an ancient abbey with a very sinister history.

Frederick Britten Austin (1885 - 1941) was a popular British fiction writer, whose crime and mystery stories were very much influenced by his experiences as a soldier. He had enlisted in the London Rifle Brigade on 4 August, 1914, the day war was declared on Germany. By war's end he had reached the rank of captain. In Diamond Cut Diamond, Britten Austin tells the tale of the agent Sir Humphrey Maule who appears unexpectedly in the office of Quentin Quayne.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-circa 1914) was an American author, journalist, short story writer and satirist who disappeared in 1913 under mysterious circumstances and was never seen again. The Stranger is a ghost story set in the old Wild West. A group of travellers are sitting around the campfire in a remote part of the desert in Arizona when a stranger comes among them and recounts a very strange story. But as he gets up to depart, it becomes apparent that it was more than just an odd tale....

William Chambers Morrow (1854-1923) was an American author, famed for his short stories of horror and suspense. 'His Unconquerable Enemy' is the story for which Morrow is best known, and it tells the story of the determined revenge of a servant whose limbs have been amputated on the orders of a cruel rajah.

"Comrades" reveals an ironic humour in its conception and is one of Gorky's lighter tales. A peasant policeman is dispatched to escort a vagrant without papers to the nearest magistrate, a considerable distance away. As the two talk on the journey, it becomes clear to the listener...and finally to the policeman...the real identity of the vagrant.

O. Henry's poignant ghost story of a young man seeking his lost love in the city. When he rents a furnished room in the lower West Side, he senses from a mysterious and familiar scent that his lost love has recently stayed there. The ghostly essence of his lover exercises a very strange and sinister effect on him.

Robert Ervin Howard ( 1906-1936) was an American writer of weird stories and horror fiction. Pigeons from Hell is a classic horror story set in a deserted old planters' house in the Deep South, where something unwholesome stalks the rooms. When two young men, Griswell and Branner, happen upon the old house on their vacation road trip and decide to stay there, terrible things begin to happen. Griswell awakes from a strange and terrifying dream and hears a strange and uncanny whistling.

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) was one of France's best-known and most-prolific authors. He excelled at many genres, but is probably best known for his stories of high adventure and dashing derring do. In Zodomirsky's Duel, he tells the tale of an unusual duel between officers in a regiment stationed on the Austrian border.

A moving story of a random act of kindness. Old Tom Pickford, an elderly clerk at Tweedie's warehouse, is moved by the sight of a young boy on a London omnibus who is about to embark on a new life at sea. His thoughts drift back to his own boyhood in the country, which he left behind long ago. A wonderful study in characterisation and nostalgia.

A poor schoolteacher decides to spend the summer vacation at a remote country inn, where he falls gradually in love with not only the tavern's way of life, but also the landlord's daughter, the lovely Miss Fouracres. Meanwhile the landlord is sinking into drink and despair, driven by his obsession over an incident at a hotel he ran several years ago. An incident which now threatens to raise its ugly head again....

F. Britten Austin's famous story in which he imagines the scene as German soldiers on the Somme come face-to-face with Britain's new secret weapon...the first tanks.

Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) was an American archeologist, artifact collector, tile maker and writer of extraordinary supernatural stories. The Wolf Book is the story of a professor who spends the summer travelling in Hungary and Romania in search of rare manuscripts. At the monastery at Jollok, he learns that the library was plundered a hundred years earlier by a sinister nobleman who was rumoured to be a werewolf.