Showing results by narrator "Eve Karpf"

Sadie Smith would love to do the things that other children can, but a degenerated hip prevents her from walking. On her way to a Dr Barnardo's home, her mother buys her a pair of scarlet ribbons which bring Sadie solace in the difficult years ahead.

Looking out upon the backstreets, the suburbs and the high society haunts of Edwardian London, the delightfully witty and independent spinster Miss Ley surveys a tangled web of lives; she sympathetically observes the struggle under the pressures of convention, and the complex interplay between love and reason. Through Miss Ley's eyes we witness the brief but happy marriage of a dying poet; a woman's adulterous passion for a young rascal; and finally, an honourable man's decision to take virtue to extremes.

In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important but natural and even supernatural forces, too. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.

When Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis' father is arrested for a crime he did not commit and they have to start a new life in the country, they fear the happy times are gone forever. Little do they expect the exciting adventures and the new friends that await them. By the end they have learned more about life and themselves than they had ever dreamed possible. This full-cast, dramatized version of E. Nesbit's children's classic delightfully brings to life the adventures of The Railway Children.

Charlotte Mary Mew was born on 15th November, 1869 in London to professional parents her father was responsible for the design of Hampstead Town Hall. Charlotte, one of seven children, three of whom died in early childhood, was educated at Lucy Harrison's School for Girls and attended lectures at University College, London. 

For the female poet there was always the confining hand of men to instruct that their time was perhaps spent more productively elsewhere. These lines, these gilded verses often protest otherwise. The contribution of women in these earlier centuries is immense, and in this series we bring together poets who have created some of the most beautiful and expressive verses ever written. And remember these words, these telling lines, have been written against the grain of society's male bias. With their remembered words these female poets have given us a history that we can all now share.

As a poetical movement, Georgian poetry is easy to classify. It began naturally enough in 1910, when George V ascended to the throne of England. Edward Marsh, a civil servant, polymath and arts patron, decided that the verse of that time needed to be seen in its own right and from 1912-1922 set out to publish anthologies. Marsh agreed a deal with the poet and bookseller Harold Munro, who had recently opened The Poetry Bookshop in London’s Devonshire Street to publish the books in return for a share of the profits. 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Campden Hill, Kensington, on May 29th, 1874. Originally, after attending St Paul's School, he went to Slade to learn the art of illustration. In 1896 he joined a small London publisher and began his journalistic career as a freelance art and literary critic before going on to writing weekly columns in the Daily News and the Illustrated London News. Chesterton's poems range from the virtues and vices of England and the English to his worldview and religious beliefs.

Able to write comfortably in a number of genres, HG Wells was especially applauded for his science fiction works such as The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, but his forays into the social conditions of the times, with classics such as Kipps, were almost as commercially successful. His short stories are miniature masterpieces, many of which bring new and incredible ideas of science fiction to the edge of present-day science fact. Wells also received four nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began as a group of painters, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, who wished to reject the stern and academic strictures of current painting and return to the simpler and more uncomplicated days before the Italian High Renaissance and the days of Raphael. The movement was short lived but very influential and, as well, was taken up by a number of different arts. 

From Britain's leading social historian, a lyrical look at the changes to women's lives since 1940, told with examples from her own life. The audiobook provides an intimate, brilliant account of feminism over the last six decades. 'A young woman wearing a navy-blue duffle coat stood shivering in the vaulted Victorian booking hall of Temple Meads station in Bristol looking uncertainly around her. It was 1st January 1960, and the woman was me. I was 16 years old, and I had run away from home.'

The fourth story featuring the madcap ten-year-old, Flossie Teacake. Her older sister's magic fur coat transforms Flossie into Floz, a teenager who can go anywhere and do anything - including buying a lottery ticket and winning a million pounds.

We all love animals, even if sometimes its only from afar on TV or at a zoo. But many of us have felt a closer friendship and companionship with our friends in the animal world. We talk and react to them as if they really do understand us. Perhaps they do. In this volume Hardy, Thackeray, Carroll, DH Lawrence, Emily Dickinson, and many others share their words with our ears.

Seb and his sister Sam live in a narrow Edinburgh street, full of second-hand shops. At the start of this collection of stories, Seb and Sam are looking forward to a holiday in the Greek islands with their parents, Isabella and Torquil.

'Malachi’s Cove' tells the story of Mally Trenglos and Barry Gunliffe, who both earn their living by gathering seaweed. They are sworn enemies unit la near fatal accident seals their fate forever. Father Giles of Ballymoy is a hospitable Irish priest whose strange ways are at first misinterpreted by an English visitor.

The art of writing a short story can be barely noticed by a reader or listener - such is the quality with which they are usually written. It is a difficult trade, an unforgiving discipline, but for those who master it, the rewards are many. In this series of works by our greatest female writers we bring you a selection of those we consider the best. In Volume 1 we bring you the classics 'A Dill Pickle' by Katherine Mansfield, 'The Storm' by Kate Chopin, and 'The Sexton’s Hero' by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Katie thinks looking after a baby will be easy. But after Emily has covered herself in sticky golden syrup, newspaper print, scrambled egg, a few leaves and plenty of boot polish, Katie has changed her mind! And a week in a holiday camp sounds awful to Katie she’s sure she’ll be bored stiff! But then she meets Antonia, whose family wins all the competitions, and suddenly Katie finds lots of opportunities for her family to show off their talents!

Until Miss Minchin makes them do the Best Friend Project, Tilly never thought about needing one special friend of her own. But Bernice, the new girl, likes Stephanie best and suddenly Tilly sees that everyone in the world goes around in twos.

In this selection of some of Saki's best short stories, we enter a fictional world in which the Edwardian gently are pitched against the rude forces of nature and maiden aunts struggle unsuccessfully to contain the merciless antics of children in their charge. Saki is perhaps the ultimate master of writing complete stories in just a few pages and his sublime craftsmanship is accompanied by a wicked black humour.

The art of writing a short story can be barely noticed by a reader or listener - such is the quality with which they are usually written. It is a difficult trade, an unforgiving discipline, but for those who master it, the rewards are many. In this series of works by our greatest female writers, we bring you a selection of those we consider the best. In Volume 2 we bring you the classics 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and 'Roman Fever' by Edith Wharton.