Fiction audiobooks page 147

The last of Dickens' Christmas novellas (1848), The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain centres around Professor Redlaw, a teacher of chemistry, whose personal life has been marred by sorrow and, he feels, by wrongs done to him in his past. He is haunted by his ghostly twin, who offers him the opportunity to forget completely all 'sorrow, wrong and trouble', claiming that this will make him happier. Redlaw wavers, but finally accepts this offer, discovering too late that there are conditions attached to it which cause him to infect with this unwanted 'gift' nearly everyone with whom he comes in contact.

The story is populated by Dickens' archetypal comic figures - ...

Student Lucile Tucker works part-time at the library of the large university she attends in Chicago to help pay her tuition. One night, while closing the library for the evening, she glimpses a small child – a girl – in the stacks. Carefully following her, Lucile can’t believe her eyes when the child, unaware that she has been seen, manages to steal a valuable book from the collection and practically disappear from the library right before Lucile’s eyes. This is only the beginning of her search for why this child took this book (and others). Lucile enlists the assistance of her good friend and roommate Florence, a fellow student, to attempt to solve this mystery on her own. She can’t bear...

Der Vandalenprinz Ingo wird im Jahre 357 von den Römern aus seiner Heimat am Rhein vertrieben und findet Zuflucht bei einem Gastfreund seines Vaters, dem Gaufürsten Answald in Thüringen, doch die Gefolgsleute Answalds sehen den landlosen Fremden nicht gern am Herdfeuer ihres Fürsten. Die Ablehnung nimmt zu, als Ingos Gefolgsleute eintreffen. Als Ingo sich in die Tochter des Gaufürsten verliebt, will auch Answald ihn nicht mehr schützen. Die Römer erfahren von Ingos Aufenthalt und fordern seinen Kopf. Ingo und die Seinen geraten zwischen alle Fronten.

"Ingo" ist der Auftakt zu Freytags sechsbändigem Romanzyklus "Die Ahnen", in dem er die Geschicke einer thüringer Familie von der ...

The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service with patrons, musicians and organizers. Robert Service is an iconic Canadian poet.

Tom Bullock was a well-known bartender at the St. Louis Country Club. His skills as a bartender were so remarkable that a libel suit hinged on the excellence of his drinks. In The Ideal Bartender, Tom collects some of his best known beverage recipes.

"Pompey, the son of Julio and Phyllis, was born A.D. 1735, at Bologna in Italy, a place famous for lap-dogs and sausages." At an early age he was carried away from the boudoir of his Italian mistress by Hillario, an English gentleman illustrious for his gallantries, who brought him to London.

The rest of the history is really a chain of social episodes, each closed by the incident that Pompey becomes the property of some fresh person. In this way we find ourselves in a dozen successive scenes, each strongly contrasted with the others. It is the art of the author that he knows exactly how much to tell us without wearying our attention, and is able to make the transition to the nex...

This is a long short story in 6 parts from Fitzgerald’s 1920 short story collection, Flappers and Philosophers. It predates the screwball movie comedies of the 1930’s in that it features a determined young heiress trying to get what she wants out of life.

Kottō contains 20 Japanese stories, collected from different sources and translated by Lafcadio Hearn. The types of stories in this collection are widespread: There are old ghost stories Hearn is best known for (The Legend of Yurei-Daki), his own observations and musings (Pathological), as well as the translation of 'A Woman's Diary', a touching account of the life of the poorer classes in Tokyo, written at the end of the 19th century.

A classic of Victorian travel writing, Kinglake’s book describes his journey through the Ottoman empire to Cairo, and his residence there in time of plague.

“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?”

“We are dominated by journalism…. Journalism governs for ever and ever.”

One of the nastiest of the British tabloids was founded a year too late to join in the moral panic generated to accompany Oscar Wilde’s court appearances in 1895. Yet there was no shortage of hypocritical journalists posing as moral arbiters to the nation, then as now.

This compendium work – skilfully assembled by the editor, Stuart Mason – ends with transcript of Wilde’s first appearance in the Old Bailey, when he was cross-examined on the alleged...