English Classic Short Stories

Narrator Nigel Hawthorne's exceptional talents as an actor bring comedy to the fore in this collection, extracting every nuance of humour from these seven great stories. Featuring "Brugglesmith" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Cricket Match" (from England, Their England) by A.G. Macdonell, "Reginald on House Parties" by Saki, "Winglebury Duel" by Charles Dickens, and more.

A cosmic collection of bone-chilling and terrifying short horror stories by Laurie Blake.

From money-making schemes involving placing wagers on vicars to poor Bingo having to produce the village school Christmas entertainments, every one of Wodehouse’s superb short stories are guarantee to raise a smile from even the most stony-faced listener!

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished 10 years before. Four years later, she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her.

The best collection of Russian short stories includes: Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from the Underground, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree. Leo Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Kholstomer, the Story of a Horse, Alyosha the Pot, A Letter to a Hindu, A Confession, God Sees the Truth, but Waits, A Russian Christmas Party. Anton Chekhov: Kashtanka, Gusev, The Darling, The Lady with the Dog, A Slander, The Horse-Stealers, The Petchenyeg, A Dead Body, A Happy Ending, The Looking-GlassOld Age, Darkness, The Beggar, In Trouble, Frost, Minds in Ferment, Gone Astray.

O. Henry, the pseudonym of the American writer William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), is best known for writing stories full of wit, wordplay, and warm characterizations, and particularly for their clever twist endings. This volume contains 20 of O. Henry's best and best-loved stories. They are marked by coincidence and surprise endings as well as the compassion and high humor that have made O. Henry's stories popular for the last century.

Collected for the first time, here are the New York stories of one of the 20th century’s definitive chroniclers of the city - the speakeasies and highballs, social climbers and cinema stars, mistresses and powerbrokers, unsparingly observed by a popular American master of realism. Spanning his four-decade career, these more than 30 refreshingly frank, sparely written stories are among John O’Hara’s finest work, exploring the materialist aspirations and sexual exploits of flawed, prodigally human characters and showcasing the snappy dialogue.

The Last Leaf is an endearing story about many forms of love and our interdependency upon one another and most importantly ourselves. In it a young woman dying from pneumonia despite the best efforts of her loving roommate, a doctor, and a mature resident in the building who has appointed himself guardian to the young lady and her housemate, soon learns that she is the key to her own life or death and in that discovery she helps a friend rise to their true greatness.

William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him. In December 1899, in McClure’s Magazine, he published a short story as O. Henry.

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, was an Irish writer known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. His book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, comprises two parts, the first being the "Kwaidan Proper" and the second, "Insect-Studies", which consists of an essay each on ants, butterflies and mosquitos. According to the author, most of the folk tales and ghost stories in the first part were translated from old Japanese texts. The themes encompass resurrection, sacrifice, magic, and the realm of dreams.

Maximillian Bacchus is the ringmaster, ruler, guide, and owner of what he considers the greatest show in the world. Traveling with a crocodile named Malachi, a trapeze girl named Ophelia, a strongman they call Hero (which is short for Hieronymus), and a clown named Domingo de Ybarrondo, who paints in a wagon pulled by a giant ibis bird, the troupe wanders from adventure to adventure with mythic aplomb.

Nine of Wodehouse's funniest stories, as the Oldest Member reminisces about misadventures among the golf-obsessed. Including the eponymous 'goof' Ferdinand Dibble, a man whose non-success at golf has reduced him to such a state of diffidence as to hamper his romantic aspirations; high-stakes betting on the course among America's tainted millionaires; the heroic Rollo Podmarsh, persevering in the best round of his life under sentence of death; and the saga of William Bates, Jane Packard, and self-confessed vers libre poet Rodney Spelvin.

The original stories featuring A. J. Cronin's much-loved Scottish country doctor. Dr Finlay's Casebook brings together Adventures of a Black Bag and Dr Finlay of Tannochbrae, A. J. Cronin's two hugely popular collections. Set in and around the fictional Scottish town of Levenford and village of Tannochbrae during the interwar years, the stories found here are heartwarming, funny and touching, full of fascinating characters and unforgettable encounters.

The Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a collection of 45 novels and short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's short stories have themes that not only relate to the problems and culture of the Jazz Age, but were also about the promises and despair encountered by the young, as well as aging. Love and relationships between two mismatched or unlikely characters, such as people who are unlikely to develop a spark of romantic interest between each other, is common.

As William turns 12, he wonders if Jason is still his best friend. In the past year, Jason has grown a foot taller, while William is still a shrimp. When Jason challenges William to “jump the trains,” William is terrified. How else can he prove himself to Jason? William gets his answer when his former housekeeper sends him a magic token that once again transports him to Sir Simon’s castle in the Middle Ages, this time with Jason.

In the midst of the Japanese occupation of China and Hong Kong, two lives become intertwined: Wong Chia Chi, a young student active in the resistance, and Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure who works for the Japanese occupational government. As these two move deftly between Shanghai's tea parties and secret interrogations, they become embroiled in the complicated politics of wartime - and in a mutual attraction that may be more than what they expected.

This collection of fiction includes six of Gabriel García Márquez’s short stories and a novella, Innocent Eréndira, in which a young girl dreams of freedom after her vicious and avaricious grandmother sells her into prostitution.

From adventures with sleepy giants to bedtime stories about how Bobs the dog got a cold nose, drift into dreamland with these short stories by Enid Blyton. Look out for midnight parties and falling stars! These traditional tales are ideal for younger children listening along with parents or for those listening independently. Each story stands alone and is the perfect length for listening to at bedtime or in the classroom.

After the success of This Side of Paradise, it was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s popular short fiction that helped maintain the luxury and celebrity to which he and his wife, Zelda, had grown accustomed. Reflections of that blithe and glittering lifestyle, these eleven stories reveal a man both beguiled by and critical of the American postwar generation he defined. Fitzgerald’s tales capture the inauguration of the age in all its hysteria, revelry, and tragedy - the same world he would later revisit in his renowned The Great Gatsby.

China has been a wellspring of storytelling for over 2,000 years. Sadly, this fantastic literature is little known in the west outside the halls of academia, though a handful of recent 20th century authors have attained a respectable following. The stories in this volume date from the sixth century A.D. to the early part of the 20th century, and will give the listener a good feel for the subject. Astonishingly, the Chinese enjoyed from the earliest times many of the genres we take for granted today.