Showing results by narrator "Edward E. French" in All Categories

Lost Hearts tells the story of Stephen Elliott, an orphan aged 11 years and of an inquiring frame of mind, who is sent to stay with his much older cousin, the scholarly Mr. Abney, at a remote country mansion, Aswarby Hall, in Lincolnshire. Things get strange when Stephen is repeatedly troubled by visions of a young gypsy girl and a traveling Italian boy with their hearts missing.

One of the first noted American authors to be highly acclaimed in Europe during his life time, Washington Irving (April 3, 1783-November 28, 1859) wrote numerous short stories, biographies, histories, and tales of his travels. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," first published in 1820, is variously regarded as a Gothic tale and a modern folk story about the early history of the United States of America.

The Most Dangerous Game, also published as The Hounds of Zaroff, is the classic horror yarn about big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford, from New York City, who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where a sadistic Russian aristocrat hunts humans for sport. Rainsford must fight for his life.

Louisa May Alcott, born on November 29, 1832, was a 19th century American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. Louisa May Alcott was also an aficionado of “blood and thunder tales,” sensational short stories that she could sell to magazines.

The famous story of a mysterious nighttime journey where Young Goodman Brown contends with elderly witches, devil worshipers, a Black Mass, and a showdown with the Devil himself. Like so many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories and novels, "Young Goodman Brown" takes place in Puritan New England, specifically in Salem, Massachusetts, during the infamous witch trials, during which dozens of women and men were accused of witchcraft and executed in grisly fashion.

The year is 1920. Dr. John Petrie, a physician and our narrator, meets his friend Denis Nayland Smith, who served as British police commissioner in Asia. Smith seems to know all things Asia and has the innate ability to get all the support he needs from British government officials. Smith stands for everything good, proper, and most importantly, British. Petrie is, of course, knowledgeable in medicine, forensics, and chemistry and an ace with a pistol - for good measure. Together they must thwart Dr. Fu-Manchu’s diabolical plan to restore China to its former glory.

"Prisoner of war, sea captain, moral reformer, and itinerant preacher, Joseph Bates led a varied and fascinating life and, as recognized by several scholars, achieved historical significance by co-founding the Seventh-day Adventist Church". So begins Gary Land in his Introduction to this audio version of the autobiography of Joseph Bates (1792-1872). The story first appeared as a series of 51 articles in The Youth's Instructor, a Seventh-day Adventist publication, between November 1858 and May 1863.

Early American satire from Washington Irving author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. The classic short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” is the dark and eerie tale of a foolish man’s greed, hypocrisy and ambition. Tom is a debased man, miserly and cruel to his fellows, and even to his wife. The Devil shows him a grove of rotting trees, representing souls. They make the customary deal, with Walker becoming one of the richest men around and Walker begins to work at keeping his soul, despite a lifetime of usury and the dark deal to which he agreed.

At a genetics lab where a revolutionary strain of corn is being developed, FBI Special Agent Jack Dawson's best friend and fellow agent is brutally murdered, his body torn apart. Jack is convinced that Naomi Perrault, a beautiful geneticist and suspected terrorist, is behind the murder. But when Jack is framed for setting off a bomb that devastates the FBI lab in Quantico, Naomi becomes Jack's only hope of survival.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, born August 20, 1890, began composing rudimentary horror tales by the age of 8. He’s best remembered for cooking up his very own genre, Cosmic Horror, featuring monsters so powerful and terrifying that just seeing them will likely drive you insane.

The whimsical tale of a witch and an enchanted scarecrow come to life from the otherwise serious author Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804-May 19, 1864), whose themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity. He is best known for The House of the seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter, a story of a proud adulteress sentenced by her stern Puritan judges to wear a scarlet A on her breast, published in 1850.

Author Ambrose Bierce (June 24, 1842-c. 1914) was a prolific and versatile writer regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction. His horror writing is ranked alongside Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. He may well be the greatest satirist America has ever produced.

After Eustace Borlsover’s blind uncle dies, the nephew receives in the mail the uncle's severed hand as part of his inheritance. It soon emerges that the hand is alive in some sense, intelligent and very mobile. Eustace and his secretary immediately assume the hand is evil, but to be honest it seems more mischievous than malevolent. Until, of course, Eustace nails the hand to a board and sticks it in a safe for several months, whereupon the hand seeks vengeance and a final showdown between men and appendage ensues.

Abraham Merritt's Burn, Witch, Burn! is like a detective novel masquerading as a dark fantasy novel. It’s a cross-genre experimentation from the late '20s blending horror, fantasy, and crime drama. An unfortunate neurologist named Dr. Lowell finds himself confronted with a series of mysterious deaths. Each victim falls into a state of paralysis before later convulsing and finally expiring, stiffening into an abrupt rigor mortis. Merritt weaves a mix of creeping dread, action, and mystery of animated, demonic, murderous toy dolls.

A weird tale that anticipates the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. There's terror on the high seas when crewmen on a ship encounter a man whose body is slowly being absorbed by a gelatinous cosmic horror.

In the ancient country of Orn an old man called the Bee-man spends his life in the company of bees. He lives humbly and contentedly until a Junior Sorcerer happens by with some disturbing news: The Bee-man, he says, has been transformed - he once was someone (or something) entirely different. But who? Or what? A giant or a prince? A dog or a dragon? The now restless Bee-man sets out on a quest to ascertain his original form, telling himself, "When I see it, I shall be drawn toward it."

Satan-worshiping Prince Prospero in 12th-century Italy holds a macabre masked ball in the midst of a deadly plague. The hedonistic nobles believe that Prospero's castle walls will keep out not only the countrysides's peasants, but the lethal Red Death as well.

Aaron Reece Caydon has repeated this mantra every day of his life from the age of four. He looks into the mirror and slowly turns his head to look at the scar running across the side of his face. A furrow begins to grow between his eye, an anger that takes his mind to a dark an unforgiving place.

A Wyoming rancher travels to Ukraine to visit a friend and soon finds himself face to face with the Russian Mafia.

In book two of the Assignment Series, a Muslim immigrant living in a Swedish ghetto accidentally joins a terrorist group, and then discovers that the group has kidnapped his innocent sister.