Showing results by narrator "Eve Karpf" in All Categories

In the small village of Haworth in Yorkshire, the Bronte family created novels and poems that are still admired to this day around the world. The middle of the three Bronte sisters, Emily Jane was born on 30th July 1818. The author of Wuthering Heights, she was also a very talented poet, as witnessed here in this collection.

'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.

George Robert Gissing was born on November 22, 1857, in Wakefield, Yorkshire. He was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield. Gissing loved school. He was enthusiastic with a thirst for learning and always diligent. By the age of 10 he was reading Dickens, a lifelong hero. In 1872, Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College. Whilst there, Gissing worked hard but remained solitary. Unfortunately, he had run short of funds and stole from his fellow students. He was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in 1876.

Perhaps England's greatest literary family. To find one brilliant novelist in a family is extremely rare. But two? Three?

The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily Jane and Anne, together with their brother Patrick, are famed throughout the world. And amongst their many talents was poetry. Of course, being Brontë's, they were rather good at that too.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. This volume is dedicated to one such recognised master of the short story, namely Katherine Mansfield, whose innovative stream of consciousness and symbolic narrative style profoundly influenced Virginia Woolf. She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand, the middle child of five. A gifted cellist who at one point considered taking it up professionally, her first attempts at writing were published in school magazines.

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.

For 15 years, Janet has been married to her devoted and boring husband, Trevor. But their marriage was not as simple as it seemed. Now Janet is on the road, hurtling towards another man, and another life. Has she found freedom, and the strength to escape Trevor’s dominating fetishes? Or is there something far more sinister waiting for her at the crematorium?

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.

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 in Bromley in Kent. He was the youngest of four siblings and his family affectionately knew him as ‘Bertie’. The first few years of his childhood were spent fairly quietly, and Wells didn’t display much literary interest until, in 1874, he accidentally broke his leg and was left to recover in bed, largely entertained by the library of books his father regularly brought him. Through these Wells found he could escape the boredom and misery of his bed and convalescence by exploring the new worlds he encountered in these books.

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.

We begin with one of Hardy’s best regarded stories, 'The Fiddler of the Reels'. Here Hardy exposes a supernatural and demonic theme, against a realistic and historical background of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the first trains. A typical Wessex girl is gripped by the power of music and dance when a lone fiddler casts his spell on her, causing her cloying but plain suitor to leave suddenly for London.

Mirabai was a Rajput princess born to the Rathore clan in 1498 in Kudaki, Rajasthan, in northern India. Despite being one of the most significant saints in the Bhakti tradition and an immensely popular Hindu mystic and religious poet, very few facts are actually known about her life including her date of birth. It is clear that her mother died when she was very young and she was greatly influenced by her father, also a worshipper of Krishna. From a young age, Mirabai’s devotion to Krishna was absolute surrender and complete devotion.

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.

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.

Francis Edward Ledwidge was born on 19th August, 1887, in the small village of Janeville in Slane, County Meath, in Ireland to parents that believed strongly in education. At the age of 5 his father died and the entire family, already desperately poor, were forced into work and by 13 the young Ledwidge took whatever job was to hand—from farm hand to road labourer. Throughout this time he applied himself to his poetry writing whenever and wherever he could. His poems were published on a regular basis from the age of 14 in the Drogheda Independent, his local paper.

London 1927: the city is buzzing with life. By day, Grace Rutherford is a copywriter at one of London's biggest advertising agencies but by night she is Diamond Sharp, author of a racy gossip column. When Grace meets two Americans who are sworn enemies, she is drawn into a web of secrets and lies which will change her life forever....

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

Anne Kingsmill was born in April 1661 (an exact date is not known) in Sydmonton, Hampshire. Throughout her life, Anne was involved in several Court cases that dragged on for years. These involved both a share of her parent’s estate for her education and later her and her husband’s share of an inheritance. In 1682, Anne became a maid of honour to Mary of Modena (wife of James, Duke of York, and later King James II) at St James’ Palace. Anne's interest in poetry began at the palace, and she started writing her own verse.

Creakie Hall is falling down but there is no money in the bank so Aunt Gardenia Bogey-Mandeville needs to come up with a money making scheme pretty quickly or she and her niece and nephew will be out on the streets. It seems unlikely that opening the Hall as a hotel will be very successful, especially when the first guests through the door are two stuffy, fussy hotel inspectors, but with the 'help' of a pair of ancient ghosts who float down from the attic, all is not lost.