Showing results by narrator "John Chatty" in All Categories

Typee is an idyll of four months among primitive South Sea islanders. However, the books also shocked its original audience with a truthful account of Polynesian tribal life, including their very liberal sexual practices. Typee won Melville great fame during his life and remains a favorite today.

The revenge-minded Montresor convinces Fortunato to join him deep in the catacombs, ostensibly to sample some rare wine. The conclusion to this suspenseful story is memorable, to say the least.

The story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, part of Puritan New England, which was a common setting for Hawthorne's work. Its theme is one often used by Hawthorne: the conflict between good and evil in human nature and, in particular, the problem of public goodness and private wickedness.

Tales of the frozen North and the men and women who dared to challenge it, by the author of The Call of the Wild.

Ligeia is a haunting story told by a husband about his deceased wife. She was beautiful but, also very strange in many ways. After her untimely death,he marries again but strange things start to happen as he becomes disenchanted with his newwife and begins thinking more and more about his first wife, Ligeia. Poe's descriptive powers are at his best here in setting the mood for this incredible story.

The Purloined Letter is one of Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories. It is the third of the three stories featuring the detective C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget. These stories are considered important forerunners of the modern detective story. The Method Poes detective, Dupin, uses to solve the crime was quite innovative. He tried to identify with the criminal and to "think like he would."

C. Auguste Dupin is a Frenchman who decides to solve the mysterious brutal murder of two women in Paris. Numerous witnesses are quoted in the newspaper as having heard a suspect, though the witnesses each think it was a different language. As the first true detective in fiction, the Dupin character established many literary devices which would be used in future fictional detectives including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe's only complete novel, published in 1838. Set in 1827, it is an exciting blend of science, romance, adventure, realism, and supernaturalism. It is based on the actual experiences of J.N. Reynolds, whose book Poe consulted.

This is a selection from the "just so" stories. Just So Stories for Children is a collection of highly fantasized origin stories that are among Kipling's best known and, arguably, best works.

As with The Call of the Wild, White Fang explores a world in which animals and men depend on each other for survival. The story of a dog who is part wolf has lasted because Jack London gives each of his animals a personality. London's narratives are more than epics of hardship and survival; the are morality plays in which virtuous good triumphs over corrupt evil.

Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is of the best "macabre" tales ever written. It is presented here in its entirety along with eight other incredible tales.

Herman Melville, known primarily for his epic Moby Dick, also wrote a number of equally incisive, but much shorter stories. This collection contains four of his best: "Bartelby the Scrivner", "Benito Cereno", "Jimmy Rose", and "The Fiddler".