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ID: 507098

Title: Bartleby the Scrivener

Author: Herman Melville

Narrator: Eric Meyers, Ghizela Rowe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 01:51:02

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819. At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension" and his opportunities for success seemed limited.His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. 2 years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion. These experiences helped provide the novels 'Typee', 'Omoo', and 'White-Jacket'.By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece, 'Moby Dick', was ready to be published. It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville's earnings on his masterpiece was a mere $556.37.In succeeding years his reputation waned, life was increasingly difficult. His family was growing and a stable income was essential. Melville took the advice of friends to try public lecturing, as others had, to increase his revenues. He embarked on three successful lecture tours, speaking on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome. In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem 'Clarel'. It was to no avail. The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably.It was only in late 1885 that Melville was at last able to retire after his wife inherited several legacies, enough to provide them with a reasonable income.Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on 28th September 1891 from cardiovascular disease.Perhaps his best known short story is 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' an enduring story of a Wall Street lawyer and his very particular assistant.

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ID: 529968

Title: White Bread

Author: Zona Gale

Narrator: Ghizela Rowe, Laurel Lefkow

Format: Unabridged

Length: 00:55:52

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Zona Gale was born on 26th August 1874 in Portage, Wisconsin. She was exceptionally close to her parents and later used them as the basis for characters in her works. She wrote and illustrated her first story at the age of 7 and by 16 she was being paid for stories from the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. After studies at the University of Wisconsin, where she received a degree and two master's, she moved to New York and a job at the New York World newspaper. She was later hired as a secretary to Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet, critic, essayist, banker, and scientist. and immersed herself in his literary circle.Gale returned to Portage in 1903 and realized her old world was full of new possibilities. She now dedicated herself to full-time writing.Her first novel 'Romance Island' was published in 1906 and she also began the popular 'Friendship Village' series of stories. In 1920 came 'Miss Lulu Bett', which depicts life in the Mid-West. Adapted into a play it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921. It was a stellar achievement.After the deaths of her parents her works, both fiction and non-fiction, drifted towards mysticism and her belief that problems could be solved through a kind of transcendentalist enlightenment.Gale was a suffragist, a liberal Democrat, an active member of the National Woman's Party and a pacifist. Much of her time was taken up with advancing opportunities for women both at school and in careers. It was a cause she repeatedly emphasized in her novels: women's frustration at their lack of opportunities.In the mid 20's she began caring for a young relative, Leslyn, and later adopted her. At age 54, she married William L Breese, a childhood friend. Now a widower, he was a wealthy banker and hosiery manufacturer. She also became a step-mother to his daughter, Juliette. In mid-December 1938 she went to Chicago for medical treatment and contracted pneumonia a few days later. Zona Gale died of pneumonia in Passavant Hospital in Chicago on 27th December 1938. She was 64.

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ID: 501479

Title: Cloak aka The Overcoat

Author: Nikolai Gogol

Narrator: Ghizela Rowe, Tom Mclean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 01:13:12

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore. His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle's home theatre. This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12. Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters.In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him.Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals. These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day. He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity. Eight stories were published as 'Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka'. Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature. His success continued with his brilliant plays 'The Inspector General' and the comedy 'The Marriage for the Theatre', both being highly acclaimed. In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post. With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal 'Dead Souls', Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera. In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43.Gogol had a profound and enduring impact on literature which can be evidenced from his masterpiece, 'The Cloak', more popularly although wrongly translated as 'The Overcoat' published in 1841. A hundred years later Vladamir Nabokov called it 'The greatest Russian short story ever written.'

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ID: 529977

Title: Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller

Author: Gustave Flaubert

Narrator: Ghizela Rowe, Richard Mitchley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 01:04:45

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Gustave Flaubert was born on 12th December 1821 in Rouen, in Normandy, France. A gifted child he began writing as early as eight.He was educated at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen until 1840 and thence to Paris to study law, a city he disliked. He studied little, made few friends and preferred to spend his time writing. His first finished work was 'November', a novella, completed in 1842. By 1846 after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris and abandoned his law studies.That same year he began a relationship with the poet Louise Colet which lasted eight years. His politics developed in these years of revolutions throughout Europe as stridently against despotism, and as one who celebrated protest against the elite and the establishment.In September 1849, Flaubert completed 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony'. After 4 days reading it aloud to two friends, they advised him to destroy it and to focus his writing on day-to-day life rather than the fantastic.A long journey to the Middle East brought encounters with both female and male prostitutes and a case of syphilis caught in Beirut. On his return he began 'Madame Bovary' a work he would take 5 years to complete. When it was serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856 the government brought an immorality action against both publisher and author, but both were acquitted. This was the birth of French Realism and Flaubert, fastidious with every word, was becoming regarded as a literary genius. He wrote in sullen solitude, sometimes spending a week on a single page, avoiding the inexact, the abstract and the vague. He visited Carthage in 1858 to conduct research for 'Salammbô', which took 4 years to complete. 'Sentimental Education' took a further 7 and published only in 1869. The next few years were difficult. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the War and his mother died pushing him into financial difficulty and this, together with failing health, especially venereal diseases, shortened his life.He toiled on his unfinished 'Bouvard et Pécuchet' but did complete 'Three Tales' in 1877 from which 'The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller' is taken. Gustave Flaubert died at Croisset from a cerebral hemorrhage on 8th May 1880. He was 58.

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ID: 507095

Title: Most Dangerous Game

Author: Richard Connell

Narrator: Christopher Ragland, Ghizela Rowe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 01:03:38

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Richard Edward Connell Jr was born on the 17th October 1893, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He began his writing career as a journalist for The Poughkeepsie Journal as well as attending Georgetown College for a year and then Harvard University. At Harvard, Connell edited The Lampoon and The Crimson. He subsequently worked for The New York American and as a copy writer for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.During the First World War Connell served in France with the US Army and was the editor of his camp's newspaper.After the war, he turned to writing short stories, and eventually wrote over 300 of them for the periodicals and journals of the day including regular contributions to The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. The attention of his audience kept him popular for decades. He is perhaps best remembered for his macabre short story 'The Most Dangerous Game', written in 1924. In 1942 he was even nominated for an Academy Award (Best Original Story) for the Frank Capra movie 'Meet John Doe' based on his story 'A Reputation'.Richard Connell died on 22nd November 1949 in Beverly Hills, California. He was 56.

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ID: 501485

Title: Yellow Book - Vol 2

Author: Charlotte Mew, John Buchan, Kenneth Grahame

Narrator: David Shaw-Parker, Ghizela Rowe, Richard Mitchley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 05:02:26

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Essays & Anthologies

Summary:

During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers.Amongst the very many was 'The Yellow Book'. Although titled as 'An Illustrated Quarterly' it was sold as a cloth-bound hardback and within were short stories, essays, poetry, illustrations and portraits. It was edited by the American author Henry Harland, who also contributed, and its art editor was no less that the formidable Aubrey Beardsley, the enfant terrible of illustration.Its yellow cover and name gave it an association with the risqué and erotic yellow covered works published in France. It was a visual shorthand for ideas that would push many boundaries of Society to more open interpretations. Being complete in each volume and slightly aloof it stayed away from serialised fiction and advertisements. Within each lavishly illustrated edition were literary offerings that included works by such luminaries as Henry James, H G Wells, W B Yeats, Edith Nesbit, George Gissing and many others from the ascetic and decadent movements of the time. The other notable inclusion was women both as contributors and amongst its editing staff, which was at odds with the then patriarchal gender norms. Although it only survived for 13 issues its reach and influence were second to none.

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ID: 529965

Title: Birth-Mark

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrator: Christopher Ragland, Ghizela Rowe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 00:50:34

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne's later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing.He was a mere four years old when his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron. He was sent to college at his maternal uncle's insistence. During these years he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future U S president Franklin Pierce. These friendships were lifelong and to have a crucial impact on his writings and career. At college Hawthorne had made attempts at writing short stories and essays but without opportunities to publish. It was only in 1828 that he finally published his novel 'Franshawe' to little success and so he began work as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge. Hawthorne's short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as 'Twice-Told Tales'. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem's port and married the love of his life Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in 'The Old Manse' at Concord, Massachusetts. Finally. in 1850 came spectacular literary and commercial success with 'The Scarlet Letter' followed by 'The House of the Seven Gables' the following year. In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography of presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. After Pierce's victory he was appointed consul in Liverpool, a position that offered prestige, money and fame. At the end of this appointment he returned several times to Europe before settling in Massachusetts and resuming writing and publication.During the early 1860's his health declined and on 19th May 1864 during a trip to Plymouth, New Hampshire. He was 59 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. The Birthmark is a classic tale from Hawthorne's pen. Georgina has a small red birthmark on her cheek. Her husband, a brilliant scientist and philosopher becomes obsessed with what he thinks is this blemish on her beauty.

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ID: 529964

Title: Coach

Author: Violet Hunt

Narrator: Ghizela Rowe, Richard Mitchley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 00:47:40

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her novels are excellent examples of New Woman fiction and help illustrate her activities fighting for and promoting better rights for women.Although she remained unmarried she had lovers as notable as Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Ford Maddox Ford, the latter whom she lived with for a number of years.Her collections of supernatural short stories contain much of her best work and despite her considerable talents and literary output her reputation rests both on the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill, where the very best of literary society attended, and for her founding of the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and her participation in the founding of International PEN in 1921.Violet Hunt died of pneumonia at her home in Campden Hill on 16th January 1942. She was 79 and is buried at Brookwood Cemetery.Her short story 'The Coach' is an excellent example of her black comedy writing. This cramped setting turns into a macabre tour de force delivering literary punch and emotional heft.

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ID: 548521

Title: Fifty Shades of the Mystic East

Author: Confucius , Mirabai , Rumi

Narrator: David Shaw-Parker, Eleanor Rushton, Ghizela Rowe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 01:46:39

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Poetry

Summary:

Whilst the notion of the Mystic East and Oriental wisdom was greatly romanticised by the Victorians and others, the shadow of Colonialism has smudged the view. These great cultures are some of humanity's earliest, their works, their art some of its most daring and most accomplished. In these 50 poems across 50 poets we hope, at least in part, to rebalance our view of this subject. We begin in the 6th century BC and travel with a poet's words and eyes across India, China, Persia and many other places in between. The geography and culture may shift to different hues but the flavours, notions, musings and truths of these works bring both simplicity, majesty and beauty to these lands and peoples. Let us journey with poets such as Lao Tzu, Rumi, Mirabai, Gabirol and Guru Nanak on a journey to seek, to discover and find meaning in their verse that is so relevant to our lives today. 1 - Fifty Shades of the Mystic East - An Introduction 2 - Thiruppavi (An Extract) by Andal3 - An Ocean Without Shore by Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi4 - All Pervading Consciousness by Farid ud-Din Attar5 - Because Thou Art by Sri Aurobindo6 - Kalam - I by Sultan Bahu7 - If You Are Seeking Allah by Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai8 - Shikshashtakam by Chaitanya9 - The Value of Friendship by Confucius10 - Amrutanubhav (An Extract) by Dnyaneshwar11 - The Mockingbird by Dr Fu12 - The Song of Chess by Abraham Ibn Ezra13 - Beauty of Truth by Khwaja Ghulam Farid14 - The Prelude to Shah-Nameh (The Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi15 - A Song of Redemption by Solomon Ibn Gabirol16 - Navada Bhakti in an Untainted Heart by Gangasati17 - The Walled Garden by Sanai Ghaznavi18 - Song of the Flower by Khalil Gibran19 - The Lute Will Beg by Hafiz20 - Song of Loneliness by Jehudah Halevi21 - I Do Not Cease Swimming by Mansur Al Hallaj22 - The Power of the Pen by Samuel HaNagid23 - The Cloud on the Mountain by Alama Iqbal24 - Acceptance by Janabai25 - The Guest Is Inside You and Also Inside Me by Kabir26 - Tears Ere Thy Death by Khansa27 - All Things Pass by Lao Tzu28 - Vakh - If in the Flux of Time by Lal Ded29 - Alone Looking at the Mountain by Li Po30 - They All Err by Al-Ma'arri31 - Would a Circling Surface Vulture by Akka Mahadevi32 - Pointless It Is to Lament by Narsinh Mehta33 - Go To That Impenetrable Realm by Mirabai34 - The True Name is Like Sandalwood by Namdev35 - Tiruvasiriyam by Nammalvar36 - Dhanasri Measure by Guru Nanak37 - Dream Fable by Rabia al Basri38 - Where Shall I Go by Ramananda39 - The Name Alone Is the Truth by Ravidas40 - Only Breath by Jalaluddin Rumi41 - One Body by Saadi42 - His Ears Ringeth by Sambandar43 - Drive Me Out of My Mind by Ramprasad Sen44 - Who Attains the Secret of Unity. From the Mystic Rose Garden by Mahmud Shabistari45 - Neither Hindu Nor Muslim by Bulleh Shah46 - A Life Without Love by Shams Tabrizi47 - The Journey by Tagore48 - The Secret of Peace by Tukaram49 - Hanuman Chalisa by Tulsidas50 - On the Stork Tower by Wang Zhihuan51 - Old Lines and New Songs by Wu Zao

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ID: 501482

Title: Amour Dure

Author: Vernon Lee

Narrator: David Shaw-Parker, Ghizela Rowe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 02:00:09

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-21

Publisher: The Copyright Group Ltd.

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Short Stories

Summary:

Vernon Lee was born Violet Paget on 4th October 1856 in Boulogne, France to intellectual expatriate British parents. In common with several other very talented literary women of the day she felt it necessary to publish under a masculine pseudonym in order for her writing to be taken seriously. Indeed she seems to have adopted that persona across her whole lifestyle becoming personally known and acknowledged by all as Vernon Lee and accordingly dressed as a man. Her first published work, in 1880, was taken from her collection of essays that had originally appeared in Fraser's Magazine with the scholarly title of; 'Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy.' It reflected her passion for music and centered on the rich creative lives of poet-librettist Pietro Metastasio and dramatists Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi. She wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel with her scholarly appreciation animated by wit and imagination. Lee was well-regarded as an expert on the Italian Renaissance and was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement.Her literary talents were extensive and she wrote a number of novels and plays. Perhaps her best remembered works are her haunting and powerful short stories exploring the supernatural. Lee has often received accolades for these and glowingly compared to other authors such as M R James. A committed pacifist she was resolved to protest against World War I. Her social activism in other areas was perhaps fueled by her feminist beliefs. In her private life she was a lesbian and had long-term passionate relationships with three women including the doomed author and poet, Amy Levy. Vernon Lee died on 13th February 1935 in San Gervasio Bresciano, Italy.

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