Just Listen Podcast

William Sydney Porter, known to posterity as the author O. Henry, is famous for stories that have surprise endings. A very adventurous life, including an imprisonment of three years for embezzlement, provided O Henry with a wide range of experiences and acquaintances, many of which appear in his numerous short stories. In today’s story, a potential inheritance takes a roundabout way of reaching its owner.

Published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729, “A Modest Proposal” is a satirical essay. It suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This work is a paradox that forces readers, or listeners, in this case, to question themselves about the human condition and the differences between social classes.

In our last encounter with our protagonist Ichabod Crane, we find him summarily compared to his rival Brom Bones, a rough and rustic practical joker—both of them competing for the hand of the somewhat compelling Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of a well-to-do farmer. As our story reopens, we find Ichabod wending his way through a rich autumn landscape en route to the Van Tassels' for an evening of celebration and perhaps – perhaps not a little romance.

Named after General George Washington, Washington Irving was the first American writer to achieve best-selling international renown.

Today’s story, “Winter Dreams,” is considered one of Fitzgerald‘s finest stories and is frequently anthologized. Writing his editor Max Perkins in June 1925, Fitzgerald described “Winter Dreams” as “a sort of first draft of the Gatsby idea.”

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is perhaps the best known of all vampire tales. Today’s story, “Dracula’s Guest,” was excised from the original Dracula manuscript by its publisher because of the length of the original book. It was published as a short story in l9l4, two years after Stoker’s death.

David Rutschman is the author of _Into Terrible Light_, published by Forklift Books (2017).

The author of today’s story, HG Wells, wrote a number of novels, most of which fell into two categories: imaginative romances and futuristic fantasies. Known around the world as the father of Science Fiction, his personal life is full of anecdotes and wry sayings and events, such as the following.

In today’s conclusion to “The Marriages,” we see the fruit borne of jealousy and carelessness.

Although sharply criticized by his English contemporaries, American author Henry James is now valued for his psychological and moral realism, his masterful creation of character, his low-key but playful humour, and his assured command of the English language.