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Title: Tales of Rags and Riches

Subtitle: From the Great Storytellers of the World

Author: O. Henry, Katherine Mansfield, Oscar Wilde, J. M. Barrie, W. W. Jacobs, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-07-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

A fabulous collection of stories about the fabulously rich, the grindingly poor, sudden wealth, odd inheritances, greed and generosity.

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Title: Telling Stories

Subtitle: From the Master Storytellers of the World

Author: O. Henry, Ambrose Bierce, Kate Chopin, Katherine Mansfield, W. W. Jacobs, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-03-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Ratings: 1 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

An engaging collection of short stories from some of the world's greatest racconteurs. Included are 'My Favorite Murder' by Ambrose Bierce; 'The Black Poodle' by F. Anstey; 'The Dolls House' by Katherine Mansfield; 'The Monkey's Paw' by W. W. Jacobs; 'The Mortal Immortal' by Mary Shelley; 'A Curious Dream' by Mark Twain; 'Regret' by Kate Chopin; 'One Thousand Dollars' by O. Henry; 'The Dreamer' by W. W. Jacobs; 'The Fly' by Katherine Mansfield; 'The Inconsiderate Waiter' by J.M. Barrie; and 'The Purloined Letter' by Edgar Allan Poe.

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Title: Tales with a Twist

Subtitle: From the Master Storytellers of the World

Author: Edgar Allan Poe, W. W. Jacobs, D. H. Lawrence, Ambrose Bierce, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Wilkie Collins

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-01-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

A scintillating collection of tales with unexpected endings.

Members Reviews:

Classic Tales Read in Ham-ese

These classic short stories are the sort of fare that ought to be included as foundational materials in any liberal arts education. If you've never read them, they are more than worth the effort and even if you have read them, this collection is an excellent refresher. However, that said, the narrator is unbearable. I normally appreciate a British accent but this particular reader's exaggerated phonation is like something out of a 19th century melodrama full of moustache twirling villains. For many, such grandiose affect may be just the thing to give voice to spine-tingling authors like Edgar Allen Poe. Personally, I found the pretentious enunciation distracting (and extremely annoying).Too much ham for me.

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Title: Curried Cow

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-01-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

My Aunt Patience, who tilled a small farm in the state of Michigan, had a favorite cow. This creature was not a god cow, nor a profitable one, for instead of devoting a part of her leisure to secretion of milk and production of veal she concentrated all her faculties on the study of kicking.

The demon cow of Michigan will attack any living being she comes across...and when Aunt Patience resolves to marry, every single man in the county goes to extreme lengths to become unavailable for the honour. Such was their fear of being married alive by my Aunt Patience.

Finally she does wed a Methodist parson by the name of Huggins. This is the story of one man's battle against the most ferocious cow in Michigan.

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Title: Ligeia

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 41 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-25-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

The death of his beloved wife, Ligeia, sends the narrator of this tale into the deepest of opium fuelled despair. His remarriage to the fair Rowena is a disaster, and his new wife is taken ill soon after the nuptials, fancying that the bridal chamber is haunted by a ghostly spirit. But as Rowena's health deteriorates, nobody can anticipate the horrific events which follow.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

Terrific book. Prompt service

Oh, my wonderful wife! Come back, dearly departed!

In a ruined German city, a man lives with his wonderful wife Ligiea. Really, she's wonderful. Three pages of detail on her eyes, her nose, her mouth her skin, her hair, her wisdom, her walk - and another few pages for her to die, all the while fighting, never surrendering her will to Death.

Our Hero wanders to an English abbey - also ruined - and sets up an opium addicted life. He marries a woman who is described in one sentence. Several paragraphs explain how their bedroom has tomb-elements, besides being in a ruined abbey.

Surprise - the 2nd wife dies. And as Our Hero sits up with the body in an opium daze... Ligiea's ghost takes over the body and stands up. Totally not an opium dream! Maybe.

Gothic Checklist:

Ruined building - check. Just in case a ruined city isn't enough, Our Hero has to move into an abandoned abbey.

Obsessed character who thinks he's perfectly normal - check. Our Hero doesn't know Legiea's family name, we don't know his name at all, but of course being in love with your wife is normal, right? RIGHT?

Innocent person who has no idea that horror is about to unfold - check. How the heck Wife #2's family could let her marry an opium addict in a crumbling building is a little nuts, especially with five sarcophagi in the bedroom. Crazy much?

A good helpful version of a Poe horror story

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) published this short story in 1838. This annotated version contains a good introduction to the tale and has good explanations about what transpires. It is one of many of Poe's inexplicable horror stories. It is based on the idea that the hero of the story loves his wife Ligeia so much that even though she dies, and even though he marries another beautiful woman, he is unable to give her up.

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Title: Metzengerstein

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 22 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-25-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Poe's mysterious tale of two feuding families.

On the night when the young Metzengerstein is suspected of burning his rival's stables, a strange uncanny horse is rescued from the flames. He recognizes the stallion as the one depicted in an ancient tapestry in his castle and believes it also to relate to an old prophecy regarding the two houses. He adopts the horse as his own and becomes obsessed with it.

But one stormy night, as he rides out on his weird mount... the prophecy comes to pass in a way which he could not have predicted.

Members Reviews:

Irrelevant Illustrations

I bought this -- although I already own several copies and versions -- because it was illustrated. The preview gave no indication one way or the other what to expect from the illustrations, being a mere view of nature, but after purchasing the book I found the illustrations, which are sparse, have nothing whatever to do with the story. They couldn't be more irrelevant. The final illustration is clearly that of an oriental folktale involving some couple who find or adopt -- I'm guessing -- a child who is apparently born or grown out of something looking like a cantaloupe. All of the other illustrations are equally absurd. You would find images more closely resembling the story if you simply Googled the word "images" and looked up at one of them after every few paragraphs. The illustrations, too, are very small and difficult to see. So much for purchasing a book with illustrations.The story, of course, is great! I have no complaints about the author or his work.

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Title: The Telltale Heart

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-21-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Poe's brilliant account of committing a perfect murder from within the paranoid brain of the murderer.

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Title: The Mystery of Marie Roget

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-10-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

When the body of the popular Parisian perfume-shop assistant, Marie Roget, is found floating in the Seine, the whole of Paris is alive with rumours. But despite many clues and the offer of a substantial reward, the French police are unable to solve the mystery. The only solution is to call upon the super-sleuth Dupin.

Poe's story, inspired by the unsolved murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in New York, contains many parallels to that crime and was viewed at the time by many as a convincing solution to the American case.

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Title: The Balloon Hoax

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-10-13

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

The Balloon Hoax was first published in The Sun newspaper in New York in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a hot air balloon.

The story turned out to be a hoax and the paper published a retraction two days later (rumoured to also have been written by Poe himself) admitting the deception.The story ignited a fever of excitement in New York: Poe himself claimed that the Sun building was "besieged" by people wanting copies of the newspaper. "I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper," he wrote.

The furore around the story is a testimony to Poe's ability to build up a narrative with such plausible details, that it appears almost inconceivable that it should not be the truth.

Members Reviews:

That's Enough of These Balloon Stories.

Fresh off from The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, I began to read The Balloon Hoax with much apprehension and realized my fears. It was that boring! Although I had been harsh in my review of The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, it actually looks better now compared to The Balloon Hoax. However, it was too long to get through the former whereas the latter was only a third of the length.

Let's give credit where it's due. Poe's two science fiction stories inspired Jules Verne to write Around the World in Eighty Days. It wasn't until 1978 that a hot air balloon crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Poe wrote the story, which was published in a newspaper, to fool the readers thinking it was a real story only to be retracted 2 days afterwards, even though they actually believed it.

All in all, no more balloon stories, I beg of you, Edgar.

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Title: Elsie in New York and Other Stories

Author: O. Henry

Narrator: Bobbie Frohman, Susan McCarthy, uncredited

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-04-13

Publisher: Alcazar AudioWorks

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

A set of five tales from one of America's masters of short-story telling. The stories include:

In "Elsie in New York," Elsie is an innocent young woman who, upon the death of her father, must look for work to make a living. Her father expected her to trust to the good heartedness of his previous employer, but Elsie prefers to make her own way in life. Although she visits an employment agency and applies for several positions, do-gooders interfere. Thinking they are saving her soul, in actuality they point her to her destruction.

In "The Purple Dress," two young women clerks have been saving money all year to buy new dresses for the one gala of their year, the annual Thanksgiving dinner given by their employer. Both are hoping to catch the eye of one attractive gentleman bachelor at the party. But interactions with a landlady and a dressmaker intervene, and things turn out much differently than either girl could have imagined.

In "Little Speck in Garnered Fruit" Champion welter-weight boxer, Kid McGarry's new bride wants a peach. Peaches are out of season, so there are none in the shops although all have oranges. Oranges won't do. McGarry entices the local police captain to raid a gambling joint run by Denver Dick, a heavyweight. After beating Denver Dick, McGarry takes a last peach from the lavish dining room and presents it to his new wife. Her reaction is classic O. Henry.

"The Pendulum" is a story about a man called John Perkins, who's behaviour is like a clock's pendulum, going from one extreme to the other. In the story, the two extremes include his boredom with his life and marriage and then when his wife leaves, his longing for her to come back while realizing his mistakes. But once his wife returns, the question is whether he's learned anything from them.

"The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball" tells the tale of Bob Babbitt, who comes to a rude awakening about his drinking. He pictured himself as charming, reasonably social man and realized that everyone else saw him as a drunkard. Although he stops drinking, his problems with appearances do not.