検索キーワード： ナレーター "B. J. Harrison" すべてのカテゴリー

The Porte Montmartre is under citizen Bibot’s command and he is determined not to let anybody escape. When he finds out that Scarlet Pimpernel is planning his next rescue mission, he is ready to do whatever it takes to stop the commander of "The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel". Will he manage to do so or will Pimpernel outwit him? Will the Duc and Duchesse de Montreux be saved by Pimpernel or will this mission fail? Find out the answers in the second of eleven short stories, combined in "The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel" from 1919.

Winter Wedderburn is an amateur collector of orchids, spending his days peacefully with his housekeeper. One day he invites more adventure into his life and buys an unknown species of orchids brought from the Andaman Islands. Little does he know that purchasing this unusual plant will bring him more adventure than he could ever have dreamt of. "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid" is a short horror story by H.G. Wells from the late 19th century, providing the reader with a most unusual enemy.

A country doctor visits the spacious house of a Baron. But when he arrives, he draws up in shock. Everything inside and outside of the house, down to the clothing of the inhabitants, is all the same color—white. Why is everything about the house eerily bloodless? Mary Fortune was one of the earliest female writers of crime fiction, and likely the first to write from the point of view of the detective. She enjoyed a prolific career in Australia, where she also wrote under the pseudonyms Waif Wanderer and W.W.

Everett’s brother rocked the world with his incredible musical talent. And Everett is…fine. But he’s okay with that. He’s a member of “a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything in particular”. But when traveling in the West, Everett meets a remarkable woman who is dying, and discovers that she has a history her brother, he gives her the greatest gift of all during her final days—the gift of understanding.

The night’s stillness is broken as Dr. Petrie rushes out to care for a dying patient, the subtle machinations of villainy begin their work, and the nefarious Dr. Fu-Manchu again rears his insidious head in London. Arthur Henry Ward (Sax Rohmer) is best known for creating the criminal mastermind Dr. Fu-Manchu. The Wire Jacket contains the first three chapters of the novel The Return of Fu-Manchu, and can be listened to as a stand-alone story.

What must Ruscha do to secure the magic word that kills when it’s uttered? Taken from a Danish folk tale, and spiced up with lively characters and murky atmosphere, this short tale delivers some wonderful chills. Elizabeth Ellet wrote for the magazines, or periodicals in the mid-1800s, and the name of Mrs. Ellet was recognized in literary circles. Today, Ellet is perhaps known best for the scandal she leaked about Edgar Allan Poe’s rumored affair with Frances Sargent Osgood when both were married to other people.

A wife’s indiscretion is answered with cruel estrangement. Yet when the couple meets again six years later in a train car, as two strangers traveling together, the Baron discovers the magnitude of his loss. Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story, using every literary device and turn of phrase with masterful effect. A Meeting is an elegant tale that explores the consequences of unbridled, and bridled, passion.

The bombastic Professor Challenger is convinced that a sentient being lurks in the mantle of the Earth. Aided by Edward Malone and Peerless Jones, he must drill down through the Earth’s crust to alert the creature of humankind’s existence. After his debut in The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle went on to develop the grandiloquent Professor Challenger in four other works. When the World Screamed is the fourth in the series, and a satisfying addition to the canon.

Mr. Thipps wakes up to the worst day ever. A dead body in his bathtub wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. So many questions. Luckily, Lord Peter Wimsey catches wind of this – for he has a keen mind for solving crimes, although he is the pampered aristocratic amateur. With the connections that privilege offers, he has returned somewhat battered from the war with a penchant for crime solving. This case of near-sighted nudity, taking place during the plague of 1918, takes on twists and turns both unforeseen and unwelcome.

Awful, rich people - and the folks who want to be just like them. Drawing freely from the real people and actual events of its setting in 1920s Long Island (with literary license, of course), The Great Gatsby looks at the acquisition of the American Dream of wealth, power, and prestige, and what the costs are to those who realize that dream. And if that sounds a bit too highbrow for you, there are speakeasies, a broken nose, wild parties, and a bit of rough and tumble as well.

Who will help the tailor of Gloucester to finish the Mayor’s elegant coat? For the tailor has fallen ill, and the Mayor is to be married in it tomorrow – on Christmas Day in the morning. Potter based the story on a real-world incident involving John Prichard, a Gloucester tailor who had a commission to make a new suit for the new mayor. But it’s Potter’s charming touch of adding impish, mischievous animals to move the story along that make this children’s classic.

Ebenezer Scrooge runs a tight shop with a tight fist and a sharp tongue. On Christmas Eve, he is visited by the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley. Marley relates that in order for Scrooge’s soul to be reclaimed, he must be haunted by three spirits. The first of the three appear, and Scrooge’s reclamation begins.

Showcasing three of O. Henry’s sharpest short stories, Crisis of Conscience highlights the choices available for folks whose options are limited and difficult. In the first, "An Unfinished Story", O. Henry uses a technique of only half telling two stories, delivering a clear and powerful message. The other two tales, "A Retrieved Redemption" and "A Blackjack Bargainer", are more traditional narratives, each examining folks who are trying to get back up on the straight and narrow, and their terrible wrangle with the most evil adversary of all – hope.

A Jury of Her Peers is based on a murder case Glaspell covered as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. Largely ignored upon its initial publication, it was revived by feminists in the 1970s. A Jury of Her Peers is an innovative exploration of the inequalities of women’s lives in the public and private spheres. Dealing with themes of the male subjugation of women, sexism at home and the workplace, and the ways the law fails to protect women from violence, Glaspell’s tale remains hauntingly relevant after 100 years.

Mrs. Peerybingle is bright and sharp as a tack. Her husband John is a carrier, a profession as lumbering and sturdy as he is himself. When the crafty Tackleton seeks to cause mischief to forward his own nefarious plans, John’s steady heart is sorely wounded. Luckily there is a cricket on the hearth to act as a guardian angel for all of them. A huge commercial success when it was first published in 1845, this Christmas fantasy is a lovely portrait of Victorian life.

Sure, you have some concept of a supreme being - but is your god-notion God? The one true God? The biblical God? The God who is? To anyone who has ears to hear, I simply say that it’s time to open the book and truly behold the dreadful holiness and terrifying awe of "I am". Certainly, it is long past time in this era of low-resolution preaching, denominational banality, and pervasive biblical illiteracy. For indeed, the Bible is unmistakably clear: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

Vampire Governor Belladonna Barrone is facing the challenge of her life. Literally. Can she outwit and outlast the vampire council? She has no idea, but she has no plans to go down without a fight. If she manages to survive, another challenge awaits her. Can she handle the responsibility that comes with accepting the crown? Being governor is one thing. Being queen? That’s a whole different set of problems. And there’s a whole new set of enemies who are out to make sure she doesn’t succeed. All Donna knows for sure is that it’s time to embrace the suck.

Mikhail lives in Russia in 1881. When a skeleton of a rare wild horse is brought to him, the zoologist plans an expedition to Mongolia to find the fabled Przewalski horse, a journey that tests not only his physicality, but his heart. In 1992, Karin, alongside her troubled son Mathias and several Przewalski horses, travels to Mongolia to re-introduce the magnificent horses to their native land. The veterinarian has dedicated her life to saving the breed from extinction, prioritising the wild horses, even over her own son.

B.J. Harrison reads Louisa May Alcotts famous novella "Behind a Mask", which is widely considered to be Alcotts masterpiece in sensation fiction. A wealthy Victorian-era family recruits Jean Muir as sixteen-year-old Bellas governess. But soon enough, Jean Muir appears to have everyone under her spell, and to have the power to do everything as she pleases. This novella from the late 19th century was initially published under Louisa May Alcotts pseudonym A. M. Barnard...

Only one yellow rose bush exists in the whole of the Hungarian Plain known as the Hortobágy, and its flowers are only given by the maiden who runs the Hortobágy Inn. But when she has a lover’s spat with her betrothed, and remembers a recipe for love she learned from a gypsy woman, how could she know that she would poison her beloved?