Showing results by narrator "Greg Wagland" in All Categories

Selected Poems by Edward Thomas (1878-1917) is read by Greg Wagland for Magpie Audio. The selection is as follows: 'March", "Old ManTears", "But These Things Also", "Melancholy", "The Glory", "Words", "Aspens", "This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong", "Rain", "No One So Much As You", "The Sun Used to Shine", "As the Team’s Head-Brass", "Gone, Gone Again", and "Lights Out The Lane".

The Man Who Went Too Far: A Ghost Story by E. F. Benson opens one summer’s day in a beautiful, sequestered garden on the edge of the New Forest. A forty-something artist visits a friend to recuperate from a debilitating illness but is staggered to discover him looking remarkably young and oddly vibrant. He listens as this ‘boy’ explains his new found philosophy, expands on the delight he takes in the natural world all around him and describes the strangely haunting music he has begun to hear in the woods and among the reeds.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of Christmas in Five Staves when he was 31. Now with numerous adaptations for film, television, radio, stage - and indeed in audio - it has become an essential part of Christmas for many. Raconteurs Audio has created this collection to include Dickens’ two Christmas novellas, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, as well as some of his lesser known short stories with a Christmas theme.

Lady Leila Staines has always felt like an outcast among her magically gifted sisters. Desperate to discover her own talent, she seeks out Dunstan Ives, a dark and brooding aristocrat with a scientific bent who may hold the key to unleashing Leila's hidden powers.

Written to commemorate the centenary of Karl Marx’s birth, Max Beer, an Austrian historian of the socialist and Marxist movements, presents a clear, detailed and highly accessible work: the first half comprises a biography, full of fascinating quotations and insightful observations whilst the second analyses many aspects of Marx’s historical and economic teachings, with useful exemplars.

Magic is her birthright.... The daughter of one of the strongest magical lineages, Ninian Malcom Siddons is a powerful witch. Determined to use her magic only for good, she lives a simple, solitary life as a healer in her village, where she meets Drogo.

Selected Poems by Robert Browning (1812-1889) is read by Greg Wagland for Magpie Audio. The selection is as follows: "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St Praxed’s Church", "The Lost Leader", "Pictor Ignotus", "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister", "Love Among the Ruins", "Up at a Villa, Down in the City", "A Woman’s Last Word", "A Toccata of Galuppi’s", "Love in a Life", "Life in a Love", "Women and Roses", "Two in the Campagna", and more.

Peter Willems is the outcast of the islands, in this, Joseph Conrad’s second novel published in 1896, inspired by his experience as ship’s mate on the trading vessel Vidar. Willems is confidential clerk to Hudig, a powerful merchant trading out of Macassar, in the Dutch East Indies, on the island of Sulawesi. But very soon Willems is on the run from a scandal and finds himself up-river at Almayer’s remote trading post. An all-consuming liaison ensues between Willems and Aissa, the local chief’s daughter.

Baptiste Molino has devoted his life to other people's happiness. Moored on his houseboat, he helps his clients navigate the waters of contentment yet remains careful never to make waves of his own. However, it is Baptiste's new client, the elegant and enigmatic Amandine Rousseau, who is the puzzle he longs to solve. But when his mysterious birth mother's legacy finally reveals itself, he finds himself torn between pursuing his own happiness and safeguarding that of the one he loves.

All the Malcolms have some magic, but Lady Felicity's ability to read people's emotions simply by touching them or their possessions overwhelms her. She's reached a marriageable age, but how can she ever wed when she can see so clearly a man's guilty secrets?

Raconteurs Audio and Spoken Realms team up once again to bring this second collection of short stories by H. G. Wells to audio. Written between 1894 and 1902, this anthology of 13 stories delves into botany, flying machines, travel, distant lands and customs, virology, magic, taxidermy, journalism - and there’s even a ghost story.

The Horror Horn is set in the Swiss Alps and opens in the cosy lounge of a resort hotel, where a string ensemble strikes up with the sugary strains of Puccini. Our hero is further entertained to an unlikely yarn of savage sub-humans living near the Ungeheuerhorn, or Horror Horn, a forbidding mountain peak nearby. Next day, a skiing trip to St. Luigi in the next valley to lunch with a friend marks the start of an unexpectedly terrifying adventure. The Horror Horn is not a ghost story as such: the creatures in it are most definitely flesh and blood and they are hungry!

The First Men in the Moon, published in 1901, is the gripping tale of man's first journey to the moon, undertaken by one Mr. Bedford, a bankrupt businessman; and the eccentric scientist Mr. Cavor. Here they discover a sophisticated civilization, dominated by an insectlike race they call the Selenites. It is exciting, funny, profound and tragic by turns: a beautifully written scientific romance, in fact. It is read by Greg Wagland.

Taking a winter holiday in a splendid resort in the Swiss Alps our hero finds himself billeted in a surprisingly large room, furnished with two beds. He checks with the man at the bureau, but there’s no mistake: it’s all his, a veritable snip at 12 francs a night! What a stroke of luck! And what could possibly connect this alpine idyll with Boston, Massachusetts? E. F. Benson is well known for his Mapp and Lucia novels but his ghost and supernatural stories are marvellous jewels, combining elegant writing and moments of blood-curdling horror.

M. R. James wrote, arguably, the finest supernatural tales in English literature, and this collection contains the best of them, including ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’, ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You, My Lad’, ‘Lost Hearts’, ‘Casting the Runes’, and ‘Count Magnus’. James was something of an actor and gifted storyteller and read his tales aloud to select gatherings on many a Christmas Eve. His intention, he said, was to implant in his listener the idea that, ‘if I am not careful, something of this kind might happen to me!’

In a series of revolts starting in 1820, four military officers rode forth on horseback from obscure European towns to bring political freedom and a constitution to Spain, Naples, and Russia; and national independence to the Greeks. The men who launched these exploits from Andalusia to the snowy fields of Ukraine - Colonel Rafael del Riego, General Guglielmo Pepe, General Alexandros Ypsilanti, and Colonel Sergei Muraviev-Apostol - all hoped to overturn the old order.

Franz Kafka's profound and disturbing novella Metamorphosis was first published in German in 1915. In this recent translation by David Wyllie, Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, wakes to find himself "transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin". How he, his family, and others deal with this untoward situation is subsequently revealed.

Keep Your Friends Close is the third story in Granelli's hard-hitting series of Mafia tales. Using the vibrant backdrop of Palermo, old characters reappear to continue the internecine struggles of the Tomasso Cruci Family, where double-dealing, treachery, and violent retribution seem the norm. Granelli also brings in a police element for the first time in the form of Carlo 'CC' Carpanini and his memorable sidekick Leo Bracchi. It seems they are up against insurmountable odds.

A Personal Record is a "fragment of biography", an autobiographical work by Joseph Conrad, published in 1912. It is also a masterpiece of atmospheric writing and the main contemporary source to detail his early life. Conrad, Polish by birth, who goes on to become one of the greatest novelists of the English language, describes his childhood and adolescence, discusses his forebears, one of whom fought on the side of Napoleon and ate a Lithuanian dog, the exile of his parents, the death of his mother and his relationship with his Uncle Tadeusz.

Everything about Lord Harry's easygoing life is about to change. After unexpectedly inheriting the title of duke of Sommersville, he's also discovered it comes with a load of debt. To save the estate, he's going to need money. Lots of it - and quick.