Showing results by narrator "Carl Mason" in All Categories

At Waterloo Station, hopeful new arrivals from the West Indies step off the boat train, ready to start afresh in 1950s London. There, homesick Moses Aloetta, who has already lived in the city for years, meets Henry 'Sir Galahad' Oliver and shows him the ropes. In this strange, cold and foggy city where the natives can be less than friendly at the sight of a black face, has Galahad met his Waterloo? But the irrepressible newcomer cannot be cast down.

"The Red Room" is a short gothic story written by H. G. Wells in 1894. It was first published in the March 1896 edition of The Idler magazine. An unnamed protagonist chooses to spend the night in an allegedly haunted room, colored bright red in Lorraine Castle. He intends to disprove the legends surrounding it. Despite vague warnings from the three infirm custodians who reside in the castle, the narrator ascends to "the Red Room" to begin his night's vigil.

Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave is a short work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640-1689), published in 1688 by William Canning and reissued with two other fictions later that year. It was also adapted into a play. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to British colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn's text is a first-person account of his life, love, rebellion, and execution.

Dorian Gray’s painting was never in the vault of the library. We currently have no idea where it is and the only person who can track it is probably being held hostage in a storage yard with all kinds of cursed objects. Balthazar’s dick is still cursed and there’s no easy way to remove it. I already made it worse once. I hope it doesn’t fall off this time. I was totally against marrying Reyson when he woke up and announced I would be his new wife, but my resolve on that is starting to weaken. I’m starting to care for the damned god.

Men that live in the shadows, they fight for the innocent, for the lost, but when they meet the women who bring them to their knees, they realize that fighting isn't always enough. Sometimes you have to trust, too.

Silver Blaze, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle ranked Silver Blaze 13th in a list of his 19 favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. Sherlock Holmes and his partner Dr. Watson travel by train to Dartmoor to investigate a crime of disappearance of the great race horse Silver Blaze and the murder of the horse's trainer, John Straker. Holmes and Watson arrive at King's Pyland, from which Silver Blaze is missing.

Holmes is faced with a moral dilemma when his latest client turns out to be a former pirate captain who had been robbed of his bounty nearly two decades ago. Can Holmes help him recover his share of the treasure from his former shipmates?

Since that fateful day when couldn’t save his best friend, Liam Hayes had coasted through life, going from one deadly mission to another, not caring if he lived or died. His only goal is to protect his team members and those he cares about from getting hurt—even if it costs him his life. Then he is reunited with the one woman he cannot have, who has dogged his dreams, beating back the nightmares, and changing his future.

Down and out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is an account of living in near-destitution in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.

A Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in popular fiction. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet": "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is the final set of twelve (out of a total of fifty-six) Sherlock Holmes short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927. The first British edition and the first American edition of the collection were both published in June 1927. However, they had slightly different titles. The title of the British collection was The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (hyphenated "Case-Book"), whereas the title of the American edition was The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes ("Case Book" as two words).

The Stockbroker's Clerk is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the fourth of the twelve collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes in most British editions of the canon, and third of eleven in most American ones (owing to the omission of the "scandalous" "Adventure of the Cardboard Box"). The story was first published in Strand Magazine in March 1893 and featured seven illustrations by Sidney Paget. A young clerk, Hall Pycroft, consults Holmes with his suspicions concerning a company that has offered him a very well-paid job.

The Final Problem is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Strand Magazine under the title "The Adventure of the Final Problem" in December 1893. It appears in book form as part of the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This story, set in 1891, introduced Holmes's archenemy, the criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty. Conan Doyle later ranked The Final Problem fourth on his personal list of the twelve best Holmes stories. Holmes arrives at Dr. John Watson's residence one evening in a somewhat agitated state and with grazed and bleeding knuckles.

The Sign of the Four (1890), also called The Sign of Four, is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle wrote four novels and 56 short stories featuring the fictional detective. The story is set in 1888. The Sign of the Four has a complex plot involving service in India, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a stolen treasure, and a secret pact among four convicts ("the Four" of the title) and two corrupt prison guards. It presents the detective's drug habit and humanizes him in a way that had not been done in the preceding novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887).

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson investigate the case.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian's beauty is responsible for the new mood in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic world view: that beauty and sensual fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life.

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life, but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

There are times in life when something affects you deeply and alters the way you look at the world.

Rosalie Parker runs the independent UK publishing house Tartarus Press with R. B. Russell. Her previous collections include The Old Knowledge (Swan River Press 2010) and Damage (PS Publishing 2016). "In the Garden" was selected for Best New Horror 21 (2010), and "Random Flight" for Best British Horror 2015. Rosalie lives in Coverdale, North Yorkshire, the magnificent landscape of which inspires and sometimes provides the settings for her writing. ENTITLEMENT: Alicia had never met an 'honourable' before.

"Tom Tiddler's Ground" is the title of an 1861 short story by Charles Dickens, and the phrase "Tom Tidler's ground" appears in his novels Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield and Dombey and Son. Tom Tiddler's Ground, also known as Tom Tidler's Ground or Tommy Tiddler's Ground, is a longstanding children's game. One player, "Tom Tiddler," stands on a heap of stones, gravel, etc. Other players rush onto the heap, crying "Here I am on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver," while Tom tries to capture.