Showing results by narrator "Rayner Bourton" in All Categories

A Child's History of England is a book by Charles Dickens. It first appeared in serial form in Household Words, running from 25 January 1851 to 10 December 1853. Dickens also published the work in book form in three volumes: the first volume on 20 December 1851, the second on 25 December 1852 and the third on 24 December 1853. Although the volumes were published in December, each was postdated the following year. Dickens dedicated the book to "My own dear children, whom I hope it may help, bye and bye, to read with interest larger and better books on the same subject".

Mr. Britling Sees It Through is H.G. Wells's "masterpiece of the wartime experience in south eastern England." The novel was published in September 1916. Mr. Britling Sees It Through tells the story of a renowned writer, Mr. Britling, a protagonist who is quite evidently an alter ego of the author. The garrulous, easy-going Mr. Britling lives with family and friends in the fictional village of Matching's Easy, located in the county of Essex, northeast of London. The novel is divided into three parts.

Out for a walk in London one day, Gip and his father happen upon a magic shop. At Gip's urging, the two go in - and things grow more and more curious by the minute. Counters, store fixtures, and mirrors seem to move around the room, and the shopkeeper is most mysterious of all. Gip is thrilled by all he sees, and his father is at first amused, but when things become stranger and sinister father is no longer sure where reality ends and illusion begins.

Rayner Bourton, original Rocky Horror and all 'round nice guy, has released this wonderful new book with his memories of the early days of The Rocky Horror Show. It gives a brilliant insight from the first auditions though the original Theatre Upstairs production to the Kings Road shows. For the true Rocky Horror fans, this book is a mine of information.

10 August, 2003, the hottest day ever in the UK, ten-year-old Molly Parker disappears without a trace in North Wales. Despite his relentless efforts, DI Bill Lennox has to release his prime suspect, Jim Roper, for lack of evidence. Still obsessed with the case, Bill is finally suspended, demoted and forced to leave. Twenty years on, another young girl is kidnapped but escapes, casting suspicion once again on Roper. But now the investigator is Bill’s niece, DI Barbara Forster. Roper is re-arrested but another girl vanishes ... the race is on to find her.

This first collection of tales by Rosalie Parker contains eight stories that explore the uncanny in the modern world. As Glen Cavaliero observes in his introduction, "like all good stories of the preternatural, these in The Old Knowledge have a subversive effect." In them, "the world of logical, predictable reality is seen to be at risk from rejected modes of knowledge which can thwart the materialist and victimise those innocents who stumble into another order of reality."

'The Country of the Blind' is the strange story of a mountain guide who accidently falls off a cliff ledge in the Andes. He survives the fall unhurt, and finds himself in a remote valley where a tribe lives completely cut off from the rest of the world. A hereditary illness has meant that for 15 generations all the members of the tribe have been born blind. As a result, they now have a highly evolved sense of hearing, scent and touch. 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,' thinks the mountaineer.

This story talks about social class at universities in the late 1800s and it also looks at the idea of scholarships. The main character is the son of a cobbler and he's at university on a scholarship, unlike the other students who are from wealthy families who are able to pay for their education.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. The Red Room is the account of the terrifying nocturnal experiences of a young man who volunteers to spend a night in the haunted red room at Lorraine Castle.

An English family have just moved to a house in India. They find Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose flooded out of his burrow. A pair of large cobras, Nag and Nagaina, attempt unsuccessfully to kill him. He hears the cobras plotting to kill the father in the house, and attacks Nag in the bathroom. The sound of the fight attracts the father, who shoots Nag. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi destroys Nagaina's eggs and chases her into her "rat-hole" where he kills her too.

DI Barbara Forster returns home to Cumbria for the first time since a personal tragedy shattered her small Lake District village. Tragedy strikes again when her teenage goddaughter Katya vanishes under circumstances that mirror the disappearance of Barbara’s teenage friend 10 years earlier, during a charity fun run on bonfire night - still an unsolved case. Convinced there is a link, Barbara is determined to find the missing girl and answers to the past.

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. MATCHING'S EASY AT EASE: It was the sixth day of Mr. Direck's first visit to England, and he was at his acutest perception of differences. He found England in every way gratifying and satisfactory, and more of a contrast with things American than he had ever dared to hope.

"The Crystal Egg" is a science fiction short story written by H. G. Wells in 1897. The story tells of a shop owner, named Mr. Cave, who finds a strange crystal egg that serves as a window into the planet Mars. The story was written the same year in which Wells was serializing "The War of the Worlds" in Pearson's Magazine, a year before it was published as a novel. Because of the vaguely similar descriptions of the Martians and their machines, "The Crystal Egg" is often considered a precursor to "The War of the Worlds".

G.K. Chesterton was one of the towering figures of British literature in the early twentieth century. A man of massive size, massive personality, and massive appetite, Chesterton famous personality, dress, and personality gave rise to an eponymous adjective: Chestertonian. Although he is renowned for the Father Brown detective series, Chesterton also wrote volumes of nonfiction. First published in 1917, A Short History of England is exactly that, serving Chesterton's goal of publishing "a popular book of history written from the standpoint of a member of the public."

Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life is the first book by American writer Herman Melville, published first in London, then New York, in 1846. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is partly based on the author's actual experiences on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands in 1842, liberally supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and adaptation of material from other books. The title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as Taipi.

Every morning, the same path, the same route, the same time. Except when a wrong turning changes one man’s life for ever...When Steve Ellison discovers the body of a neighbour’s six-year-old daughter - who strongly resembles a child who disappeared in similar circumstances 26 years earlier - it unleashes a sequence of events that turns his life upside down, overwhelms his family, and the local community alike. DCI Neil Hunter immediately begins his investigation and the media invade Steve’s privacy, leaving him stunned, bewildered and...the prime murder suspect.

DI Barbara Forster is investigating a chilling cold case, but what at first seems an isolated child's death soon becomes a conspiracy of secrets and lies. And not only does she have to outmaneuver the agendas of powerful associates, including investigative journalist Alice Myers, who is hell-bent on a major scoop, she also has to confront the demons of her own past. Within days, three young women are found dead in suspicious circumstances, leaving behind suicide notes, and Barbara finds herself caught up in one of the darkest, most harrowing cases of her career.

A complex psychological thriller packed with suspense and a plot that twists and turns like an octopus. On 7th July 2005, a man disappears, believed dead, in the London bombings. Some years later, a freelance journalist recognizes his photograph in a newspaper - the man she has just seen in a café. From that second, Alice’s life will be changed forever in ways she could never have foreseen. Immediately she is pitched into a race against time that takes her from London, across Britain and into the heart of a mystery - the reason for his disappearance on that fateful day.

Nicola never imagines herself as a widow in her mid-thirties. Losing her husband to a sudden illness shatters her world, but then she unexpectedly meets up with Matt, her childhood love. As they reconnect after years apart, Nicola finds herself drawn to his easy charm and gentle demeanour. Despite the guilt she feels for moving on so quickly after her husband's death, she can't help but fall for him. Their affair is passionate and all-consuming, but just as Matt finally decides to leave Michelle his wife, Michelle disappears without trace.

Around three and a half thousand years ago, members of a small community of Bronze Age people spent several days away from their usual activities of farming, hunting, weaving and food processing in order to construct a burial mound.