Mystery & Thriller Audiobooks

Wonder Of Women - Murder Stories Audiobook

"Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law. However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many. In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told. Many did.But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms. However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender.Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need. Narratives had new ideas. Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility.The women included here are talents that dazzle. Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top. Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed. 1 - Women of Wonder - Murder - An Introduction2 - The Murder In Saltashe Woods by Baroness Orczy3 - A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell4 - In The Dark by Edith Nesbit5 - Was It An Illusion. A Parson's Story by Amelia Edwards6 - Mrs Raeburn's Waxwork by Lady Eleanor Smith7 - Talma Gordon by Pauline E Hopkins8 - A Twin Identity by Edith Stewart Drewery9 - Why Herbert Killed His Mother by Winifred Holtby10 - The Octoroon's Revenge by Ruth D Todd11 - An Expiation by Arabella Kenealy12 - Water Running Out by Ethel Lina White13 - Ben Pitcher's Elly by Mary E Mann14 - No 5 Branch Line. The Engineer by Amelia Edwards15 - The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railroad by Baroness Emmuska Orczy16 - The 4.15 Express by Amelia Edwards"

Amelia B. Edwards, Arabella Kenealy, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy, Edith Nesbit, Edith Stewart Drewery, Ethel Lina White, Lady Eleanor Smith, Mary E Mann, Pauline E Hopkins, Ruth D Todd, Susan Glaspell, Winifred Holtby (Author), Laurel Lefkow, Mark Rice-Oxley, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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Wonder Of Women - The Darker Sex

"Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law. However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many. In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told. Many did.But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms. However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender.Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need. Narratives had new ideas. Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility.The women included here are talents that dazzle. Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top. Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed. 1 - Women of Wonder - The Darker Sex - An Introduction2 - The Lifted Veil - Part 1 by George Eliot3 - The Lifted Veil - Part 2 by George Eliot4 - John Charrington's Wedding by Edith Nesbit5 - Luz by Elinor Mordaunt6 - Lena Wrace by May Sinclair7 - Tamar by Lady Eleanor Smith8 - Sylvia by Bessie Kyffin Taylor9 - The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell10 - In the Mist by Mary E Penn11 - In the Séance Room by Lettice Galbraith12 - Behind the Curtain by Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens13 - Behind the Wall by Violet Jacob14 - Under The Electrics by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan15 - The Face in the Glass by Mary Elizabeth Braddon16 - The Strange Looking Man by Fanny Kemble Johnson17 - The Three Kisses by Violet Quirk18 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell19 - Since I Died by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps20 - The Devil's Mother-in-Law by Fernan Caballeron21 - In Dark New England Days by Sarah Orne Jewett"

Bessie Kyffin Taylor, Charlotte Riddell, Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan, Edith Nesbit, Elinor Mordaunt, Elizabeth Gaskell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Fanny Kemble Johnson, Fernan Caballeron, George Eliot, Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens, Lady Eleanor Smith, Lettice Galbraith, Mary E Penn, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, May Sinclair, Sarah Orne Jewett, Violet Jacob, Violet Quirk (Author), Laurel Lefkow, Lisa Bowerman, Robert Maskell (Narrator)

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Wonder Of Women - Stories About Affairs

"Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law. However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many. In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told. Many did.But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms. However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender.Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need. Narratives had new ideas. Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility.The women included here are talents that dazzle. Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top. Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed. 1 - Women of Wonder - Affairs - An Introduction2 - The Storm by Kate Chopin3 - From the Dead by Edith Nesbit4 - Souls Belated by Edith Wharton5 - The Legacy by Virginia Woolf6 - The Pleasant Husband by Marjorie Bowen7 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford8 - Lena Wrace by May Sinclair9 - The Difference by Ellen Glasgow10 - Behind the Curtain by Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens11 - The Kiss by Kate Chopin"

Ada Radford, Edith Nesbit, Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens, Kate Chopin, Marjorie Bowen, May Sinclair, Virginia Woolf (Author), Janet Maw, Liza Ross, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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The Coffin Merchant

"Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex.His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. There he struggled with constraints and boundaries and by night he took to a bohemian lifestyle. Middleton moved into rooms in Blackfriars and joined the New Bohemians club where his literary contacts grew.He became an editor at Vanity Fair where he told a fellow editor, the notorious Frank Harris, that he wanted to pursue a career as a poet. Shortly afterwards Harris published Middleton’s poem ‘The Bathing Boy’.As an author he is most remembered for his short ghost stories.Richard Middleton died on 1st December 1911. He was 29."

Richard Middleton (Author), Robert Maskell (Narrator)

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Juggernaut

"Dorothy Kathleen Broster was born on 2nd September 1877 at Devon Lodge in Grassendale Park, Garston, Liverpool.At 16, the family moved to Cheltenham, where she attended Cheltenham Ladies' College and then on to St Hilda’s College, Oxford to read history, where she was one of the first female students, although at this time women were not awarded degrees.Broster served as secretary to Charles Harding Firth, a Professor of History for several years, and collaborated on several of his works. Her first two novels were co-written with a college friend, Gertrude Winifred Taylor.With the Great War interrupting her literary ambitions she served as a Red Cross nurse at a Franco-American hospital, but returned to England with a knee infection in 1916. After the war, she moved near to Battle in East Sussex and took up writing full-time. In 1920 she at last received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Oxford.Her novels, mainly historical fiction, peaked in popularity with ‘The Flight of the Heron’, in 1925, a best-seller followed up by two sequels.As well as poetry and various articles she also wrote several short stories, the best known of which is a classic of weird fiction ‘The Couching at the Door’ in which an artist appears to be haunted by a mysterious entity.An intensely private individual many readers deduced from her name that she was both a man and Scottish.D K Broster died in Bexhill Hospital on 7th February 1950. She was 73."

D.K. Broster (Author), Janet Fullerlove (Narrator)

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In the Séance Room

"Lettice Galbraith is yet another of those mysterious women of British literature of whom little was recorded.Lizzie Susan Gibson was born on the 27th January 1859 in Kingston-Upon-Hull in Yorkshire into a comfortable middle-class family.Her education was primarily private but at fifteen her father died, and life became rather different.After several years in London, she moved with her mother to Reigate in Surrey. In 1885 she published her first story anonymously and her pseudonym ‘Lettice Galbraith’ only appeared from late 1892.Although her canon of works is small, she mainly achieved her reputation on a single volume of ghost and supernatural stories entitled ‘New Ghost Stories’.After her mother’s death in 1901 she moved to London and continued to write, this time moving on from the short story to the novel, as well as reverting to her given name.For the last two decades of her life, she did not continue her literary career.Lettice Galbraith died on 8th July 1932 at Downe, then in Kent. She was 73."

Lettice Galbraith (Author), Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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August

Bruno Schultz (Author), Janet Fullerlove (Narrator)

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A Night of Horrors

"Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia. His family life was difficult; his father was strict and over-bearing but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’. At school Chekhov was distinctly average. At 16 his father mis-managed his finances and was declared bankrupt. His family fled to Moscow. Chekhov remained and eked out a living by various means, including writing and selling short sketches to newspapers, to finish his schooling. That completed and with a scholarship to Moscow University obtained he rejoined his family.He was able to help support them by selling satirical sketches and vignettes of Russian lifestyles and gradually obtained further commissions. In 1884, he qualified as a physician and, although it earned him little, he often treated the poor for free, he was fond of saying ‘Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.’His own health was now an issue as he began to cough up blood, a symptom of tuberculosis. Despite this his writing success enabled him to move the family into more comfortable accommodation. Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories which included many, many classics including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’. His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26. He was also a major playwright beginning with the huge success of ‘Ivanov’ in 1887. In 1892 Chekhov bought a country estate north of Moscow. Here his medical skills and money helped the peasants tackle outbreaks of cholera and bouts of famine. He also built three schools, a fire station and a clinic. It left him with less time for writing but the interactions with real people gained him detailed knowledge about the peasantry and their living conditions for his stories. His most famous work, ‘The Seagull’ was received disastrously at its premiere in St Petersburg. It was later restaged in Moscow to highlight its psychological aspects and was a huge success. It led to ‘Uncle Vanya’, ‘The Three Sisters’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’. Chekhov suffered a major lung hemorrhage in 1897 while visiting Moscow. A formal diagnosis confirmed tuberculosis and the doctors ordered changes to his lifestyle. Despite a dread of weddings the elusive literary bachelor quietly married the actress Olga Knipper, whom he had met at rehearsals for ‘The Seagull’, on 25th May 1901.By May 1904 with his tuberculosis worsening and death imminent he set off for the German town of Badenweiler writing cheerful, witty letters to his family and assuring them his health was improving. On 15th July 1904 Anton Chekhov died at Badenweiler. He was 44."

Anton Chekhov (Author), David Shaw-Parker (Narrator)

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Pioneers

Juhani Aho (Author), David Shaw-Parker (Narrator)

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A Mysterious Haul

Charles Foley (Author), David Shaw-Parker (Narrator)

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The Ghost Ship

Richard Middleton (Author), Robert Maskell (Narrator)

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The Man Who Fell in Love with the Co-Operative Store

"Stella Benson was born on the 6th January 1892 in Easthope, Shropshire to parents who were landed gentry.Her early years involved frequent household moves which was difficult for the child as she suffered from ill-health. Some of her early education was spent at schools in Germany and Switzerland and by 10 she had developed a lifelong habit of keeping a diary.In the following years her parents separated, and she rarely saw her father. When she did, he encouraged to pause her writing until she had further experience and could better make sense of the world. When he died, she learned he had been an alcoholic.A winter spent in the West Indies provided material for her first novel ‘I Pose’ published the following year in 1915.During the War years she became involved in the women's suffrage movement and dedicated time outside of writing to support the troops and help the poor.In 1918 she decided to travel spending much time in California, where she also tutored at the University of California, and continued to write. In China she met her future husband and after marrying in London, journeyed with him to his various Custom postings through Nanning, Beihai, and Hong Kong and the Far East.The works continued to flow novels, short stories, travel essays all helped to build a deserved and burgeoning reputation.Although her works are now in the forgotten and neglected department her writing style, characters, and narratives more than capably demonstrate her obvious talents. Stella Benson died of pneumonia on the 7th December 1933, at Hạ Long in the Vietnamese province of Tonkin. She was 40."

Stella Benson (Author), David Shaw-Parker (Narrator)

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