Showing results by narrator "Ghizela Rowe" in All Categories

The Haunted House is a skillful portmanteau by Dickens, assembling the best literary talent of his age, including Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Hesba Stretton, Adelaide Anne Proctor, George Augustus Sala and, of course, the literary leviathan himself, to delight us, scare us and occasionally raise a laugh or two before the next moment of fear and dread come calling. 

The Death of the Lion is a formidable short story with a sharply comic view of the literary 'lionization' of an author by many who know little of his work. It is a situation Henry James himself was often in. 

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19th, 1809, and was orphaned at an early age. Taken in by the Allan family, his education was cut short by lack of money, and he went to the military academy West Point where he failed to become an officer.  His early literary works were poetic, but he quickly turned to prose. He worked for several magazines and journals until in January 1845, The Raven was published and became an instant classic.

In 1816, Dr Polidori was given the job of Byron’s personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. At the Villa Diodati, Byron’s rented villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Claire Clairmont. One night in June, Byron suggested they each write a ghost story. There were to be two outstanding works from that evening: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’, which would be the first published modern vampire story in English. 

The beautiful island of Ireland has endured a history that is pock-marked with struggle and oppression, with religious division and self-serving administrations. It has sacrificed its youth in wars, its generations in famines and emigration, but it has never forsaken its calling that Ireland is a beacon of dignity, humanity and a home for words and literature of every description. Across the centuries, whatever its joys or torments, its poets have assembled verse that speaks from its soul.

Stephen Crane was born 1st November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, and was the eighth surviving child out of 14. Incredibly, he began writing at the age of four and was published several times by the age of 16. Crane only began a full-time education when he was nine but quickly mastered the grades needed to catch up and move forward. Although educated at Lafayette and Syracuse, he had little interest in completing university and was keener to move on to a career, declaring college to be ‘a waste of time’.

Mirabai was a Rajput princess born to the Rathore clan in 1498 in Kudaki, Rajasthan, in northern India. Despite being one of the most significant saints in the Bhakti tradition and an immensely popular Hindu mystic and religious poet, very few facts are actually known about her life including her date of birth. It is clear that her mother died when she was very young and she was greatly influenced by her father, also a worshipper of Krishna. From a young age, Mirabai’s devotion to Krishna was absolute surrender and complete devotion.

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours. Everyone needs it. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day - a chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again. Our poets, from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others, explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod. 

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born on August 28th, 1814, at 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots. The children were tutored, but, according to his brother William, the tutor taught them little if anything. Le Fanu was eager to learn and used his father's library to educate himself about the world. He was a creative child and by 15, had taken to writing poetry.

Ernest Bramah was born on 20th March 1868. He was an intensely private man and very little about his life was ever released. Bramah dropped out of Manchester Grammar school at 16, in almost all his subjects he was close to the bottom of his class, and took a job at a farm. His father then invested substantial sums in setting him up with his own farm, but Bramah’s long term interests were elsewhere. In his spare time he would write vignettes on local subjects and send them to The Birmingham News for publication. 

For many of us Autumn, or as the Americans would say; Fall is the season of mixed emotions. Summer's long days are replaced by a chill in the air. The colours on the trees and fields ripen to warmer hues and the harvest is brought safely home. Yet with this bounty there is the knowledge that Nature is turning her attention to the harder, colder Winter month's ahead.

Elizabeth Stevenson was born in Chelsea in London on 29th September 1810. Both parents embedded their strong Unitarian beliefs into Elizabeth, who rebelliously was often reluctant to display these religious convictions. The early death of Elizabeth’s mother saw her sent away to be brought up by her maternal aunt in Knutsford, Cheshire. Her father now remarried, but Elizabeth spent most of her childhood in Cheshire, away from her father and his new family but was supportive towards her half-siblings.

Christmas, they say, comes but once a year. In these days it seems to also last for much of that year - but this volume is not just for Christmas! For the religious amongst us, this annual celebration of the Birth of Christ must seem bitter sweet: it's acknowledgment by billions of people countered by the pervasive spread of material possessions translating the event to little more than a sales pitch for material wares.

December - the 12th and closing month in the Gregorian calendar. Winter is upon the land, and the poets, including such as Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Shakespeare, and Stevenson, share their views and thoughts.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and was to become a founder of modernist writing. Her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become a revered writer. Her mother died when she was 13, her half sister Stella two years later and with that came her first of several nervous breakdowns. 

In January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection, but a few days later he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic, and by May 1868 Hopkins firmly 'resolved to be religious'. Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and ceased to write for almost seven years.

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett was born on 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, the eldest of 12 children. The family's wealth was derived from sugar plantations manned by slaves in Jamaica, enabling them to also purchase a 500-acre estate in Herefordshire. This wealth allowed her to publish poems from an early age. However, by age 20, the family’s fortunes were in decline, though they were never below comfortable, after losing a lawsuit over their plantations.

Christina Georgina Rossetti remains one of the most important poets in the British tradition, both for her own work and those she influenced, most notably Virginia Wolfe. Rossetti is praised for her willingness to explore different genres and poetic forms within her body of work. Thematically, her poems run the gamut from frustrated love, to religion, to the Gothic, and beyond. Her choice of form is equally eclectic. Here, a reading of some of her best work by David Shaw-Parker and Ghizela Rowe.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a delightful tale of true love having to struggle against duty and pride. It has three separate interlocking stories set in Athens, a woodland, and the realm of the fairies - all under a moonlit sky. This is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, and this reading unfolds the plot quickly while retaining its charm.

George Meredith, OM, was born in Portsmouth, England on February 12th, 1828. His mother died when he was five. As a 14-year-old he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, staying there for two years. After reading law he was articled as a solicitor but quickly abandoned that career path for journalism and poetry. He collaborated with Edward Gryffydh Peacock, son of Thomas Love Peacock, in publishing a privately circulated literary magazine, the Monthly Observer.