Classic Tales of Christmas

A Yuletide Collection of Stories, Poems, and Essays

By: Harrison Morris, John Fox Jr., Max Beerbohm, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christina Rossetti, Georg Schuster, Richmal Crompton, Alphonse Daudet

Narrated by: Daniel H. Vimont

Classic Christmas Tales of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Annotated for modern readers, including an interesting and informative editor's note preceding each work.

This Yuletide collection of stories, poems, and essays has been rescued from obscurity by the editor, who has also edited and annotated them to make these wonderful classics more easily accessible to modern listeners. While some of these authors may be unknown to you, their works have been included in this collection because of their capacity to instantly intrigue and delight.

Give them a try, and don't be surprised if a few of them make their way onto your list of all-time personal Christmas favorites!

Included in this collection:

• A latter-day Christmas "miracle" offers renewed meaning to the life of the beautiful matriarch of a small Spanish town.
• The revelation of a stunning Christmas secret opens up new horizons for a disillusioned farm wife.
• An unexpected Christmas-morning encounter proves the ultimate challenge to an enterprising ivory hunter venturing into the wild.
• Two stories chronicle the struggle for hope and meaning in Christmas celebrations during times of war.

©2013 Daniel H. Vimont (P)2013 Daniel H. Vimont

Another audiobook falls victim to bad narration

Lesson for authors: when it comes time to turn your literary work into an audiobook, please put aside your egos and ill-advised ambitions toward acting and hire people who ARE real actors to do the narration. This narrator’s style of delivery was so affected as to come off as not only odd but irritating and gave the impression of a sort of cartoonish pomposity. I would not be at all surprised to learn that he showed up at the recording studio wearing a tweed jacket with elbow-patches and hornrimmed half-spectacles, smoking a pipe, and lugging in his own antique leather wingback chair. At only a quarter of the way into the introduction I was already so put off by his delivery that I found it a bit hard to stay open-minded to the stories themselves. I intend to do myself the favor of looking for other versions of these stories so as not to miss a little-known gem of classical literature, but I suspect that, in a bit of a contradiction to the author’s own claimed goal of separating the rare and little-known “good“ from the overly-abundant and surplus “bad“, the adjective “little-known“ was the guiding criteria with which to put together a selection of stories meant to impress us more with their obscurity than their ability to captivate.

Grating performance and tired stories

It was hard for me to get beyond the grating quality of the narrator's voice and his characterizations which I just did not care for. The stories were odd. I don't typically have issues with 19th century or early 20th century writing, but this edition was painful to try to keep an open mind about. I purchased this audiobook as it was highly rated; in truth, not in high enough numbers to give it an objective review? I could not recommend this.

Disappointed

I couldn’t even listen to all of this. Reader has a reading style suitable for reading to small children. It distracted me from the story so badly that after an hour I couldn’t listen to any more.

Cool for the season

This is a collection of essays and as such the content and style varies a bit. I really enjoyed some of them and others I was just meh on. That being said, the quality of the recording was very high and the narrator kept the pieces moving and have a very solid cadence and top notch enunciation which wasn't always easy given some of the dated expressions and writing style. I'll definitely be putting this on around the house as I decorate and get ready for the holiday season!

Daniel H. Vimont Does It Again

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. The combination of Mr. Vimont's talent, clear passion for the material and the choice of stories can't be beat.

What other book might you compare Classic Tales of Christmas to and why?

Classic Tales of Horror, which is just as well done.

What about Daniel H. Vimont’s performance did you like?

His sincerity in bringing not-so-well known holiday tales to the public.

Who was the most memorable character of Classic Tales of Christmas and why?

Mr. Vimont. His talent and choice of material are always entertaining and surprising.

Any additional comments?

More! More! More!

The true beauty of Christmas

Would you listen to Classic Tales of Christmas again? Why?

Absolutely, antique tales that capture the true meaning and beauty of Christmas are so rare!

A Yuletide Car Ride

Where does Classic Tales of Christmas rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's one of the better audio books I've listened to so far.

Who was your favorite character and why?

No particular favorite

Have you listened to any of Daniel H. Vimont’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes. This collection is a nice companion to Daniel Vimont's "Classic Tales of Horror for Halloween". The delivery and quality of Daniel's narration is nicely consistent in both collections (without being overly repetitive in style), so the listener can move from one late-year holiday season to another with a cozy and familiar feeling one enjoys with multiple short stories.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. Since it is a collection of short stories, it's perfect for my commute, to and from work.

Pretentious

Could barely finish the first tale. The narrator was awful and pretentious in his delivery.