Showing results by narrator "Ralph Cosham" in All Categories

In Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just 80 days - and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompanied by his hot-blooded French manservant, Passepartout. Traveling by train, steamship, sailboat, sledge, and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks, and the dogged Inspector Fix of Scotland Yard to win the extraordinary wager.

This classic precursor to the modern-day spy novel was recently in headlines when it was revealed that the Unabomber drew considerable inspiration from its prophetic portrait of terrorism. Written in 1907 and set in Edwardian London, The Secret Agent resonates just as strongly in today's world, where a handful of fanatics can still play mad politics and victimize the innocent.

Chekhov can characterize with a single well-selected detail. He sums up relationships among a group of people, or the beliefs held by an entire country, by finding those key objects that crystallize his characters' strongest emotions. These four stories dramatize an array of obsessions that are at once purely Russian and deeply universal. Ralph Cosham's voice is so clear and unaccented as he reads these tales that he is a bit surprising; the complex Russian names stand out, jolting the listeners.

Kidnapped is one of Stevenson's most enduringly popular novels. At its center is a historical event: the murder of Colin Campbell, the "Red Fox" of Glenure in Scotland. David Balfour, whose father dies leaving him with nothing to live on, goes to live with a cruel and miserly uncle. The uncle attempts to have the boy killed and then has him kidnapped and taken to sea. The ship is wrecked, and the novel follows David and and his friend Alan as they journey across the Highlands through numerous dangers including witnessing and becoming suspects in the murder of the Red Fox.

In this second Sherlock Holmes novel, the indomitable sleuth is visited by a woman in distress. Each year on the anniversary of her father’s mysterious disappearance ten years ago, Miss Mary Morstan has been receiving pearls, she knows not why or from whom. This time, her anonymous benefactor wants to meet. In the letter, he promised to reveal the mystery and to “right the wrongs” against her. “If you distrust me,” he wrote, “bring two friends.” She brought Holmes and Watson.

In World War I, possibly the most horrific modern war, two soldier poets put down their thoughts in poetry telling us much about wars and the people who fight them. This is a wonderful production with a very timely subject.

A continuation of The Jungle Book, these further adventures of Mowgli the man-cub and his animal companions are sure to delight listeners of all ages. Vibrant and crackling with intensity, these stories present Akela the wolf; Baloo the brown bear; Shere Khan, the boastful Bengal tiger who is Mowgli’s enemy; Kaa the python; Bagheera the black panther; and Rikki-tikki-tavi the mongoose, among others.

After being horribly mistreated at a government animal-research facility, Snitter and Rowf escape into the isolation - and terror - of the wilderness. Aided only by a fox they call "the tod", the two dogs must struggle to survive in their new environment. When the starving dogs attack some sheep, they are labeled ferocious, man-eating monsters, setting off a great dog hunt that is later intensified by the fear that the dogs could be carriers of the bubonic plague.

This unique collection of lesser-known tales and poems from a master of the macabre demonstrates Poe's literary range. From the title story, which examines the behavior of an old man walking through Baltimore, to the beautiful poetry in "The Sleeper" and "Annabel Lee," these often hard-to-find works are superbly narrated by Ralph Cosham. Also included in the collection is "MS. Found in a Bottle" (one of Poe's first major works), the account of a man who boards the Flying Dutchman; "Eleonora," a tale of a vow of love; "The Oval Portrait," in which a young artist literally captures the life force of his new bride; "Berenice," about a premature burial - with a particularly unnerving effect; "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," about a macabre experiment in hypnotism; and "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" and "The Man That Was Used Up," 2 stories that demonstrate Poe's humor.

The Swedish Red Cross expedition to the German concentration camps in March-April 1945 was the largest rescue effort inside Germany during World War II. Sponsored by the Swedish Government and led by Count Bernadotte of Wisborg, the mission became known for its distinctive buses. Each bus was purposefully painted entirely white except for the Red Cross emblem on the side so that they would not be mistaken for military targets.

On her morning journey to earn money for her impoverished family, Tess' horse has an accident, forcing her to seek assistance from some newly rich relatives. There, she is vigorously pursued by Alec, who corners her in a field one night and takes advantage of her.

Race across the world and explore the depths of the caverns below in this pair of adventure stories: Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne.

In this beautifully crafted and heartbreakingly poignant coming-of-age tale, an older man recounts the story of his most significant friendship - that with the nearly feral and completely parentless Finn, who lived alone in a hut by the sea.

Enjoy two seafaring adventures by a beloved classic adventure writer in Kidnapped and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

James Joyce, 1882-1941, is one of the world's greatest writers. Dubliners, his first and most accessible fiction, was started in in 1904 and completed in 1905. Because it was considered explicit and critical of the Church, it was censored in Ireland. Two publishers broke contracts rather than publish it. When, in 1912, Joyce returned to Dublin to buy back his work, a printer destroyed the sheets and broke up the type. It was not published until 1914.

The Good Soldier is a story about the complex social and sexual relationships between two couples - one English, one American - and the growing awareness of American narrator John Dowell of the intrigues and passions behind their orderly Edwardian façade. It is Dowell’s attitude - his puzzlement, uncertainty, and the seemingly haphazard manner of his narration - that makes the book so powerful and mysterious. In Ford’s brilliantly woven tale, nothing is quite what it seems.

"At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world." In H.G. Wells's classic tale, a time traveler journeys to the distant future and finds the earth a lush Eden, populated by the gentle, pacifistic Eloi. However, he soon sees the dark side of this paradise when his time machine is stolen, trapping him in the future. To recover it, he must confront the Eloi's dreaded cousins and masters of the underworld, the Morlocks. Ralph Cosham's excellent performance of this classic distopian novella was the key in earning it AudioFile's Earphones Award.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born December 30, 1865 in Bombay, India. The name Rudyard was taken from a lake in Staffordshire, England. At the age of 6, he and his younger sister were sent back to England where they lived with separate families that took in children for hire. He returned to India at age 16. Rudyard knew literary success at a young age and was able to travel. He married Carrie Balestier, an American, and moved to the United States. The Jungle Books were written in Vermont. He died January 18, 1936 in Middlesex, England during an operation.

A Difference in Magnitude uses selected government documents, radio and newsreel broadcasts, and eyewitness accounts to tell the story of the atomic bomb and the nuclear attacks on Japan. Letters, official memos, and diary entries describe the Trinity Test in White Sands, New Mexico; recount President Truman's thoughts before the attacks; tell of the opposition of scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project; and give Japan's response to the devastation.

In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, and he returns, chastened and humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost. In The Master Colm Tóibín captures the exquisite anguish of a man who circulated in the grand parlours and palazzos of Europe, who was astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art, and yet whose attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love.