Risultati letto da "B.J. Harrison" in Tutte le categorie

Can a man lose his mind because of a braid of hair? Can people come back from the dead? "The Head of Hair" tells the story of one poor man who gets so obsessed with a hairpiece that he comes to believe that the lady it belonged to has returned from the underworld. Nobody believes him and he ends up in an institution for mentally ill but could he have been telling the truth? Did he really get a visitor from the past? B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories.

A woman is suffering from severe postpartum psychosis and her husband takes her to a colonial mansion where they can spend the summer. The woman is however closed and isolated in a single room where her nervous depression gets worse with the time. The only thing she sees all day long is a yellow wallpaper which she studies in so many details that she finally finds a creeping woman behind the pattern. The summer is over and the family is about to go home. The husband opens the door to his wife’s room.

The Greek god Hermes descends from Olympus in search of an invisible nymph. He sees a snake who speaks with the voice of a woman named Lamia. She tells Hermes, that her spirit is trapped in this snake's body. She offers Hermes to help him find the nymph if he uses his divine powers to turn her into a human again. Lamia herself is searching for a charming young man named Lycius.

William Dyer is a geologist who embarks on a long expedition to the Antarctic continent. The journey is dangerous but the strange things he and his group witness and find are far from what they had expected. The discovery mission turns into a fantastical and supernatural experience. Things get out of control when Dyer finds one of his colleagues’ camp demolished. The bigger part of the group is slaughtered, another man and his dog are missing.

B.J. Harrison reads one of Edgar Allan Poe's classic short stories "The Masque of the Red Death". Prince Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge at a castle-like abbey to escape the Red Death, a horrifying plague that has taken over the land at large. Yet horror finds them one night when Prospero holds a masquerade ball and a guest dressed up as the Red Death itself shows up. The chilling story by Edgar Allan Poe dating back to the 19th century is a Gothic horror tale to its very core, providing frights of the most unimaginable type.

Winzy is a young man who is desperately in love with a girl named Bertha. He is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her, even to reluctantly accept an employment offer by the alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. Unfortunately Bertha leaves Winzy for another man and Winzy’s despair leads him to drinking an elixir which Agrippa has been working on. Winzy hopes that the elixir will cure him from love. But it does more than that. The next day Bertha is still true to Winzy and he has been rejuvenated and is happy.

Helen Turrell is a young and well-off single woman, living a the countryside village. But one day, she decides to travel to southern France and returns home with a baby called Michael. Helen says that Michael is the son of her brother, George, who died in India after falling off a horse. However, the truth is quite different and secretly, Helen tells Michael that he can call her "Mummy". Why did Helen travel to France? Is Michael really her nephew? Find out the truth in Rudyard Kipling’s story "The Gardener" from 1925. B. J.

"Schalken the Painter" is a ghost short story by Sheridan Le Fanu, taking place in the 17th-century Netherlands. An aspiring painter falls in love with his master’s niece but one day, a mysterious man comes to ask for the niece’s hand, and the master agrees. Yet the heartbroken painter can’t help but feel that is something totally wrong with this new suitor. This is a short story of about greedy family relations, and is a psychologically unnerving and ghastly tale that fans of horror fiction will definitely love. B. J.

Mr. Cave is an antique shop owner with some curious items in his collection. One of these if an extraordinary crystal egg, which he comes across one evening. Indeed, the egg seems to be a gateway to the planet Mars. This science fiction short story by H. G. Wells dating back to the late 19th century has inspired numerous other literary pieces, as well as radio and television adaptations. "The Crystal Egg" is considered to be a precursor to H. G. Wells' famous science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds" from 1898. B. J.

Sanger Rainsford and Whitney are two friends, who are on their way for a jaguar hunt in the Amazonian rainforest. The two men discuss how the world consists of predators and prey, and that they are from the first type. While debating, the two men hear gunshots. Rainsford climbs onto the yacht’s rail and accidentally falls overboard. Thankfully, he manages to save himself and swims to an island called Ship-Trap, which is famous for its countless shipwrecks. There he meets General Zaroff and his gigantic servant, Ivan.

Zorro is a mysterious man who always wears a large sombrero and a long black cloak. He covers his face with a black mask with two holes through which his sharp gaze follows everything that goes on around him. Zorro has some problems with the Californian governor, who thinks that the man is a thief. The governor is ready to pay a lot of money to the one who kills Zorro. This is where real problems begin for the mysterious man.

It is the day after Christmas. Colonel Adams and his daughter are throwing a party. The neighbor, the girl’s uncle, her godfather and the local priest Father Brown are invited. The uncle comes up with a plan: they are going to arrange a masquerade play with costumes. It seems like a very good idea, until the three diamonds the girl’s godfather had brought her as a gift disappeared from his pocket. Luckily Father Brown is there and he will try to solve this case as quickly as possible.

Lionel Dacre is a young man who lives in a small house in Paris. Because of his large interest in the occult, Dacre has gathered a huge library of occult literature and many mysterious items. One of these items is a leather funnel next to which the young man sleeps. The strange thing is that in his dreams, Lionel can see exactly how the funnel has been used.

Hilton Cubitt visits Sherlock Holmes to show him a sheet of paper with a weird sequence of drawn figures. When these odd messages began to arrive at Cubitt’s house, fear and panic overwhelmed his wife Elsie. She is afraid her past is catching up with her, but she refuses to reveal anything about it. Holmes is tasked with decipher the messages and find out who is sending them.

Ali Baba and Cassim are two Persian brothers. Ali Baba barely manages to put food on the table for his family, while his brother lives an easy life thanks to his rich wife. One day, while chopping wood in the forest, Ali Baba sees a band of thieves laden with treasures approaching. They stop in front of a rock and the captain shouts "Open Sesame!". What happens next is pure magic. The giant rock moves to the sides and opens a portal which the thieves enter.

The three friends Van, Terry and Jeff are about to embark on a mission which will change their lives forever. They have heard of a place where only women live but they are more skeptics than believers. However they really do find such a place. And all their assumptions and stereotypes are shattered. The society that women have created is working more than perfectly. There are no wars, no domination nor conflicts. The three self-invited guests are however not welcome and are held captive for a few months.

Apart from the ubiquitous presence of the authors who work in the short story tradition, the Second Season introduces poems and novellas. The romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is here with his haunting and supernatural sea adventure "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", while Rudyard Kipling tests the human condition with his famous poem "If". Perhaps the most potent addition in this second part is Joseph Conrad’s timeless novella "The Heart of Darkness", exploring the darkest recesses of the human soul. B. J.

B.J. Harrison reads the classic that has puzzled and delighted readers for over two centuries. Dorian Gray is a beautiful man, who has been immortalized in a painting. As he comes to the realization that his beauty will eventually fade, he makes a wish to never lose his beauty and retain eternal youth. Meanwhile, his age and sins continue to live on in his portrait. The late-19th-century classic by Oscar Wilde, a charming yet horrifying Gothic novel, has been adapted countless times to the screen.

Halpin Frayser awakes from a dreamless sleep and the only thing in his mind was the words "Catherine Larue". Frayer feels a shiver down his spine because this was not the first strange thing he had experienced that day. Earlier, he was hunting in the forest but he could feel that something was not quite right. The picture of a haunted forest dripping with blood had come up in his mind. He had seen himself writing a poem with blood. The corpse of his mother had been in front of him.

B.J. Harrison reads "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" which consists of various children’s stories by Oscar Wilde. Originally published in 1888, the work includes five memorable stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend" and "The Remarkable Rocket". It features unforgettable characters, such as the happy prince who has never experienced sorrow and a nightingale who accepts a rose for the ultimate sacrifice.