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  Romeo And Juliet - Full Cast Drama

  William Shakespeare

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  The characters of Romeo and Juliet have been depicted in literature, music, dance, and theatre. The appeal of the young hero and heroine—whose families, the Montagues and the Capulets, respectively, are implacable enemies—is such that they have become, in the popular imagination, the representative type of star-crossed lovers. Shakespeare sets the scene in Verona, Italy. Juliet and Romeo meet and fall instantly in love at a masked ball of the Capulets, and they profess their love when Romeo, unwilling to leave, climbs the wall into the orchard garden of her family’s house and finds her alone at her window. Because their well-to-do families are enemies, the two are married secretly by Friar Laurence. When Tybalt, a Capulet, seeks out Romeo in revenge for the insult of Romeo’s having dared to shower his attention on Juliet, an ensuing scuffle ends in the death of Romeo’s dearest friend, Mercutio. Impelled by a code of honor among men, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished to Mantua by the Prince of Verona, who has been insistent that the family feuding cease. When Juliet’s father, unaware that Juliet is already secretly married, arranges a marriage with the eminently eligible Count Paris, the young bride seeks out Friar Laurence for assistance in her desperate situation. He gives her a potion that will make her appear to be dead and proposes that she take it and that Romeo rescue her. She complies. Romeo, however, unaware of the friar’s scheme because a letter has failed to reach him, returns to Verona on hearing of Juliet’s apparent death. He encounters a grieving Paris at Juliet’s tomb, reluctantly kills him when Paris attempts to prevent Romeo from entering the tomb, and finds Juliet in the burial vault. There he gives her a last kiss and kills himself with poison. Juliet awakens, sees the dead Romeo, and kills herself. The families learn what has happened and end their feud. 
   

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  The Wind in the Willows

  Kenneth Grahame

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  This shortened version of Kenneth Grahame’s original 1908 book uses only his original words, just fewer of them. Originally created for a one-man performance, this version is ideal for enjoying in just a few sittings 
  A classic tale for kids and big kids alike, The Wind in the Willows is a whirlwind ride through the seasons as Ratty, Mole and Badger follow the impulsive Toad on his hapless misadventures.

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  Tale of Two Cities A (Unabridged)

  Charles Dickens

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  A Tale of Two Cities is an 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.Dickens' best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is regularly cited as the best-selling novel of all time. In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC's The Big Read poll. The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and the stage, and has continued to have an influence on popular culture.

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  The Black Ferry

  John Galt

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  John Galt (1779-1839) was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator.One night, a traveller is waiting for the young ferryman to return, as he is unable to take himself over the river, owing to a broken arm. While he waits, a young military recruit and a heavily pregnant woman arrive, arguing. They set off together on the ferry. The old ferryman's wife thinks she hears a shriek shortly afterwards, but the night is so stormy and black that they can see nothing. That night the traveller has strange and disturbing nightmares. Every year on the anniversary of this date, for seven years, he had further terrifying dreams, which he describes to a learned friend. Fourteen years from the incident at the ferry, a stranger is lodged with them, who looks strangely familiar. It is the young recruit from the black ferry...and what follows is bizarre and terrifying.

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  The House Of The Arrow

  A. E. W. Mason

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  A young English girl is accused in Dijon of murdering her French aunt. Hanaud to the rescue! Inspector Hanaud is a member of the French Sûreté. He is said to have been the model for Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, as well as the opposite of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. In 1910, Mason undertook to create a fictional detective as different as possible from Sherlock Holmes, who had recently been resuscitated after his supposed death by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1903. Inspector Gabriel Hanaud was stout, not gaunt like Holmes; a professional policeman, not a gentleman amateur; from the French Sûreté, not Victorian England; and relying on psychological insights rather than physical evidence. His "Watson" is a retired London banker named Mr. Julius Ricardo, though he appears only briefly in this novel.

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  Female Short Story The - A...

  Louisa May Alcott, Mary...

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  A wise man once said ‘The safest place for a child is in the arms of his mother’s voice’.  This is a perfect place to start our anthology of female short stories. 
   
  Some of our earliest memories are of our mothers telling us bedtime stories. This is not to demote the value of fathers but more to promote the often-overshadowed talents of the gentler sex. 
   
  Perhaps ‘gentler’ is a word that we should re-evaluate. In the course of literary history it is men who dominated by opportunity and with their stranglehold on the resources, both financial and technological, who brought their words to a wider audience.  Men often placed women on a pedestal from where their talented words would not threaten their own.   
   
  In these stories we begin with the original disrupter and renegade author Aphra Behn.  A peek at her c.v. shows an astounding capacity and leaves us wondering at just how she did all that. 
   
  In those less modern days to be a woman, even ennobled, was to be seen as second class.  You literally were chattel and had almost no rights in marriage.  As Charlotte Smith famously said your role as wife was little more than ‘legal prostitute’.  From such a despicable place these authors have used their talents and ideas and helped redress that situation.   
   
  Slowly at first.  Privately printed, often anonymously or under the cloak of a male pseudonym their words spread.  Their stories admired and, usually, their role still obscured from rightful acknowledgement. 
   
  Aided by more advanced technology, the 1700’s began to see a steady stream of female writers until by the 1900’s mass market publishing saw short stories by female authors from all the strata of society being avidly read by everyone.  Their names are a rollcall of talent and ‘can do’ spirit and society is richer for their works.   
   
  In literature at least women are now acknowledged as equals, true behind the scenes little has changed but if (and to mis-quote Jane Austen) there is one universal truth, it is that ideas change society.  These women’s most certainly did and will continue to do so as they easily write across genres, from horror and ghost stories to tender tales of love and making your way in society’s often grueling rut.  They will not be silenced, their ideas and passion move emotions, thoughts and perhaps more importantly our ingrained view of what every individual human being is capable of.    
   
  It is because of their desire to speak out, their desire to add their talents to the bias around them that we perhaps live in more enlightened, almost equal, times.   
   
  Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. 
   
  01 - The Female Short Story. A Chronological History - An Introduction - Volume 3 
  02 - A Witch's Den by Helena Blavatsky 
  15 - The Ghost in the Clock Room by Hesba Stretton 
  04 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell 
  05 - The Brothers by Louisa May Alcott 
  06 - Carnivorine by Lucy Hamilton Hooper 
  04 - The Face in the Glass by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 
  08 - The Moonstone Mass by Harriet Prescott Spofford 
  09 - The General's Will by Vera Jelihovsky 
  10 - The Story of the RipplingTrain by Mary Louisa Molesworth 
  11 - The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth by Rhoda Broughton 
  12 - A Twin Identity by Edith Stewart Drewery&

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