検索キーワード： ナレーター "B J Harrison" すべてのカテゴリー

It is Thanksgiving day. Stuffy Pete has just come out from an unexpected feast but he is now waiting for his companion, "The Old Gentleman". They only ever meet on this one day of the year, and although they do not know that much of each other, they always spend the holiday together. Stuffy Pete follows the tradition although he is so full that he cannot think of eating more food. The Old Gentleman shows up and they head out to a fancy restaurant for a delicious meal. When Stuffy Pete walks out of the restaurant, he collapses on the sidewalk.

It is Christmas and a little boy receives a gift - a velveteen rabbit. Although the other toys look down on him, the rabbit is happy to be with the boy. They are constant companions and it seems like nothing can worsen their days. But then the boy gets sick and the doctor insists that all the toys get burned because they may be infected. The rabbit as well. Is this the end of their friendship? Or will the rabbit’s dearest wish finally come true? B. J.

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.

After their father’s death, the two brothers, Nur al-Din and Shams al-Din, agree to marry two sisters on the same day. The main idea is that Nur wants to have a son, while Shams wants to have a daughter. And so it happens. Shams al-Din has a daughter and Nur al-Din has a son - Badr al-Din. Right before he dies, Nur tells his young boy about his uncle Shams, who is still in Cairo. After the death of his father, Badr al-Din loses the approval of the sultan and must flee away.

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.

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is one of Victor Hugo most popular historical novels. It follows the story of the young Quasimodo, a hunchback who lives the solitary life of an outcast in the bell tower of Notre-Dame in Paris. When his path crosses that of the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, his little world is turned upside down. Quasimodo’s guardian, the Archdeacon Frollo, becomes equally obsessed with Esmeralda and tries to convince Quasimodo to kidnap her.

Miles Standish and Priscilla Mullins immigrate to America, where they meet a scholar and poet named John Alden. The two men become good friends, but they also both fall in love with Priscilla and a love triangle develops between the three of them. Miles Standish is a soldier, athletic and muscular, whilst John Alden is his complete opposite. Alden struggles, wondering whether he should listen to his heart and chose love over friendship. On the other hand, Standish has lost his wife and looks forward to proposing to Priscilla Mullins.

"The Yellow Sign" is considered to be Robert Chambers’ horror masterpiece. He introduces us to Mr. Scott, an artist living in New York City. One day, Scott sees an overweight young man, who looks like a lawn grub to him. The artist’s is working on a painting of a girl named Tessie. When the girl falls ill, Scott tries to cure her, so he can finish his work as fast as possible. However, Tessie’s condition gets worse and she starts having very strange dreams.

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.

Owen Warland is a genius who wants to create things and break the limitations set by the society and the people surrounding him. He is deeply misunderstood and he often quits his innovative projects when people advise him to take up something more "practical". After many failed attempts to fit in, he finally breaks away from society and finds peace in nature. Will he finally get to finish the creation of his lifetime and will it all have been in vain? Find out in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "The Mechanical Butterfly". B. J.

An Adjutant-crane, a jackal and a giant crocodile are talking by the river, under a newly built railway bridge. The crocodile remembers the good old days, when he used to catch and devour the villagers as they tried to pass through a ford. He also remembers a boat sailing down the river, on which was a white child whom the crocodile tried to catch, but got shot with a revolver instead. Soon the reptile falls asleep, when two men with riffles cross the bridge.

"Barbara of the House of Grebe" is a short story from Thomas Hardys collection "A Group of Noble Dames". It is a dark that intertwines madness and desire. Barbara Grebe is already promised to a wealthy lord when she elopes with another young man, Edmond Willowes. He suffers a terrible disfigurement, and the couples love begins to falter. Hardys pessimism is revealed in his total rejection of the idea of eternal love, certain of its ephemerality.

Hungary during the Ottoman wars: Turks attack Buda and set up a siege of Eger. Gergely Bornemissza is a poor half-orphan who is about to become a national hero. "Eclipse of the Crescent Moon" follows Gergelys life from the age of eight until his early thirties. His life is a vivid combination of poverty, love, battles and dangers. He is on the front line when the Turks capture Buda and later when they approach Eger. His country is in danger and so is his family. The battle is one of life or death.

"The physiognomy of this old woman had struck me more than once: her little green eyes, long, thin nose, the immense bouquets of flowers on her shawl, which must have been at least a hundred years old..." Soon after Christian settles in Nuremberg, he becomes aware of some strange events occuring in the city. People keep hanging themselves from the sign of a public house after having all stayed in the same room of that very house. Determined to find out why, Christian decides to stay in the room, too.

Victor Frankenstein is a young scientist who artificially creates a human being. His expectations are however far from reality as is Creation is so monstrous that it cannot fit into human society. This leads to dreadful consequences as the monster decides to take it revenge his creator. Will Frankenstein manage to control his creature or will he loose everything? "Frankenstein" is Mary Shelley’s best-selling work and is a vivid combination of genres with gothic, philosophical and early science-fiction elements. B. J.

B.J. Harrison reads the classic "The Man with Two Left Feet" by P. G. Wodehouse. Henry Wallace Mills from New York goes on vacation and meets a dancer called Minnie. The two fall in love and get married. They have very different tastes: Minnie loves to dance, while Henry is an avid encyclopaedia reader. One day, Henry decides to get out of his comfort zone and impress Minnie, but things do not go as planned. The short story from the early 20th century offers humor for readers of all tastes. B. J.

"The Thing in the Weeds" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson from his "Sargasso Sea Stories" in which he portrays a monster lurking in the darkest recesses of the unfathomable depths of the sea. An example of Lovecraft’s major principle of "fear of the unknown", the terror in this Hodgson story is a mysterious one, despite the fact that it haunts and kills the characters.

For a very long time Monsieur de Merret has been suspecting his wife of infidelity. One night he comes home earlier than usual and knocks on the door of his wife’s chamber. Right before he enters the room, he hears the door of her closet squeak. Initially, Merret thinks that this is their maid Rosalie, but he is perplexed when the maid enters the room right after him. Merret desires to open the closet so he can once and for all find out the truth about his wife.

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.

B.J. Harrison breathes life into one of Oscar Wilde’s first short stories, "The Canterville Ghost". The American Hiram B. Otis and his family move to a castle in Canterville Chase in the English countryside. They soon discover that they are not alone in the castle and that the ghost of an old tenant, Sir Simon de Canterville, is with them. Yet the family is not so easily scared, even if the ghost can take many shapes and forms. The short story from the late 19th century mixes humor with the macabre.