Ignore the title. This is not a story about flowers.
It's the story of Ben Brown, a 12-year-old circus boy who runs away after being mistreated by his employer. This is one of Louisa May Alcott's eight delightful novels where children take center stage.
Ben has been tramping for two weeks when he's discovered, nearly starving, by a widow and her two little girls. Mrs. Moss feeds and clothes him and gets him a job with the local Squire. But herding cows is boring for an active boy and he's about to take to the road again when the lovely Miss Celia, owner of the Big House (bordered by lilacs!) arrives and hires him to do odd jobs and be the company for her teenage invalid brother.
This means attending school and being surrounded by children his own age for the first time. Ben endures being teased by other boys for being different but gains their admiration by using his acrobatic skills to excel in sports. Friendships are made and sorely tested. Someone goes missing and someone else is found. And Ben proves himself to be a worthy hero of the story.
Ignore the title. This is not a story about flowers.
It's the story of Ben Brown, a 12-year-old circus boy who runs away after being mistreated by his employer. This is one of…
Written by Ambrose Bierce, and narrated by Mike Vendetti, this story concerns a man from the ancient city of Carcosa who awakens from a sickness-induced sleep to find himself lost in an unfamiliar wilderness. Carcosa was subsequently borrowed by Robert W. Chambers as the setting of his fictional play, The King in Yellow, and features heavily in many of the stories in the book of the same name. These concepts were further expanded upon by H. P. Lovecraft in his Cthulhu Mythos stories.
Written by Ambrose Bierce, and narrated by Mike Vendetti, this story concerns a man from the ancient city of Carcosa who awakens from a sickness-induced sleep to find himself lost…
Ambrose Bierce's classic weird tale, first published in 1886, brings us the eerie visons of a feverish man, and introduces to the world the strange realm of Carcosa. Following this telling is a commentary tracing the origins, influence and importance of this Bierce story.
Ambrose Bierce's classic weird tale, first published in 1886, brings us the eerie visons of a feverish man, and introduces to the world the strange realm of Carcosa. Following…
A young theology student discovers an old house while on his daily walks. There appears to be no one living there but something about the house strikes the young man as strange. After observing an old man entering the house, the student eventually befriends the man in order to discover what he can about the old house besides the gossip in the town. The old man once owned the house but now only visits it briefly four times per year. He claims to have killed his daughter with harsh words and now she haunts the house but agrees to meet him four times per year so that she may pay him rent. In return, he is not to inhabit the house. This tale is as much a story of the psychology of people as it is of ghosts. How much do grief, ego, spite, and revenge play into our ideas of ghosts and being 'haunted'? This was an early Henry James story before he wrote "Turn of the Screw."
A young theology student discovers an old house while on his daily walks. There appears to be no one living there but something about the house strikes the young man as strange.…
While not being not particularly scary by the standards of today many of the ghost stories of the Victorian Era are very entertaining, and represent escapist literature of the highest quality. In To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt, which first appeared in the 1865 Christmas Edition of All the Year Round, the master novelist presents a lively portrait of the spectre of a murder victim with a desire for vengeance.
While not being not particularly scary by the standards of today many of the ghost stories of the Victorian Era are very entertaining, and represent escapist literature of the…
In a world where we have much to fear from living predators, perhaps it is the nonliving ones we should fear more.
Public Domain (P)2014 Rebecca Thomas
Metempsychosis, the supposed transmigration and death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species is the key to this short story by Edgar Allen Poe, narrated by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti. "Metzegerstein", the title of this short story by Edgar Allen Poe, is the name family name of a family that has carried on a long standing feud with the Berlifitzing family bitter rivals somewhere in Eastern Europe. When the patriarch of the Berlifitzing family dies in a fire that destroys the castle and stables. A mighty steed appears to escape the conflagration and become the property of the young Baron Metzegerstein, and now back to the Metempsychosis suspicion.
Metempsychosis, the supposed transmigration and death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species is the key to this short story by…
