Showing results by narrator "Geoffrey Giuliano and The Icon Players" in All Categories

Dracula is the now-classic 1897 gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. It introduced the fearsome Count Dracula, and established many conventions of subsequent vampire fantasies. The novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and a woman led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Aleister Crowley was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial magic. Crowley declared his followers should "do what thou wilt" and seek to align themselves with their true will through the practice of magic.

Burmese Commissioner Nayland Smith and his faithful friend Dr. Petrie continue their fight against the evil genius of Dr. Fu Manchu when they seek to save the good doctor's lost love and protect the British Empire from disaster when their malignant enemy returns to England.

Moonchild is a novel written by the British occultist Aleister Crowley in 1917. Its plot involves a magical war between a group of white magicians, led by Simon Iff, and a group of black magicians, over an unborn child.

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a short book first published in 1880 by German-born socialist Friedrich Engels. The work was primarily extracted from a longer polemic work published in 1876, Anti-Dühring. It first appeared in the French language.

The Time Machine is a science-fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term time machine, coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.

A charming novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centres on a Professor Redlaw and those close to him.

The Dead is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. The other stories in the collection are shorter, whereas at 15,952 words, The Dead is almost long enough to be described as a novella. Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over 30 internationally best-selling biographies, including the London Sunday Times best seller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison.

The story centers on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the dark side of European colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters: the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the Europeans' cruel treatment of the African natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil.

Assata Olugbala Shakur is a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who was convicted of being an accomplice in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur was also the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) directed against Black Power movement groups and activists.

One of the first psychic vampire novels of its time - where the vampire feeds off of more than just blood - The House of the Vampire is an early classic in its genre. This Victorian novel operates in the continuum of life and death. What has been can be again, though often terribly transformed. Energetically inventive and infused with a relish for the supernatural, especially the trappings of the dark, The House of the Vampire delivers a horror which we know does not - but none the less conceivably might - exist and threaten ourselves.

Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw that takes place in 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina Petkoff is engaged to the gallant Sergius Saranoff, hero of the recent Bulgarian victory over the Serbs. But she is distracted by the abrupt arrival of Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary who fought for the Serbian army. He takes refuge in her bedroom after the battle and although he is initially threatening, reveals that he carries chocolate creams instead of bullets. Will Raina marry the posturing Sergius or the chocolate cream soldier?

The Baskerville family curse tells of how a terrifying, supernatural hound roams the moors around Baskerville Hall and preys on members of the family in revenge for a terrible crime committed by one of their ancestors. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead in his grounds, with a large animal footprint near his lifeless body, the locals are convinced that the hound is back. It is up to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to uncover the truth and keep the new heir to Baskerville Hall safe from danger.

The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin in Brazil that encountered prehistoric animals. It has been the inspiration for subsequent fiction, including Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.

The Book of Lies, or Liber 333, is a holy book in the Western occult tradition of Thelema, consisting of 91 short chapters of poems, aphorisms, rituals, and metaphysics. This recording is of the original 1913 publication, and thus omits the further commentaries added by Crowley for subsequent additions. Those familiar with Crowley’s hermetic writings will recognize his subversive and playful style.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, both appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. Irving made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle.

Aleister Crowley was born October 12, 1875. He was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century.

Written in 1920 by the British author Hugh Lofting, the Doctor Dolittle books were a series of children's novels about a man who learns to talk to animals and becomes their champion around the world. It was one of the novels in the series which was adapted into the 1967 film Doctor Dolittle.

Britain won the moon race! Decades before Neal Armstrong took his "giant leap for mankind", two intrepid adventurers from Lympne, England, journeyed there using not a rocket, but an antigravity coating. Mr. Bedford, who narrates the tale, tells of how he fell in with eccentric inventor Mr. Cavor, grew to believe in his researches, helped him build a sphere for traveling in space, and then partnered with him in an expedition to the moon. What they found was fantastic!

Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is based on his ingenious and profound poems, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in poetry. Poe was also the principal forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in 19th century literature. He demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe’s poetry greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature.