Showing results by narrator "Ant Richards" in All Categories

Dusk was falling as Patrick slowed the car and pulled into a lay-by. Scots pines swayed in the strengthening wind. He had heard on the radio that a storm was blowing in.

I was pretty angry when I first came to Coverdale, but I suppose that's not altogether surprising. Most of the world was angry in 1940.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 - January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir Two Years Before the Mast. Both as a writer and as a lawyer, he was a champion of the downtrodden, from seamen to fugitive slaves and freedmen. MY FIRST VOYAGE: The fourteenth day of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America.

For many days we had been tempest-tossed. Six times had the darkness closed over a wild and terrific scene, and returning light as often brought but renewed distress, for the raging storm increased in fury until on the seventh day all hope was lost. We were driven completely out of our course; no conjecture could be formed as to our whereabouts.

The appearance of the first fragments of gulf-weed caused quite a little excitement, and set an enthusiastic pair of naturalists, a midland hunting squire, and a travelled scientific doctor who had been twelve years in the Eastern Archipelago, fishing eagerly over the bows, with an extemporized grapple of wire, for gulf-weed, a specimen of which they did not catch.

I'd done a bit of acting at school Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, and King Duncan in the Scottish Play, that sort of thing - so it wasn't much of a surprise to anyone when I joined the Ledlaw Amateur Dramatic Society (LADS).

People like an open fire, if they can be bothered with all the work it entails - cleaning out the grate, scrunching up newspaper, laying the kindling, fetching in the fuel. All that effort is worth it to sit and watch the flames dancing, to feel the real heat warm you through.

School and first went into the business, my grandfather, who had retired by then, told me about how chimney sweeps are regarded as good luck, and maybe more than that to some of the female customers, but he said that I should always treat everyone with respect.

The 'Wetland Watch' had been widely advertised, so Jack was surprised when only four people came. He had spent the morning sweeping out the hide before going on his rounds and couldn't help but feel a small stab of disappointment at the low turn-out.

Beth wrapped the bread and cheese back in their papers and tied the parcel into her bundle. It was proper harvest weather; the afternoon sun roasting, the sky a faultless blue.

When young Lucian Miller visits the house of a friend it is everything he had long fantasised about; decay and grandeur, lofty rooms, dark red shadows and dust. The evening, however, is a disaster, and Lucian finds himself apparently alone with the sophisticated but troubled Miranda Honeyman. They shut all of the doors in an attempt to keep their problems out, but it soon becomes apparent that someone else may have access to the house. On the threshold of adulthood, in a heightening atmosphere of sexual uncertainty and violence, Lucian tries to make sense of what is happening around him.

George Cupples (2 August 1822 - 17 October 1891) was a Scottish journalist and a writer, who became famous at the end of 19th century for his maritime novels. A TORNADO AT SEA: What was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the old Iris.

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 - September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries created a unique form of American literature. AMONG THE ICE FLOES: "Keep her a good full, Mr. Hazard," said Roswell, as he was leaving the deck to take the first sleep in which he had indulged for four-and-twenty hours, "and let her go through the water. We are behind our time, and must keep in motion.

You've been visiting for some time and I've made very little effort to communicate. I have nothing against you - you are well turned out in your skirt and twin-set, your hair in its careful bun. I cannot fault your appearance; you seem the right sort: clean, punctual, intelligent. Even your persistence is commendable.

A mutual acquaintance of ours suggested I should write to you. She is a volunteer librarian in your establishment whom you will know. She took special note of you because you borrow more books than any other inmate, and it occurred to her that you might appreciate a correspondent who had time to write you a proper letter.

Burning Daylight takes place in the Yukon Territory in 1893. The main character, Elam Harnish, nicknamed "Burning Daylight", was the most successful entrepreneur of the Alaskan Gold Rush. The story of the main character was partially based upon the life of Oakland entrepreneur "Borax" Smith. Bringing his fortunes to the States, he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. Embarking on a new life in California, he makes another fortune by underhanded means . . . only to find his corrupt life suddenly turned around by the love of a woman.

Ships at anchor reared their tall masts, here and there; and the broad stream was enlivened and colored by junks and boats of all sizes and vivid hues, propelled on the screw principle by a great scull at the stern, with projecting handles for the crew to work; and at times a gorgeous mandarin boat, with two great glaring eyes set in the bows, came flying, rowed with forty paddles by an armed crew, whose shields hung on the gunwale and flashed fire in the sunbeams.

Herman Melville August 1, 1819 - September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are "Moby-Dick" (1851); "Typee" (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and "Billy Budd", Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.