Showing results by narrator "Peter Joyce" in All Categories

Heroes Ralph, Jack and Peterkin set sail on the Arrow and are the only three survivors of a fearful shipwreck. They are washed ashore on a seemingly idyllic coral island.This tranquillity is violently disturbed, first by a tribe of bloodthirsty cannibals and then by the invasion of a vicious pirate and his gang of cut-throats. Will the boys thwart their enemies and live to see England again?

John Buchan's hero Edward Leithen chances upon a worldwide plan for domination. With his own life (and the lives of his friends) depending on the outcome of his struggle, he engages in combat with the anarchic brain behind The Power-House. The author, despite being very busy in public service, wrote over 50 books during his life, but his particular talent was for writing fast-moving adventure stories. The Power-House, a good example of this genre, was first published in 1916.

A Child of the Jago is both thriller and condemnation of social conditions in the East End slums at the turn of the century. Boy hero Dicky Perrott is at heart full of humane instinct but his environment ensures his down fall. "It was my fate to encounter a place in Shoreditch where children were born and reared in circumstances which gave them no reasonable chance of living decent lives: where they were born fore-damned to a criminal or semi criminal career.

Third in the massively successful Krondor series inspired by Feist's global best-selling computer game Return to Krondor. A drop in the ocean? A raid upon the high seas signals an attack of unprecedented magnitude by the forces of darkness. For the holiest of holies, the Tear of the Gods has been lost to the Temple of Ishap. After a raid planned by Bear, one of the most brutal pirates to sail the Bitter Sea, goes dramatically wrong, the colossal gems sink below the waves.

Revolutionary for the time in encouraging children to think like children, the adventure of Princess Irene and Curdie, the boy miner, was to influence generations of writers, including Chesterton and Tolkien. Overflowing with fantastic ideas and images to delight the young and allegory to inspire their morality ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ has remained one of the most exciting tales for over 100 years.Irene lives in a castle on a mountain under which there is a labyrinth of tunnels inhabited by Goblins.

Erewhon is not only an adventure story but also Butler's satirical inversion of English customs and philosophy in the 19th century. The explorer Higgs discovers a well organised and civilised country - apparently idyllic. However, the body politic has two ruling obsessions, disease is considered a crime and machinery is seen as a threat to the supremacy of man.

As well as penning some of the most popular detective fiction, Conan Doyle also wrote thrilling adventure stories. ‘Rodney Stone’ is a combination of both. Nelson, Beau Brummell, Fox and King George III himself appear in a tale at the heart of which is, as one character says, “a pretty conspiracy - a criminal, an actress and a prize-fighter, all playing their parts”.

Over 100 years since it was first published Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow addresses subjects which are still relevant today – perhaps more so! Being hard up, being in the blues and being in love are just some aspects of the human condition on which Jerome K. Jerome reflects in his unique whimsical fashion. These insights are not given for the benefit of our education however, for as he says in his introduction, “This book would not elevate a cow.'

This is a sensible book. I want you to understand that. This is a book to improve your mind. In this book, I tell you all about Germany – at all events all I know about Germany – and the Ober-Ammorgau Passion Play. I also tell you about other things. I do not tell you all I know about all these other things because I do not want to swamp you with knowledge. I wish to teach you gradually. I should only be defeating my own object that I, by making you think too much at first, give you a perhaps lasting dislike to the exercise.

Helen Rathbone meets her elderly uncle, James Ollerenshaw, in Bursley Park, after an estrangement of several years. Both are very strong-willed, independent characters. Helen has an extravagant lifestyle and likes to spend money while the old man has lived a thrifty life and intends to continue in the same way. However, they develop a friendship which progresses rapidly, and Helen moves in to James' house to look after him.

Love and Mr Lewisham is a hugely uplifting tale from the pen of one of our greatest writers. Wells drew on his own experience as a young teacher to provide the background and, one suspects, the emotional drama. The plot enables him to satirise the educational establishment and deliver many wry observations on Victorian morality and the obsession with the supernatural. One day Mr Lewisham sits at his makeshift desk at his lodgings. He is an assistant master at Whortley proprietary school.

A wonderfully evocative tale of the courtship of Fancy Day, newly arrived schoolmistress, by Dick Dewy, carrier of goods, during the four seasons of one year in Wessex. Most of Hardy’s work had tragedy woven into the narrative but ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ is full of whimsy and good humour. The story is not without its serious comment, however, as Hardy reflects on class division and the disappearance of heritage in the rural community.

The house is called "Pleasance" and is rented by two sisters, Blanche and Aileen. The story revolves around the fortunes of two neighbouring families of varied social standing. The sisters' semi-detachment is to the Hopkinsons. Whilst Blanche's husband, Arthur, is abroad on a mission, the neighbours soon prove themselves invaluable as friends and Blanche and Mrs Hopkinson discover that their husbands are already acquainted!

At the beginning of the story the heroine lives an unfulfilled life in rural France, her nature crushed by a domineering and miserly father. Gallant cousin Charles arrives and acts as a catalyst on Eugénie's personality and emotions. Will her love survive the strong self-opinion of the young man and the selfishness of her father or is Eugénie's reward destined to be in heaven?

In this, the second volume of the Saga to be released in an unabridged recording by Assembled Stories, Soames’ house continues to be built as his marriage disintegrates. Is Irene having an affair? Certainly her relationship with the architect Bosinney is causing ructions in the family. While attempting reconciliation with his son, Old Jolyon, spurred by June’s suffering as she feels herself losing her lover, sends Young Jolyon to sound the man’s intentions.

One of the greatest novels to have come from the 19th century, a realistic, gritty exposure of the lives, loves, intrigue and rivalry that existed in the literary world of London. The art form and culture of writing is becoming a business, expanding rapidly, and profit is more important than integrity of purpose.

The house at Richmond is finished at last, but Soames takes Bosinney to court for exceeding the budget. The final judgment of their case turns on ‘a very fine point’ in their correspondence.... The architect does not heed Young Jolyon’s warning and continues to pursue Irene - with fatal consequences.

Anthony Hope was constrained to return to the fictional land of Ruritania by an appreciative public who wanted more swashbuckling and derring-do from the hero Rudolph and more Machiavellian moustache twirling from the suave villain Rupert. The author came up with a literary construction which ensured he would never again have to visit fictional Ruritania - but nothing he subsequently wrote appealed as much as the two Zenda stories.

Phlegmatic Anne is the unappreciated strength within her family - a vain, pompous father, a self-regarding and self-deluding older sister and a dissatisfied and selfish younger one. At the age of 19, Anne is persuaded out of an engagement to Frederick Wentworth, an ambitious, highly principled and determined naval gentleman who departs in angry indignation. Eight years later, by coincidental circumstances, he is brought into her social circle once more, having obtained wealth and reputation.

The tale of a rural habitation in the late 19th Century and the effect of industrialisation on the local community.Seventeen year old Phillis lives on Hope Farm with her parents Minister Ebenezer Holman and his simple wife. Her second cousin Paul Manning, at first reluctantly, comes to visit. He is the son of a rising inventor from Birmingham and is employed as a clerk to Edward Holdsworth, the managing engineer of a railway company laying a line close to the farm.