Read by Mark Rice-Oxley, Christopher Ragland & Ghizela Rowe (Unabridged: 5hrs 50mins)

Featuring stories by John Galsworthy, William Hope Hodgson, Virginia Woolf, D H Lawrence, Saki, M R James, Algernon Blackwood & others.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

The Victorian era ceases but England strides on. Confident, bestriding the globe as policeman and enforcer of her Imperial ways.  In literature her authors create majestic works that beguile an ever growing audience that now covers the world.

In this compilation - 

01 - The 20th Century - The English - An Introduction

02 - The Matador of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

03 - Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf

04 - The Rocking Horse Winner by D H Lawrence

05 - Count Magnus by M R James

06 - Gabriel-Ernest by Saki

07 - The Kit Bag by Algernon Blackwood

08 - The Salvation of a Forsythe - Part 1 by John Galsworthy

09 - The Salvation of a Forsythe - Part 2 by John Galsworthy

10 - August Heat by W F Harvey

11 - The Diary of a God by Barry Pain

12 - The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson