Audiobooks Narrated by John Michael MacDonald

A Psychological Shipwreck

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on 24th June 1842 at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio. His parents were poor but they introduced him to literature at an early age, instilling in him a deep appreciation of books, the written word and the elegance of language. Growing up in Koscuisko County, Indiana poverty and religion were defining features of his childhood, and he would later describe his parents as “unwashed savages” and fanatically religious, showing him little affection but always quick to punish. He came to resent religion, and his introduction to literature appears to be their only positive effect.At age 15 Bierce left home to become a printer’s devil, mixing ink and fetching type at The Northern Indian, a small Ohio paper. Falsely accused of theft he returned to his farm and spent time sending out work in the hopes of being published.His Uncle Lucius advised he be sent to the Kentucky Military Institute. A year later he was commissioned as an Officer. As the Civil War started Bierce enlisted in the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment. In April 1862 Bierce fought at the Battle of Shiloh, an experience which, though terrifying, became the source of several short stories. Two years later he sustained a serious head wound and was off duty for several months. He was discharged in early 1865. A later expedition to inspect military outposts across the Great Plains took him all the way to San Francisco. He remained there to become involved with publishing and editing and to marry, Mary Ellen on Christmas Day 1871. They had a child, Day, the following year. In 1872 the family moved to England for 3 years where he wrote for Fun magazine. His son, Leigh, was born, and first book, ‘The Fiend’s Delight’, was published.They returned to San Francisco and to work for a number of papers where he gained admiration for his crime reporting. In 1887 he began a column at the William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner. Bierce’s marriage fell apart when he discovered compromising letters to his wife from a secret admirer. The following year, 1889 his son Day committed suicide, depressed by romantic rejection.In 1891 Bierce wrote and published the collection of 26 short stories which included ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’. Success and further works including poetry followed. Bierce with Hearst’s resources helped uncover a financial plot by a railroad to turn 130 million dollars of loans into a handout. Confronted by the railroad and asked to name his price Bierce answered “my price is $130 million dollars. If, when you are ready to pay, I happen to be out of town, you may hand it over to my friend, the Treasurer of the United States”. He now began his first foray as a fabulist, publishing ‘Fantastic Fables’ in 1899. But tragedy again struck two years later when his second son Leigh died of pneumonia relating to his alcoholism.He continued to write short stories and poetry and also published ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’. At the age of 71, in 1913 Bierce departed from Washington, D.C., for a tour of the battlefields where he had fought during the civil war. At the city of Chihuahua he wrote his last known communication, a letter to a friend. It’s closing words were “as to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination,” Ambrose Bierce then vanished without trace.

Ambrose Bierce (Author), John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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Adventure

Sherwood Anderson was born on 13th September 1876 in Camden, Ohio.When his father’s business failed the family was forced to move on a regular basis before finally settling in Clyde, Ohio. Anderson, one of 7 children, left school at 14 to take a number of jobs to help with the family finances. These were difficult years.He moved to Chicago in search of opportunities before joining the Army for the US-Spanish War of 1898. He then entered Wittenberg Academy in Springfield, Ohio to complete his education before moving back to Chicago to take up a writing job.In 1904 he married Cornelia Lane, her family had resources and Anderson was keen, with this family backing, to run a business.The early years of their marriage produced 3 children but a nervous breakdown in 1907 and another in 1912, despite his success as a business entrepreneur, resulted in him abandoning his family and deciding that a literary career would be best for him. A move back to Chicago resulted in a job in advertising, a divorce from Cornelia and marriage to Tennessee Mitchell. That same year his first book ‘Windy McPherson’s Son’ was released and in 1919, his most famous book, ‘Winesburg, Ohio’, a collection of short stories about life in an Ohio town was released.Anderson continued to write short stories, novels and non-fiction but his only true bestseller came with ‘Dark Laughter’. His influence on writers that followed, from Faulkner to Hemingway, was immense. He also married a further two times. Sherwood Anderson died in in Colón, Panama, on the 8th March, 1941. He was 64. An autopsy revealed that a swallowed toothpick had resulted in peritonitis.His headstone epitaph reads ‘Life, Not Death is the Great Adventure.’

Sherwood Anderson (Author), John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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The Cop and the Anthem

William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him.He first attended at a school run by his aunt before enrolling at the Lindsey Street High School and then worked at his uncle’s drugstore and gained a pharmacists’ license in 1881. A persistent cough took him to Texas in the hope that a change of climate would help his symptoms. He took on various types of work, initially from ranch hand and cook and then as varied as pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began to write, though for now, purely as a hobby.He was a member of several singing and dramatic groups when he met 17 year old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Austin family. Despite her mother’s objection owing to Athol’s tuberculosis, they began courting and in July 1887, they eloped and soon married.Athol, impressed by his writing, encouraged him to get them published. A job as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office paid a healthy $100 dollars per month and life was good.But then life turned cruel. His son died a few hours after birth although a daughter, Margaret, came the following year. His job had to be vacated but another was found at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank operated informally and Porter was careless in keeping the books. He lost that job but began writing for the humourous weekly The Rolling Stone and the Houston Post. Some time later the federal Bank auditors went through his former accounts and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement.Porter fled the day before his trial to Honduras. Holed up for several months he began to write. Athol had become too ill to travel to meet him and learning that her health was deteriorating he surrendered to the court in February 1897. Bail was obtained so that he could stay with Athol during her final days. Porter was sentenced to five years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. His pharmacy qualifications got him the job of night druggist. His sentence also gave him time to write and publish fourteen short stories. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry. He was released two years early in July 1901, and reunited with Margaret, now 11, in Pittsburgh. He now began his most prolific period of writing; a short story per week for the New York World, while also publishing works in other magazines. Eventually over 600 of his short stories were published.Porter was a heavy drinker and in 1908 his health, which had deteriorated for several years, took a dramatic turn for the worse, as did his writing. O Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver complicated by diabetes and an enlarged heart on 5th June 1910.

O Henry (Author), John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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The Social Triangle

William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him.He first attended at a school run by his aunt before enrolling at the Lindsey Street High School and then worked at his uncle’s drugstore and gained a pharmacists’ license in 1881. A persistent cough took him to Texas in the hope that a change of climate would help his symptoms. He took on various types of work, initially from ranch hand and cook and then as varied as pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began to write, though for now, purely as a hobby.He was a member of several singing and dramatic groups when he met 17 year old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Austin family. Despite her mother’s objection owing to Athol’s tuberculosis, they began courting and in July 1887, they eloped and soon married.Athol, impressed by his writing, encouraged him to get them published. A job as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office paid a healthy $100 dollars per month and life was good.But then life turned cruel. His son died a few hours after birth although a daughter, Margaret, came the following year. His job had to be vacated but another was found at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank operated informally and Porter was careless in keeping the books. He lost that job but began writing for the humourous weekly The Rolling Stone and the Houston Post. Some time later the federal Bank auditors went through his former accounts and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement.Porter fled the day before his trial to Honduras. Holed up for several months he began to write. Athol had become too ill to travel to meet him and learning that her health was deteriorating he surrendered to the court in February 1897. Bail was obtained so that he could stay with Athol during her final days. Porter was sentenced to five years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. His pharmacy qualifications got him the job of night druggist. His sentence also gave him time to write and publish fourteen short stories. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry. He was released two years early in July 1901, and reunited with Margaret, now 11, in Pittsburgh. He now began his most prolific period of writing; a short story per week for the New York World, while also publishing works in other magazines. Eventually over 600 of his short stories were published.Porter was a heavy drinker and in 1908 his health, which had deteriorated for several years, took a dramatic turn for the worse, as did his writing. O Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver complicated by diabetes and an enlarged heart on 5th June 1910.

O Henry (Author), John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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According to Their Lights

William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him.He first attended at a school run by his aunt before enrolling at the Lindsey Street High School and then worked at his uncle’s drugstore and gained a pharmacists’ license in 1881. A persistent cough took him to Texas in the hope that a change of climate would help his symptoms. He took on various types of work, initially from ranch hand and cook and then as varied as pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began to write, though for now, purely as a hobby.He was a member of several singing and dramatic groups when he met 17 year old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Austin family. Despite her mother’s objection owing to Athol’s tuberculosis, they began courting and in July 1887, they eloped and soon married.Athol, impressed by his writing, encouraged him to get them published. A job as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office paid a healthy $100 dollars per month and life was good.But then life turned cruel. His son died a few hours after birth although a daughter, Margaret, came the following year. His job had to be vacated but another was found at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank operated informally and Porter was careless in keeping the books. He lost that job but began writing for the humourous weekly The Rolling Stone and the Houston Post. Some time later the federal Bank auditors went through his former accounts and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement.Porter fled the day before his trial to Honduras. Holed up for several months he began to write. Athol had become too ill to travel to meet him and learning that her health was deteriorating he surrendered to the court in February 1897. Bail was obtained so that he could stay with Athol during her final days. Porter was sentenced to five years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. His pharmacy qualifications got him the job of night druggist. His sentence also gave him time to write and publish fourteen short stories. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry. He was released two years early in July 1901, and reunited with Margaret, now 11, in Pittsburgh. He now began his most prolific period of writing; a short story per week for the New York World, while also publishing works in other magazines. Eventually over 600 of his short stories were published.Porter was a heavy drinker and in 1908 his health, which had deteriorated for several years, took a dramatic turn for the worse, as did his writing. O Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver complicated by diabetes and an enlarged heart on 5th June 1910.

O Henry (Author), John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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The Poetry Of HP Lovecraft

There are rather few masters of horror writing out of the many who write horror. HP Lovecraft has achieved fame because his work is of a standard of excellence that few if any can rival. Here we concentrate on his poems that show a different side of his nature at times but allow him to use his macabre tastes to enrich his lines and ideas with the shiver of the night. Born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island he was a prodigious youth but a sickly one. Raised mainly by his Grandfather and Aunts at 14 he contemplated suicide on the death of his grandfather and the crushing financial blow that brought to himself and his mother. A set of literary spats in a newspaper brought him attention away from his poetry writings. But until the last decade of his life the works for which we is so well know did not arrive. That last decade, writing again in Providence was prolific but with little income his life downgraded rented house by rented house and in 1936, often malnourished he was diagnosed with cancer and succumbed to it the following year.

HP Lovecraft (Author), John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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The Poetry Of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe) was born in Boston Massachusetts on January 19th 1809 and was orphaned at an early age. Taken in by the Allan family his education was cut short by lack of money and he went to the military academy, West Point where he failed to become an officer. His early literary works were poetic but he quickly turned to prose. He worked for several magazines and journals until in January 1845 The Raven was published and became an instant classic. Thereafter followed the works for which he is now so rightly famed as a master of the mysterious and macabre. In this volume we bring you some of his poetry, all less well known than his stories, but fascinating none the less. Some are dark and others speak of love. Together they help to round out Edgar Allan Poe the Artist. Poe died at the early age of 40 in 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Edd Mcnair, Edgar Allan Poe (Author), Ghizela Rowe, John Michael MacDonald, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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Slavery, A Tyranny In Verse

Mankind has many marks upon its name, many tragedies of its own making. The subjugating of other people, which still continues to this day, is perhaps its greatest stain. Men, women and children who are bought sold, used and abused for the profit or enjoyment of others casts shadows upon us all. In this collection poets of the calibre of Browning, Longfellow, Southey and Melville explore our relationship with this shaming, highlighting the successes and more probable failures of our fallible race.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Moses Horton, Robert Southey (Author), Ghizela Rowe, John Michael MacDonald, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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The 4th Of July A Holiday In Verse

The Fourth of July - A Holiday in Verse. On 29th November 1775 Thomas Jefferson said "Believe me, dear Sir, there is not, in the British Empire, a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist, before I yield to such a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose, and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America". The War for Independence had already started some months previously and with no prospect of a reconciliation it was on the 4th of July 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was announced by the Continental Congress and that the thirteen colonies no longer considered themselves part of the British Empire and were now an Independent Nation - The United States of America. Their proclamation of independence set human history on a new path. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that amongst these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Here our poets reflect on why this day is so proudly celebrated each and every year.

Emma Lazarus, John Pierpoint, Thomas Paine (Author), Ghizela Rowe, John Michael MacDonald, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

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The Poetry Of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in 1807 in Portland Maine (then part of Massachusetts) into a privileged background. Studious, he worked hard and grew to love languages as well as poetry from an early age. He travelled extensively in Europe for 3 years, immersing himself in various languages, and became much influenced by its poets. From there he returned to the US and eventually to teach at Harvard. His first major publication of poetry was in 1839. Today he is rightly known as an icon of American Poetry with classics such as "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha". In this collection we bring you further examples of his great talents that read undimmed to this very day. Our readers include John Michael MacDonald, Richard Mitchley and Ghizela Rowe.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Author), Ghizela Rowe, John Michael MacDonald (Narrator)

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