Brass Stacks 4: The Disintegrator Machine

Saki's wicked tale of what happens when a beloved feline is gifted the power of speech--much to the dismay of all the members of a weekend gathering at a country house. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"What is a ghost?" asks this exquisite and little-known story by Virginia Woolf. In a few short pages, Woolf creates a comic, thoughtful, yet ultimately disturbing portrait of the woman always on the outskirts of the party, the ever-present but unknowable Miss V. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We turn again to our favorite Stacks writer, Saki, for this deliciously subversive tale of a unconventional fable shared with some rambunctious children on a train ride. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The great French writer Maupassant is the author of this charming tale recounting an afternoon of idle gossip between two ladies of leisure, and of a mistress/servant relationship that goes quite wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin this special series of readings from great Victorian and Edwardian authors with two very early stories by poet, playwright and fantasist Lord Dunsany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snowman” tells the melancholy story of a snowman’s ill-suited romance with a kitchen stove. Read by special BRASS Stacks guest Billie Wildrick in a co-production with Utter Love audio experiences. (And thanks to Wildrick for the original music and soundscape in this special episode.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William Dean Howell’s 1892 story about a little girl who wished it could be Christmas every day has an interesting moral or two for adults as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Challenger meets an inventor whose creation may prove so catastrophic as to imperil the entire British Empire, in this classic short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Read by acclaimed voice actor Larry Albert. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A witty parable about the problem of assuming too much about one’s spouse, “When the Door Opened” was written by the Irish author Sarah Grand, one of the pioneers of fiction dealing with the “New Woman.” It’s read by renowned radio actor Larry Albert, best known for playing the titular detective in “The Adventures of Harry Nile” as well as Dr. Watson in Imagination Theatre’s long-running “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special seasonal BRASS Stacks, our Lord Brass (Charles Leggett) reads M.R. James' wonderfully spooky tale of a academic's unlucky find at an archaeologicall dig--and what finds him after. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices