18. The Singing Lesson and An Ideal Family

In this episode we'll be reading two short stories by H.G. Wells - A Moonlight Fable and The Diamond Maker. These stories come from the collection, The Door in the Wall and Other Stories. We read the title story from this collection in episode 17, released on April 21, 2021.

In this episode we'll be reading Love of Life by Jack London, originally published in 1907. The American author is best known for his short stories and novels depicting the Klondike gold rush in northwestern Canada. This story is no exception and describes scenes of survival in the harsh northern landscape.

In this episode we'll be reading My Double and How He Undid Me by Edward Everett Hale. This story was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1859 and brought the American author immediate attention and praise. The son of Nathan Hale, the so-called inventor of the newspaper editorial, Edward Hale possessed strong literary skills from a young age and entered Harvard College when he was only 13 years old.

In this episode we'll be reading The Schoolmaster's Progress by the American author, Caroline Kirkland. This story was first published in her collection from 1845 titled Western Clearings. Kirkland is known for her depictions of frontier life and was a highly regarded author by her contemporaries such as Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens.

In this episode we'll continue reading Stories of Old Greece and Rome by Emile Kip Baker. These stories use the Roman names for gods and goddesses. Some of the deities featured in these chapters along with their Greek names are Jupiter (Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune (Poseidon), Pluto (Hades), Minerva (Athena), and Apollo (Helios).

In this episode we'll be reading two short stories by Katherine Mansfield - The Singing Lesson and An Ideal Family. Regular listeners may recall we read another short story by Mansfield, The Garden Party, in episode 8. These stories are from the same collection, originally published in 1922.

In this episode we'll be reading the short story, The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells. The English author is best known for his works of science fiction but was prolific in many styles including social commentary, satire, and history. This story explores the theme of fantasy versus reality that is prevalent in much of Wells' work.

In this episode we'll be reading the short story, Dalyrimple Goes Wrong by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is third story we've read by Fitzgerald and the second we've read from Flappers and Philosophers, the author's first collection of short stories, originally published in 1920.

In this episode we'll be reading The Young King by Oscar Wilde. This is our second episode featuring the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde; our first was episode 7 which was released on February 10, 2021. This story comes from a collection of four fairy tales titled A House of Pomegranates, first published in 1891.

This week, by listener request, we'll be reading the first few chapters from Stories of Old Greece and Rome by Emile Kip Baker, published in 1913. If you would like to request a story you can email the podcast at [email protected]. In this collection of myths, Baker took the stories found in Homer's poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, and made them more accessible by writing them in a prose format and updating the language.