Great Classic Stories

Great Classic Stories by Various Authors             Audio Book: 7 hours, 4 minutes  (I did not find a book edition)     let's say 250 pages ?

I enjoyed listening to these wonderful stories so much.   Many I was already familiar with from my youth, but, like visiting with old friends from your past these tales are timeless and always a pleasure to listen to and get a new understanding or new perspective on at different ages and maturity.    Oscar Wilde’s, The Sphinx Without a Secret you can feel his amusement through like he is sharing a  private joke that only he and the reader are in on.    Tobermory was bittersweet about a  human teaching a cat to speak, but, because the cat had always been privy to conversations he spilled a lot of truisms and didn’t mince his words when dealing with foolish fops.   The privileged society he was a part of did not like to have their sins revealed and wanted the poor cat killed.  They planned just how they would do it while the poor linguist who was so thrilled with the accomplishment of actually teaching an animal to speak was devastated.   But the animal can speak, can converse intelligently, it had never been before and these awful people wanted to kill the poor cat for merely telling the truth?  Unfathomable!  While they were all arguing their points the cat had seen another cat and slipped outside.   Sadly the other cat was tougher than him and did the job for them.    The rich haughty folk told the linguist to go to the Zoo and teach elephants to speak they wouldn’t have anything to say about society folk as they would speak only of their days on exhibition and if of anyone certainly the lower class!   How far the lofty have to fall!  The rats!   On Being Idle is the story of a man with too much time on his hands for sure.   He keeps coming up with one conundrum after another as he thinks himself into a mental stupor.  For Better or Worse a woman and her husband fought during the early years of their marriage to the point he leaves and puts out to sea.    25 years later he hears she is doing very well for herself has a good income and lives the high life, he decides to go get some of the wealth she has managed to stockpile.   At first she puts him off as if she is someone else because after all those years, he didn’t recognize her nor remember her voice.   But instead of giving him the heave-ho, she felt sorry for him and made him promise he would be a better person and she took him back.  Savior Complex.  Appeal to one’s sympathy with your down and outness and the maternal instinct kicks in and she wants to save him.   Ohhhhhh!   Next!  I liked theModel Millionaire.    A poor man sees a poor begger posing for an art class as their model for the day.  The poor man only has a bit of money to live on but gives most of what he has to this poor man who surely needs it more than he does.   The philanthropist feels a fool when he finds out the man had so much money he could have bought ENGLAND and was just dressed in a costume for the session.   Now thoughts of how in the world am I going to make it start flooding into the poor man’s mind however, because of his generosity the millionaire has a $10,000 pound check delivered to the poor man for his sincerity of spirit and kindness to a fellow human being.     So many great stories here for sure.   And dear Edgar Alan Poe, The Black Cat  and The Tell-Tale Heart images of Vincent Price and Peter Lorre come to mind!   The last story in the collection is The Monkeys Paw.  That one never ceases to get my pulse racing.   Just the thought of what is coming and what lies beyond the door is so frightening I get goosebumps no matter how many times I read it or hear it or see it on the screen.    Whew!   A shudder just went down my spine, it is said when that happens someone has just walked over your grave.  (Cue the maniacal laughter of Vincent Price.)    They truly are great stories.