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The greatest ever selection of fictional detectives, all together in one superb CD collection. Find Sherlock Holmes with his long suffering colleague, Dr. Watson in The Dying Detective, Father Brown as a witness in court in The Man in the Passage, and J.G. Reeder in The Poetical Policeman and The Green Mamba. In Chimes, a very clever story by Dam Muriel Spark, her hitherto undiscovered detective will keep you guessing right up to the surprise ending. Popular favourite Inspector Morse features in The Burglar by Colin Dexter. Discover Nicholas Blake's intellectual young toff sleuth Nigel Strangeways in The Assassin's Club, and the very eccentric antique dealer and psychic Morris Klaw in Sax Rohmer's unusual and memorable story set in a museum.
There's something for everybody in this brilliantly baffling collection to keep listeners of all ages in suspense.
Narrator Edward Hardwicke was a British actor most famous for his role as Dr Watson opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in the popular 1980s television series.

Scotland's ballads represent one of the high-water marks of Scottish literature and are famous as superb expressions of oral culture, reflecting a world of magic, deep passion and history transformed into legend.

This selection includes more than eighty of the finest ballads, together with an introduction, notes and glosses. The versions come from the last three centuries-from the time of Burns and Scott, who were among the earliest collectors, up to the present day.

Although the ballads are anonymous in a way, the singers themselves determine the versions we have, by a process of selection, interpretation and refashioning. Wherever possible, this edition includes the names of the singers, many of whom were women.

An internationally recognised ballad scholar, Emily Lyle is a research fellow at the School of Scottish Studies in the University of Edinburgh, and is general editor of The Grieg-Duncan Folk song Collection.

With this rich range of unabridged stories we celebrate the very best of contemporary writers and writing.
Among others the collections features thriller writer Ruth Rendell, witty William Boyd, the Japanese literary sensation Haruki Murakami, ever-inventive Helen Simpson, and Patrick O'Brien, world-famous for his nautical series.

Readers include top British actors Martin Jarvis, Rosalind Ayres and Janet McTeer.

Short Stories: The Timeless Collection features 20 well-loved and unabridged tales from the best-loved authors in the history of English literature, including the deliciously sardonic Saki and a brilliant semi-autobiographical tale by Charles Dickens, inspired by the railway. An array of well-known readers including Nigel Hawthorne, Martin Jarvis, Brian Cox, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
LISTINGS: The Windmill as I First Knew It by Alphonse Daudet, Boil Some Water Lots of It by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh by Saki, Idle Thoughts on Babies by Jerome K. Jerome, The Schartz-Metterklume Method by Saki, A Photographer's Day Out by Lewis Carroll, Gentlemen and Players by E. W. Hornung, Mrs Amworth by E. F. Benson, Timber by John Galsworthy, Into the Sun by Robert Duncan Milne, No 1 Branch Line The Signalman by Charles Dickens, The Squaw by Bram Stoker, The Loathly Opposite by John Buchan, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, The Mezzotint by M. R. James, Angela by W. S. Gilbert, The Barrister's Story by Sapper, Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet by O. Henry, Oh Whistle & I'll Come to You My Lad by M. R. James, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain.