Casey at the Bat (and two sequels)
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12 minutes, 5 seconds
Unabridged Baseball Poetry
1888, 1907, 1910
Three baseball classics:
- Casey at the bat (Thayer/Phinn)
- Mudville's Fate (Rice)
- Casey's Revenge (Rice)
Ernest L Thayer (writing under the pen name "Phinn") wrote the baseball classic Casey at the Bat: "A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888" for the San Fransisco Examiner. In the century since, the poem has spawned hundreds of sequels, including a handful of updates by sports columnist Grantland Rice.
Just in time for baseball season 2005! Read by Alex Wilson. Sample audio from "Mudville's Fate" below:
Continue reading "Casey at the Bat (and two sequels)"
Posted by alex at 1:13 PM
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11 minutes, 3 seconds
Unabridged Short Story
1921
The narrator meets a refugee on a train, and learns the true meaning (or lack of meaning) of war.
Posted by alex at 3:43 PM
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8 minutes, 25 seconds
Two Unabridged Short Ghost Stories
1910
Two short, Civil War era ghost stories by one of the most mysterious authors in American history.
Continue reading "Present at a Hanging & An Arrest"
Posted by alex at 1:59 PM
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15 minutes
Unabridged Fairy Tale
1901
"An accomplished wizard once lived on the top floor of a tenement house and passed his time in thoughtful study and studious thought. What he didn't know about wizardry was hardly worth knowing, for he possessed all the books and recipes of all the wizards who had lived before him; and, moreover, he had invented several wizardments himself. "
This humourous story by the author of the Wizard of Oz series, involves a wizard, a glass-blower and a lady of high-society. It was published in 1901 with eleven other fantastical stories in a volume entitled American Fairy Tales. In his introduction to the second publication of these stories in 1908, Baum wrote:
My friends, the children, will find these stories quite as astonishing as if they had been written hundreds of years ago, for ours is the age of astonishing things. They are not too serious in purpose, but aim to amuse and entertain, yet I trust the more thoughtful of my readers will find a wholesome lesson hidden beneath each extravagant notion and humorous incident.This is the unabridged short story, read by J. Winter Collins.
Continue reading "The Glass Dog"
Posted by alex at 9:25 PM
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12 minutes, 35 seconds
Unabridged Historical Document
1776
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation..." The United States Declaration of Independence. Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "The Declaration of Independence"
Posted by alex at 9:18 PM
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8 minutes, 13 seconds
Unabridged Essay
1849
"The white man's happiness cannot be be purchased by the black man's misery." A prophetic essay first published in his abolitionist newspaper, the North Star. Douglass started adding his initials "F.D." at the end of his writing when it was questioned that such thoughtful, well-reasoned work could come from an ex-slave. Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "The Destiny of Colored Americans"
Posted by alex at 9:01 PM
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8 minutes, 29 seconds
Unabridged Formal Poetry
1845
The archetype of dark poetry by the master of macabre. Read by Alex Wilson.
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my chamber door--
Only this, and nothing more..."
Posted by alex at 8:36 PM
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11 minutes, 52 seconds
Unabridged Formal Poetry
1820
A lyrical nursery rhyme of a story in three parts. Includes "Robin Hood, A Child," "Robin Hood's Flight," and "Robin Hood, an Outlaw." Read by Alex Wilson.
Continue reading "Songs of Robin Hood"
Posted by alex at 7:56 PM
