A Whiff of Wilde, a Pinch of Poe, and a Frisson of Frost: A Dab of Dickens, Vol. 3; Selections from A Dab of Dickens & a Touch of Twain,Literary Lives from Shakespeare’s Old England to Frost’s New England
About this audiobook
They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown—until now. In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a leading authority on the lives of great authors, illuminates the fascinating and flawed members of literature’s elite. In lieu of stuffy biographical sketches, Engel provides fascinating anecdotes.
You’ll never look at these literary giants the same way again.
About the author
Elliot Engel has taught at the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University. He earned his MA and PhD as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at UCLA, where he won the Outstanding Teacher Award. He has written numerous books, and his mini-lecture series on Charles Dickens ran on PBS stations around the country. His articles have appeared in many newspapers and national magazines, including Newsweek. He has lectured throughout the United States and on every continent.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin. He won scholarships to both Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1875, he began publishing poetry in literary magazines, and in 1878, he won the coveted Newdigate Prize for English poetry. He had a reputation as a flamboyant wit and man-about-town. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, and A House of Pomegranates, together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent. That reputation was confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his society comedies: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on London’s West End stage between 1892 and 1895. In 1895, he was convicted of engaging in homosexual acts, which were then illegal, and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor. He soon declared bankruptcy, and his property was auctioned off. In 1896, he lost legal custody of his children. When his mother died that same year, his wife Constance visited him at the jail to bring him the news. It was the last time they saw each other. In the years after his release, his health deteriorated. In November 1900, he died in Paris at the age of forty-six.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American author of short stories, poetry, and literary criticism and theory. Titled "The Master of the Macabre" he is famous for his tales of mystery and horror. He was one of the earliest masters of the short story and is widely credited as the creator of detective fiction.
Robert Frost (1874–1963) is America’s best-loved poet. His work epitomizes this country’s affinity for plain speaking, nature, and the land. Over the course of his literary career he won four Pulitzer Prizes, among many other honors.
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.
Cassandra Campbell has recorded over one hundred audiobooks and directed many more. She has received eight Earphone Awards and has been nominated for an Audie Award. As an actress and director, she has worked off Broadway and in regional theaters across the country, as well as doing voice work on numerous commercials and films.
Christopher Cazenove (1943–2010), one of England’s finest actors, starred on stage and television in the United States and Great Britain. His motion-picture credits include A Knight’s Tale, Eye of the Needle, Children of the Full Moon, and Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill. He played Ben Carrington on television’s Dynasty.
Stephen Fry was born in London in 1957 and educated at Stout's Hill, Uppingham, and Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he joined the Footlights, where he first met Hugh Laurie. He has numerous television appearances to his credit, most notably, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, Blackadder, QI, and House. Major film roles include Peter in Peter's Friends (1990) and Oscar Wilde in Wilde (1997); in the realm of television, his critically acclaimed The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive won an Emmy. He is the author of the best selling novels The Liar, The Hippopotamus, Making History, and Revenge: A Novel, as well as the highly acclaimed autobiography Moab Is My Washpot and, in 2005, a well-received guide to writing poetry, The Ode Less Travelled.
Joel Grey is a Tony, Golden Globe, and Oscar–winning actor and director. In his seven decades in entertainment, Joel has acted in more than a dozen Broadway productions, in over twenty films, and countless television appearances. Along with his work on the stage and screen, he is a renowned photographer. He lives in New York City.
Gregory Hines (1946–2003) was an American actor, singer, dancer and choreographer. Hines began dancing professionally at age five and was a tireless advocate for tap dancing in America. He received a Tony award for Best Actor for Jelly’s Last Jam and an Emmy for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for Little Bill.
Arte Johnson is an award-winning narrator and an American comic actor who won an Emmy Award for his role in the television series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. His audiobook narations have won two AudioFile Earphones Awards, and he placed as a finalist for the Audie Award for best narration in 2003 and 2007.
Kevin McCarthy was born in Suffolk and served in the Royal Air Force before studying at Boston College and University College Dublin. In 2005 he was awarded the Fingal County Council Arts Bursary for Fiction Writing. Peeler was selected as an Irish Times Top Ten Thriller of 2010 and as a Read of the Year 2010 by the Philadelphia Inquirer. His short story “Twenty-five and Out” was published in Down These Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the 21st Century. Irregulars, which features the Sean O’Keefe character, was published in June 2013 and shortlisted for the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2013.
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Roger Rees, Welsh stage, film, and television actor and, more recently, narrator of audiobooks, is known on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States he received a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Nicholas Nickleby. American TV viewers are familiar with Roger from Cheers, in which he played Robin Colcord. As for audiobooks, Roger has performed in a wide variety of programs, from the LA Theatre Works’ production of Lady Windmere’s Fan, to mystery anthologies such as Malice Domestic and thrillers like Pop Goes the Weasel. His audiobook narration has won four AudioFile Earphones Awards.
Read by Jean Smart, Eric Idle, Terry Bradshaw, and other celebrity narrators
Michael Tucker is perhaps best known for his work on L.A. Law which won him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. He has starred on Broadway, and his film credits include Radio Days, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Diner, Tin Men and An Unmarried Woman.
Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over eight hundred audiobooks and has earned fifty-seven Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, including one for his narration of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. A multiple Audie finalist, Simon has won Audie Awards for The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan, and The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Winner of the 2008 Booklist Voice of Choice Award, Simon has also been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.
David Warner is an Emmy Award–winning English actor known for playing romantic leads and villainous characters across a range of media. He is most famous for his roles in films like The Lost World, Titanic, and Planet of the Apes, among numerous others.
Michael York, an acclaimed actor, has appeared in such films as Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Austin Powers, as well as on the London and Broadway stages.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (1918–2014) was born in New York City and trained at the Yale School of Drama. An actor on stage, film, and television, he was also a narrator, voice-over artist, director, and award-winning producer. He is best remembered for his role as investigators on the TV shows 77 Sunset Strip and The FBI.
