Caedmon Short Story Collection

by Caedmon, Various

Caedmon brings together some of the most unforgettable stories in literature, vividly realized both by the authors themselves and by a cast of superb actorsContinuing and enhancing the Caedmon tradition of bringing the greatest literature to vibrant audio life, here are stories that have echoed though the years, brilliantly performed by an array of renowned actors, as well as the authors themselves.

These fourteen unforgettable recordings feature Eudora Welty's earthy wit in Why I Live at the PO., Ossie Davis's electrifying incarnation of Langston Hughes's eloquent A Toast to Harlem, and John Updike's delightfully droll reading of his own Persistence of Desire.

The Caedmon Short Story Collection offers such a rich and varied spectrum of listening experiences-whether shattering, darkly hilarious, or cuttingly incisive-it will make for countless hours of enjoyment that only increase with each return to it.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals and was attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St. Hilda (614–680), he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century monk Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational religious poet.

Cædmon is one of twelve Anglo-Saxon poets identified in medieval sources, and one of only three for whom both roughly contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output have survived. His story is related in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People") by Bede who wrote, "[t]here was in the Monastery of this Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven."

Cædmon's only known surviving work is Cædmon's Hymn, the nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God which he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language.

Reviews

[Debra Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great collection and excellent narrations of some familiar and some new-to-me stories from a bygone era, including Shirley Jackson's Lottery.

[Dar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A selection of stories I never would have read in book format. I was touched by Barbara Kingsolver's story Homeland (I'd never read anything of hers before) and enjoyed Philip K. Dick's story on which the movie Total Recall was based, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. Many of the stories were read by the authors, and others by known actors who were able to take on the language of the place and time. The stories ranged in length from 5 to 55 minutes with most around the 20-minute mark. Great for dabbling in the works of big-name authors like Fitzgerald, Kafka and Welty - eclectic!

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of short stories by famous authors. Some stories were really good, but there are a number of authors who don't grasp the difference between a short story and a long story that you stop telling half way through.