Classic Christmas Stories

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish writer and author of many notable books including The Snow Queen. He specialized in writing fairytales that were inspired by tales he had heard as a child. As his writing evolved his fairytales became more bold and out of the box. Andersen's stories have been translated into more than 125 languages and have inspired many plays, films and ballets.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was the pen name and alter ego of Samuel Clemens, an American humorist, satirist, social critic, lecturer and novelist. He is considered one of the fathers of American literature and is remembered most fondly for his classic novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

O. Henry (1862 - 1910) is the pen-name of William Sidney Porter, the American writer born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was known for a style of writing that featured surprise endings and showed the grim and often humorous effect of coincidence on the lives of his subjects. A keen observer of the lives of Americans from New York to Texas in the early 20th century, his works have been adapted many times for the stage and screen.

Willa Siebert Cather (1873-1947) was an American author and Pulitzer Prize winner. She was noted for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a famed abolitionist and author. In 1851, she received $400 (a great sum in her day) for a serialized version of her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which went on to be the bestselling novel of the 19th century and the second most-sold book, behind The Bible. The novel's portrayal of slavery is credited as a catalyst for the slavery debate in the years preceding the Civil War.

Francis Bret Harte (1836–1902) was an American short-story writer, poet, and humorist. Best remembered for his stories fiction stories concerning the California Gold Rush, featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures. He helped create the American local-colour writing style, which attempted to better represent the particularities of a place and its inhabitants through elements such as dialect, landscape, and folklore. In a career spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction.

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) was a Canadian novelist and the famed author of the Anne Shirley series. She found instant literary fame upon the publication of her first book, Anne of Green Gables. She published 20 novels and 500 short stories during her lifetime and was the first woman to be named a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a British writer best known for his creation of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. In addition to being considered a father of detective fiction, he also wrote a series of science-fiction adventures starring the brilliant, daring, and comical Professor Challenger.

Anthony Trollope (1815 - 1882) was one of the most successful English novelists during the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, but he also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues as well as other topical matters.

Robin Sachs was born and raised in London, England, and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). After RADA, Robin spent time performing everything from Shakespeare to Tom Stoppard and touring various parts of the known world. His British TV appearances include Brideshead Revisited, Upstairs Downstairs, and Rumpole of the Bailey. He is probably best known in America for his role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as being in several films.