A Classic Christmas: A Collection of Timeless Stories and Poems Audiobook

About the Authors

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in Landport, Portsmouth, England, the second of eight children in a family continually plagued by debt. A legacy brought release from the nightmare of debtors’ prison and child labor and afforded him a few years of formal schooling. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his early writings brought him the amazing success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. He was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature’s most iconic characters.

Gerard Doyle, a seasoned audio narrator, he has been awarded dozens of AudioFile Earphones Awards, was named a Best Voice in Young Adult Fiction in 2008, and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He was born of Irish parents and raised and educated in England. In Great Britain he has enjoyed an extensive career in both television and repertory theater and toured nationally and internationally with the English Shakespeare Company. He has appeared in London’s West End in the gritty musical The Hired Man. In America he has appeared on Broadway in The Weir and on television in New York Undercover and Law & Order. He has taught drama at Ross School for the several years.

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Educated by her father until she was sixteen, she also studied under Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Parker. A prolific writer, her most famous work was Little Women, a timeless American classic.

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on November 30th, 1874, in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Although she lived during a time when few women received a higher education, Lucy attended Prince Wales College in Charlottestown, PEI, and then Dalhousie University in Halifax. At seventeen she went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to write for a newspaper, the Halifax Chronicle, and for its evening edition, the Echo. But Lucy returned to live with her grandmother in Cavendish, PEI, where she taught and contributed stories to magazines. It was this experience, along with the lives of her farmer and fisherfolk neighbors, that came alive when she wrote her Anne books, beginning with Anne of Green Gables (1908). Anne of Green Gables brought her overnight success and international recognition. It was followed by eight other books about Anne and Avonlea, as well as a number of other delightful novels, including her Emily series, which began in 1923 with Emily of New Moon. But it is her delightful heroine Anne Shirley, praised by Mark Twain as “the most moving and delightful child of fiction since the immortal Alice,” who remains a popular favorite throughout the world. She and her husband, the Rev. Ewen MacDonald, eventually moved to Ontario. Lucy Montgomery died in Toronto in 1942.

Colleen Delany has been a sparkling jewel in the crown of Washington’s vastly talented acting community for thirty-seven days now and will confidently challenge to a fierce best out of three in “paper-rock-scissors” anyone wishing to topple her from that lofty perch. Primarily a stage actress,—having played roles at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Washington Stage Guild, Theater of the First Amendment, and Source Theatre, among others—Ms. Delany does a you-name-it of various acting jobs, including audiobook narration.

About the Narrators

Nan Gurley, an audiobook narrator, has read numerous titles for popular Christian writers Terri Blackstock and Erin Healy.

Henry O. Arnold is an actor and writer. He is best known for his roles in The Second Chance and The Visual Bible: Acts and for his screenplay Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador.