Storytelling is an ancient practice known in all civilizations throughout history. Characters, tales, techniques, oral traditions, motifs, and tale types transcend individual cultures - elements and names change, but the stories are remarkably similar with each rendition, highlighting the values and concerns of the host culture. Examining the stories and the oral traditions associated with different cultures offers a unique view of practices and traditions."Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore" brings past and present cultures of the world to life through their stories, oral traditions, and performance styles. It combines folklore and mythology, traditional arts, history, literature, and festivals to present an overview of world cultures through their liveliest and most fascinating mode of expression. This appealing resource includes specific storytelling techniques as well as retellings of stories from various cultures and traditions.

Beginning with wonderful tips and advice about the art and presentation of storytelling, this is a complete resource about how to build a storytelling career. Storytellers come to their careers centered on the stories they love and soon realize that in order to make a living at what they love, they must build a business. This in-depth book tells them just how and what to do in every detail, from choosing a sound system to building a website to using podcasts and setting up an office. Resource lists and tried and true ideas abound as the author shares her marketing and business success story throughout. Each chapter is a story in itself, beginning and ending with different traditional folktale openings and closings. There is even a chapter on how to plan for retirement.

In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groups--including the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazak--and the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk stories, songs, rituals, and drama, as well as epic traditions and professional storytelling, and feature both familiar and little-known texts, from the story of the woman warrior Hua Mulan to the love stories of urban storytellers in the Yangtze delta, the shaman rituals of the Manchu, and a trickster tale of the Daur people from the forests of the northeast. The Cannibal Grandmother of the Yi and other strange creatures and characters unsettle accepted notions of Chinese fable and literary form. Readers are introduced to antiphonal songs of the Zhuang and the Dong, who live among the fantastic limestone hills of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; work and matchmaking songs of the mountain-dwelling She of Fujian province; and saltwater songs of the Cantonese-speaking boat people of Hong Kong. The editors feature the Mongolian epic poems of Geser Khan and Jangar; the sad tale of the Qeo family girl, from the Tu people of Gansu and Qinghai provinces; and local plays known as "rice sprouts" from Hebei province. These fascinating juxtapositions invite comparisons among cultures, styles, and genres, and expert translations preserve the individual character of each thrillingly imaginative work.

This text examines the traditional oral narrative of the Yangzi delta.

Trick or Treat! Get a worm cup of tea, curl by the fire, and enjoy the cold chills of this meticulously edited horror collection, jam-packed with the darkest mysteries, supernatural thrillers and gothic romances: James Malcolm Rymer & Thomas Peckett Prest: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart The Fall of the House of Usher The Cask of Amontillado The Masque of the Red Death The Murders in the Rue Morgue Mary Shelley: Frankenstein The Mortal Immortal The Evil Eye John William Polidori: The Vampyre Bram Stoker: Dracula Théophile Gautier: Clarimonde The Mummy's Foot Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow The Spectre Bridegroom Henry James: The Turn of the Screw The Ghostly Rental H. P. Lovecraft: The Dunwich Horror From Beyond M. R. James: Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book Lost Hearts Wilkie Collins: The Haunted Hotel The Dead Secret E. F. Benson: The Room in the Tower The Terror by Night Nathaniel Hawthorne: Rappaccini's Daughter Ambrose Bierce: The Death of Halpin Frayser One Summer Night Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan The Three Impostors William Hope Hodgson: The House on the Borderland The Night Land Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder M. P. Shiel: Shapes in the Fire Arthur Conan Doyle: The Leather Funnel The Beetle Hunter Ralph Adams Cram: Black Spirits and White Grant Allen: The Reverend John Creedy Dr. Greatrex's Engagement Richard Marsh: The Beetle Thomas Hardy: What the Shepherd Saw The Grave by the Handpost Charles Dickens: The Signal-Man The Hanged Man's Bride Guy de Maupassant: The Horla The Flayed Hand Pedro De Alarçon: The Nail Walter Hubbell: The Great Amherst Mystery Francis Marion Crawford: The Dead Smile The Screaming Skull Man Overboard! For The Blood is the Life The Upper Berth By The Water of Paradise The Doll's Ghost John Buchan: No-Man's-Land The Watcher by the Threshold The Monkey's Paw The Severed Hand The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown House The Apparition of Mrs. Veal (Daniel Defoe) When the World Was Young (Jack London)…

The 'TRICK OR TREAT Boxed Set: 200+ Eerie Tales from the Greatest Storytellers' represents an unparalleled assembly of haunting narratives that traverse multiple eras, celebrating the richness and diversity of literary craft. This anthology weaves together an intricate tapestry of themes, including the macabre, the supernatural, and the psychological, presented through a variety of literary forms. From the ghostly pages of traditional gothic to the unsettling realms of psychological horror, the collection stands as a testament to the genre's evolution, showcasing seminal works that have shaped the landscape of dark fiction. Noteworthy are the pieces that challenge the boundaries of horror, merging with science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, broadening the readers horizon of fear and fascination. The contributing authors to this grand volume, including luminaries such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and H. P. Lovecraft, among others, bring with them a rich diversity of historical, cultural, and literary backgrounds. Their collected works represent various movements, from Romanticism to Realism to Modernism, underscoring how the themes of fear, the paranormal, and the uncanny have been explored across different cultures and epochs. This amalgamation of perspectives not only showcases the individual genius of the authors but also how they collectively contribute to the horror genres enduring legacy and its capability to probe the human psyche. For aficionados of the eerie, the 'TRICK OR TREAT Boxed Set' offers an invaluable gateway into the expanse of the horror and supernatural genres, presenting an exceptional opportunity to experience the breadth and depth of ghostly tales. Encouraging a deeper appreciation for the craftsmanship behind each terrifying story, this collection serves both as an educational tool and a source of entertainment. Readers are invited to immerse themselves in this meticulously curated anthology, to explore the nuances of fear, and to engage in the ongoing dialogue between these master storytellers and the dark corners of the imagination.

Presents 260 of the rural South's best stories collected over a twenty year period, with their roots in Anglo-Saxon, African-American, and Native American traditions

Chinese Storytellers takes us to the teahouses and hidden corners of Yangzhou to explore the ancient art of Chinese storytelling (shuoshu).

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) is widely known for his novels Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Treasure Island, and Kidnapped. His reputation as a "romantic" writer and children's author, however, reflects only a portion of his literary achievement. This collection of stories features an introduction by Stevenson scholar Barry Menikoff which places Stevenson's writing in a new context. Menikoff argues that Stevenson is misunderstood by academic readers and critics and presents him as a writer whose subjects and methods are clearly modernist. Included in this volume for the first time are versions of the stories "Markheim" and "The Isle of Voices" as they appear in Stevenson' s holograph manuscripts, plus his classics The Suicide Club, The Rajah's Diamond, "The Bottle Imp," "The Pavilion on the Links," "A Lodging for the Night," "The Merry Men," and "Thrawn Janet."