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  The Screaming Skull

  F. Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’.  
   
  Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome.  
   
  In 1879 he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881 he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University. 
   
  His family became increasingly concerned about his employment prospects.  After an attempt at a singing career as a baritone was ruled out, he was encouraged to write.  
   
  In December 1882 his first novel, ‘Mr Isaacs’, was published and was an immediate hit as was his second novel ‘Dr Claudius’ in 1883.  
   
  In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan and encouraged by his excellent start to a literary career they returned to Sant Agnello, Italy to make a permanent home, buying the Villa Renzi that then became Villa Crawford.  
   
  In the late 1890s, Crawford began work on his historical works which would later include ‘Corleone’, in 1897, the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.  
   
  Crawford is also exceedingly popular and anthologized as a short story writer of bizarre and creepy tales.   
   
  In 1908 came his classic ‘The Screaming Skull’. Without doubt its unsettling nature is heightened as the reader/listener is drawn into to the story by its narrator.  Everything is explained and plausible until, of course, it isn’t. 
   
  Francis Marion Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack.

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  Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It was first published on 14 October 1892; the individual stories had been serialised in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. The stories are not in chronological order, and the only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson. The stories are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.In general the stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes identify, and try to correct, social injustices. Holmes is portrayed as offering a new, fairer sense of justice. The stories were well received, and boosted the subscriptions figures of The Strand Magazine, prompting Doyle to be able to demand more money for his next set of stories. The first story, "A Scandal in Bohemia", includes the character of Irene Adler, who, despite being featured only within this one story by Doyle, is a prominent character in modern Sherlock Holmes adaptations, generally as a love interest for Holmes. Doyle included four of the twelve stories from this collection in his twelve favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, picking "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" as his overall favourite.Content: I. A Scandal in Bohemia / II. The Red-Headed League / III. A Case of Identity / IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery / V. The Five Orange Pips / VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip / VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle / VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band / IX. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb / X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor / XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet / XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

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  Ann Veronica (Unabridged)

  H. G. Wells

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  Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H. G. Wells published in 1909. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty", against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter inspired by the 1908 attempt of suffragettes to storm Parliament.

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  See-Saw

  Katherine Mansfield

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  Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. 
  "See-Saw" is an evocative and poignant description of young and old enjoying the weather on a fine spring day. The youngest are playing "house" and pretending to be grown ups. The elderly are regressing into a second childhood.

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  Of Conversation and the Anatomy...

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George "H. G." Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer.He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a "father of science fiction"OF CONVERSATION AND THE ANATOMY OF FASHION: This uncle of mine, you must understand, having attained by the purest accident some trifles of distinction and a certain affluence in South Africa, came over at the earliest opportunity to London to be photographed and lionised.

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  Ivy Day in the Committee Room...

  James Joyce

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  James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 - 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.IVY DAY IN THE COMMITTEE ROOM: Old Jack raked the cinders together with a piece of cardboard and spread them judiciously over the whitening dome of coals. When the dome was thinly covered his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly re-emerged into light.

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