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  The Affair At Coulter's Creek -...

  Ambrose Bierce

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  Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on 24th June 1842 at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio. His parents were poor but they introduced him to literature at an early age, instilling in him a deep appreciation of books, the written word and the elegance of language.  
  Growing up in Koscuisko County, Indiana poverty and religion were defining features of his childhood, and he would later describe his parents as “unwashed savages” and fanatically religious, showing him little affection but always quick to punish. He came to resent religion, and his introduction to literature appears to be their only positive effect. 
  At age 15 Bierce left home to become a printer’s devil, mixing ink and fetching type at The Northern Indian, a small Ohio paper. Falsely accused of theft he returned to his farm and spent time sending out work in the hopes of being published. 
  His Uncle Lucius advised he be sent to the Kentucky Military Institute. A year later he was commissioned as an Officer.  As the Civil War started Bierce enlisted in the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment.  
  In April 1862 Bierce fought at the Battle of Shiloh, an experience which, though terrifying, became the source of several short stories. Two years later he sustained a serious head wound and was off duty for several months. He was discharged in early 1865.  
  A later expedition to inspect military outposts across the Great Plains took him all the way to San Francisco. He remained there to become involved with publishing and editing and to marry, Mary Ellen on Christmas Day 1871.  They had a child, Day, the following year.  
  In 1872 the family moved to England for 3 years where he wrote for Fun magazine. His son, Leigh, was born, and first book, ‘The Fiend’s Delight’, was published.  
  They returned to San Francisco and to work for a number of papers where he gained admiration for his crime reporting. In 1887 he began a column at the William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner.  
  Bierce’s marriage fell apart when he discovered compromising letters to his wife from a secret admirer. The following year, 1889 his son Day committed suicide, depressed by romantic rejection. 
  In 1891 Bierce wrote and published the collection of 26 short stories which included ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’.  Success and further works including poetry followed.  
  Bierce with Hearst’s resources helped uncover a financial plot by a railroad to turn 130 million dollars of loans into a handout. Confronted by the railroad and asked to name his price Bierce answered “my price is $130 million dollars. If, when you are ready to pay, I happen to be out of town, you may hand it over to my friend, the Treasurer of the United States”.  
  He now began his first foray as a fabulist, publishing ‘Fantastic Fables’ in 1899.  But tragedy again struck two years later when his second son Leigh died of pneumonia relating to his alcoholism.  
  He continued to write short stories and poetry and also published ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’.  
  At the age of 71, in 1913 Bierce departed from Washington, D.C., for a tour of the battlefields where he had fought during the civil war. At the city of Chihuahua he wrote his last known communication, a letter to a friend. It’s closing words were “as to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination,” Ambrose Bierce then vanished without trace.

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  The First-Class Passenger

  Anton Chekhov

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  Anton Chekhov was a Russian writer who wrote short stories and plays.His short stories are still read by many people around the world.The short story, The First Class Passenger by Anton Chekov, was first published in 1886 and reflects the social background of the Russian society of that time.

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  A Witch's Den - A look into the...

  Helena Blavatsky

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  Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, often known as Madame Blavatsky, was born on 12th August 1831 into an aristocratic family in present day Dnipro in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.  She was the younger sister of the writer Vera Zhelikhovsky. 
   
  Much of Blavatsky’s life story relies on her own memories which changed much during her lifetime and therefore parts of it are unreliable.  What appears to be certain is that much of her life was lived first on family travels and postings and then on her journeys in an effort to further her own self-education and quest for knowledge. 
   
  As a teenager she developed an interest in Western esotericism and from there she claimed many travels including a trip to India where she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the ‘Masters of the Ancient Wisdom’, who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis of religion, philosophy, and science.  
   
  By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement, which was then popular both in Britain and abroad, even though she argued against its main tenet that those ‘contacted’ were the spirits of the dead.  
   
  She moved to the United States in 1873 and became close to the journalist Henry Steel Olcott who helped her gain public attention as a spirit medium and then also became an adherent to her principles.   
   
  In 1875 in New York City she co-founded the Theosophical Society and two years later published ‘Isis Unveiled’, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view from its ancient roots to the modern day.  Her work was even more popular in Asia than elsewhere and is said to have influenced both Ghandi and Nehru amongst many others.  
   
  In 1880, she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to a Hindu reform movement.  That same year she converted to Buddhism.  However, she was often plagued with accusations of fraudulent paranormal phenomena.  
   
  With her health failing she returned to London and published ‘The Secret Doctrine’, her commentary on claimed ancient Tibetan manuscripts, and other books.  
   
  Helena Blavatsky died in London of influenza during the global pandemic on 8th May 1891.  She was 59.

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  Arsène Lupin: The Collection

  Maurice Leblanc

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  The series that inspired the Netflix show.
  
  This collection contains 34 Arsène Lupin stories, including:
  
  - Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar (1-15)
  - Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (16-25)
  - The Hollow Needle 26-37)
  - 813 (38-56)
  - The Crystal Stopper (57-71)
  - The Confessions of Arsène Lupin (72-91)
  - The Teeth of The Tiger (92-128)
  - The Woman of Mystery (129-150)
  - The Eight Strokes of The Clock (151-160)
  - The Secret Tomb (161-180)

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  City of the Absent The (Unabridged)

  Charles Dickens

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  Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
  THE CITY OF THE ABSENT: When I think I deserve particularly well of myself, and have earned the right to enjoy a little treat, I stroll from Covent-garden into the City of London, after business-hours there, on a Saturday, or better yet on a Sunday, and roam about its deserted nooks and corners.

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  Four Winds (Unabridged)

  L. M. Montgomery

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  Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 30, 1874 - April 24, 1942), published as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables. The book was an immediate success. The title character, orphan Anne Shirley, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.
  Four Winds: Alan Douglas threw down his pen with an impatient exclamation. It was high time his next Sunday's sermon was written, but he could not concentrate his thoughts on his chosen text. For one thing he did not like it and had selected it only because Elder Trewin, in his call of the evening before, had hinted that it was time for a good stiff doctrinal discourse, such as his predecessor in Rexton, the Rev. Jabez Strong, had delighted in.

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