Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Room For One - From their pens...

  Frederick Cowles

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  Frederick Ignatius Cowles was born in 1900 in Cambridge, England. 
  This unfamiliar name is one of the gems of English supernatural fiction as well as several other works of travelogues, history, folklore, and children's books.  
  When his supernatural short stories, and some are very short indeed, were first published they were compared to the works of M R James and EF Benson, yet unlike those two authors he fell, unfairly, into obscurity. 
  In all he wrote perhaps 60 short stories with weird and supernatural themes. 
  Frederick Cowles died in 1948 although some accounts offer that it was 1949.

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  Mardi

  Herman Melville

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  Mardi is Herman Melville's bold and imaginative novel that blends adventure, romance, philosophy, and satire into a vast allegorical journey across the Pacific. One of Melville's most ambitious and unconventional works, the novel moves beyond realism into a dreamlike exploration of ideas, identity, and human longing.
  
  The story begins with a dramatic escape from a whaling ship, as the narrator and his companion flee into the open sea. Their flight leads them to the mysterious archipelago of Mardi, a fantastical realm composed of countless islands, each embodying distinct cultures, beliefs, and political systems. As the narrator journeys from island to island, the narrative transforms into a sweeping meditation on love, truth, power, and the nature of civilization.
  
  At the emotional center of the novel is the narrator's obsessive search for Yillah, a beautiful and elusive woman who becomes a symbol of idealized love and spiritual longing. This quest propels him deeper into Mardi's surreal landscapes, where poetic reflection, philosophical debate, and sharp social criticism intertwine.
  
  Melville uses the imaginative freedom of the setting to satirize religion, monarchy, democracy, and intellectual dogma, while also probing the limits of reason and the burden of human desire. His lush, experimental prose challenges conventional storytelling, inviting readers into a world where meaning is fluid and interpretation essential.
  
  Visionary, demanding, and deeply original, Mardi stands as a key work in Melville's development as a writer. It is a novel for adventurous readers—an expansive allegory that rewards patience with its intellectual depth and poetic ambition.

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  Hop Frog - From their pens to...

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Edgar Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts on 19th January 1809. His father abandoned his family the following year and within a year his mother had died leaving him an orphan.   
  He was taken in by the Allan family but never formally adopted although he now referred to himself as Edgar Allan Poe.  His father alternatively spoiled or chastised him and tension was frequent over gambling debts and monies for his education.  His university years to study ancient and modern languages was cut short by lack of money and he enlisted as a private in the army claiming he was 22, it is more probable he was 18. After 2 years he obtained a discharge in order to take up an appointment at the military academy, West Point, where he failed to become an officer. 
  Poe had released his 1st poetry volume in 1827 and after his 3rd turned to prose and placing short stories in several magazines and journals.  At age 26 he obtained a licence to marry his cousin.  She was a mere 13 but they stayed together until her death from tuberculosis 11 years after. 
  In January 1845 ‘The Raven’ was published and became an instant classic.  Thereafter followed the prose works for which he is now so rightly famed as a master of the mysterious and the macabre. 
  Edgar Allan Poe died at the tragically early age of 40 on 7th October 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as ‘congestion of the brain’ or ‘cerebral inflammation’, common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism but the actual cause of death remains a mystery. 
  Poe is also one of a number of authors credited with inventing the detective genre with his Parisian sleuth C. Auguste Dupin.  He featured in three stories including the legendary ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and by sheer deduction, logic and a touch of Gallic arrogance revealed what was hidden to the rest of us.

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  The Adventure Of The Speckled band

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Adventure Of The Speckled band is the eighth short story and tenth (after A Study in Scarlet and The Sign Of Four) Sherlock Holmes story by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the eighth story in the collection Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, it was published in Strand Magazine in February of 1892. The story tells of Helen Stoner, a soon to be married young woman who suspects her father may be trying to kill her in order to retain control of her inheritance. Convinced of her father's intentions, Helen turns to Holmes for help.Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson rise unusually early one morning to meet a young woman named Helen Stoner who fears that her life is being threatened by her stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott. Roylott is a doctor who practiced in Calcutta, India and was married to Helen's late mother when she was a widow living there. He is also the impoverished last survivor of what was once a wealthy but violent, ill-tempered and amoral Anglo-Saxon aristocratic family of Surrey, and has already served a jail sentence for killing his Indian butler in a rage.Helen's twin sister had died almost two years earlier, shortly before she was to be married. Helen had heard her sister's dying words, "The speckled band!" but was unable to decode their meaning. Helen herself, troubled by the perplexing death of her sister, is now engaged, and she has begun to hear strange noises and observe strange activities around Stoke Moran, the impoverished and heavily mortgaged estate where she and her stepfather live.Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle's: "A Study in Scarlet", "Silver Blaze", "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "The Yellow Face", "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Red-Headed League", A Case of Identity", "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", "The Five Orange Pips", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Blue Carbuncle", "The Speckled Band", "The Engineer's Thumb", "The Noble Bachelor", "The Beryl Coronet", "The Copper Beeches" and many more.

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  The Resident Patient

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Adventure of the Resident Patient, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Resident Patient" eighteenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories....A little digging at police headquarters brings up the rest of the truth. All four of the men were once members of a criminal gang that robbed banks. Blessington's real name was Sutton, and the other three, two of whom played the Russians, were Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat. After robbing the Worthington Bank of £7,000 in 1875, Blessington (or Sutton) had turned informer, and as a result, another gang member, Cartwright, had been hanged for murdering the caretaker, and the other three had each been given 15 years in prison. Blessington's "paranoia" was indeed a very real fear, caused by news of their early release, not by some burglary, as he claimed. The murderers chose hanging as their form of execution to avenge Cartwright...Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World.

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  Sun and Moon - A Classic...

  Katherine Mansfield

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  What happens when a magical night meant for children reveals how quickly wonder can fade? In “Sun and Moon” by Katherine Mansfield, two young siblings -Sun and Moon - eagerly await a grand evening party held by the adults in their home, convinced it will be the most exciting event of their lives. As preparations unfold and the house fills with lights, music, and unfamiliar guests, the children drift between anticipation and confusion. Their innocent expectations slowly collide with the rules and indifference of the adult world, reshaping how they see the celebration - and each other. With her signature psychological insight, Mansfield captures childhood perception with tenderness and precision, revealing the quiet shift from enchantment to awareness. “Sun and Moon” explores innocence, disappointment, and emotional awakening through a child’s eyes. Press play and experience one of her most memorable short stories - where a single evening gently alters how the world is seen.

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