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  The Adventure of the Solitary...

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes.Holmes is contacted by Miss Violet Smith of Farnham, Surrey about an unusual turn in hers and her mother's lives. Violet's father has recently died and left his wife and daughter rather poor. There was an ad in the news asking about their whereabouts. Answering it, they met Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Woodley, the former a pleasant enough man, but the latter a bullying churl. They had come from South Africa, where they had known Violet's uncle Ralph Smith, who had now also died in poverty and apparently wanted to see that his relatives were provided for. This struck Violet as odd, since she and her family had not heard a word from Smith since his departure for South Africa 25 years ago. Carruthers and Woodley explained that before dying, Ralph had heard of his brother's death and felt responsible for his survivors' welfare.Carruthers began by offering Violet a job as a live-in music teacher for his ten-year-old daughter at £100 a year, about twice the going rate. She accepted after Carruthers said that she could visit her mother on weekends. That went well until Mr. Woodley came to stay for a week. He made the most oafish and clumsy sexual advances to her, and boasted that if Violet married him she would have a life of luxury. He even grabbed her and demanded a kiss, precipitating expulsion by his host, Carruthers. Violet has not seen Woodley since...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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  At the Mountains of Madness -...

  H. P. Lovecraft

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  More classic horror narrations on Jonathan's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JonathanDunneHorrorAudiobooks 
  Title: At the Mountains of Madness — Part 5 of 12 
  Author: H. P. Lovecraft 
  Narrator: Jonathan Dunne 
  Original Publication: 1936 
  Public Domain: Yes 
  Series Placement: Timeless Terrors No. 84 — Part 5 of 12 
  Description: 
  In Part Five of At the Mountains of Madness, Dyer and Danforth explore deeper into the alien city, uncovering its massive halls, towering spires, and intricately carved reliefs that depict strange beings and ancient rituals. The architecture defies human logic, hinting at a civilization whose history predates humanity itself. 
  As they delve further, they encounter eerie traces of life—or what once was life—giving unsettling clues about the city’s builders and their ultimate fate. Each discovery intensifies the sense of isolation and terror, as the explorers confront evidence that the world they know is only a fleeting moment in a much vaster cosmic timeline. 
  This chapter continues the shift from awe to dread, highlighting the fragile boundary between human understanding and incomprehensible alien knowledge. 
  This is Part 5 of a 12-part complete audiobook series, where every revelation deepens the chilling mystery at the heart of the Antarctic expedition.

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  Demir-Kaya - From their pens to...

  Alexander Kuprin

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  Alexander Kuprin was born in Narovchat, Penza in Russia on 7th September 1870. 
  At 3 his Father died and he and mother moved to Moscow. By 10 he was enrolled at the Second Moscow Military High School and there his interest in literature began. The Alexander Military Academy followed and two years later he was a sub-lieutenant and posted to an Infantry Regiment for a further four years. 
  Despite his duties he was a now a keen writer and published his first short story at this time. His military duties also garnered him experiences for his breakthrough work ‘The Duel’.  Leaving the military he left for Kiev to work for local newspapers.  He continued to publish both stories and novels and by 1901 he was in St Petersburg becoming part of a group that included Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreyev.  
  In the years that followed further controversial works and acclaim followed.  His comments on the regime meant he was also put under secret police surveillance.   
  As World War I erupted, Kuprin opened a military hospital but was then given command of an infantry company in Finland. He was soon discharged on grounds of ill health.  
  The October Revolution saw him praise Lenin, but he warned that the Bolsheviks threatened Russian culture and might cause further widespread suffering to the peasants.  As Civil War raged he took his family to Helsinki and then on to Paris. 
  Exile saw his talents decline further and his succumbing to alcoholism. He became lonely and withdrawn. The family's poverty increased his malaise.   
  In May 1937, the Kuprin’s returned to Moscow.  He now saw his work published but wrote almost nothing new.  In 1938 his health rapidly deteriorated.  Already suffering from a kidney problems and sclerosis, he had now developed cancer of the oesophagus.  
  Alexander Kuprin died on 25th August 1938.

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  Blackmail - From their pens to...

  John Galsworthy

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  John Galsworthy was born on the 14th August 1867 on the family estate, Parkfield, in Kingston-upon-Thames.  His family’s wealth came from the shipping industry 
  At age nine he began his education at Saugeen, a Bournemouth preparatory school, before moving to Harrow school in 1881, distinguishing himself as an athlete.  
  Galsworthy attended New College, Oxford to read law and left with a second-class degree with honours in 1889. The bar called him in 1890 but Galsworthy decided he would rather run the family’s shipping business. This also meant travelling to destinations such as Vancouver, South Africa and Australia. 
  In 1895 Galsworthy began a decade long affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his first cousin. It was only when, in 1905, she divorced and married Galsworthy that their affair became known. 
  His literary career began in 1897 with a short story volume, ‘From the Four Winds’, with the pseudonym John Sinjohn as were three further works. Under his own name, in 1904, came ‘The Island Pharisees’, a novel of social observation, seasoned with flashes of satire and propaganda. He also switched from small, independent publishers to the larger Heinemann and to whom he remained for the duration of his career. 
  1906 saw first major play, ‘The Silver Box’, and the novel ‘The Man of Property’. Each to considerable acclaim. The latter was the first in ‘The Forsyte Saga’ trilogy written between 1906 and 1921. It dealt with the questions of status, class and materialism through Soames Forsyte, who is acutely aware of his ‘new money’ status. Jealous of his wife, his machinations drive her into the arms of another. Soames engages in a terrible revenge with terrible consequences.  
  His social agenda was enlightened particularly in his condemnation over the use of solitary confinement in prisons, his attacks on theatrical censorship and campaigning for animal rights. 
  Galsworthy, having been passed over for active service, spent much of the First World War working as an orderly in a field hospital in France. 
  Despite his it was only in 1920 that he had his first blockbuster play ‘The Skin Game’, a melodrama dealing with ethics, property and class.  
  In 1920 ‘In Chancery’ also arrived with further discourse on the marital disharmony between Soames Forsyte and his wife.  
  The appreciation of his work gradually shifted from plays to novels, particularly through his detailing English social difference, tension and pretension with the Forsytes.  A second trilogy, ‘A Modern Comedy’, followed, examining his love for his daughter Fleur and the English commercial upper-middle class, its ideologies and Soames’ poisonous materialism.  
  Having rejected a knighthood in 1918 he was appointed, in 1929, to the Order of Merit. Galsworthy spent his last years writing a third Forsythe trilogy, ‘End of the Chapter’.   
  In 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize, but by now failing health meant he was too ill to attend the ceremony. 
  John Galsworthy died at his Hampstead home of a brain tumour on 31st January, 1933. He was cremated and his ashes scattered from an aeroplane over the South Downs.

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  The Celestial Omnibus and Other...

  E. M. Forster

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  "It is only the small people who are afraid of great things."
  
  This collection of short stories by E.M. Forster, originally published in 1911, is notable for its exploration of complex themes of morality and human connections, juxtaposed against the more the mundane aspects of life.
  
  The titular story features a young boy who discovers a celestial bus that transports him beyond the confines of his ordinary life, and into a magical world that adults—limited by convention—cannot perceive. In the remaining stories, ordinary people encounter extraordinary forces in ways that expose the limits of their social conditioning, forming a meditation on how modern life—with its rules, anxieties, and obsession with progress—can deaden the spirit. Forster suggests that true vitality comes from listening to instinct, embracing beauty, and allowing oneself to be changed by the mysterious and the unexpected.
  
  The titles included in this collection are:
  
  - The Story of a Panic
  - The Other Side of the Hedge
  - The Celestial Omnibus
  - Other Kingdom
  - The Curate's Friend
  - The Road from Colonus
  Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970) was an influential English novelist, essayist, and critic, known for his insightful observations on society and human relationships. He is often recognised as a prominent humanist writer, which reflects in both his literary works and his philosophical outlook; his books highlight the constraints that societal norms impose on individuals and advocate for greater empathy and understanding across class lines. His most famous novels include A Room with a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India, and his posthumously published novel Maurice revealed his identity as a gay man and his belief in the necessity of allowing individuals to live authentically.
  This audiobook is fully indexed. Once downloaded, each book and chapter will be listed so you can easily navigate to the individual section

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  Pudd'nhead Wilson

  Mark Twain

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  "Pudd'nhead Wilson" by Mark Twain is a bold, darkly comic novel that blends satire, mystery, and social critique into one of the author's most provocative works. Set in a small Missouri town along the Mississippi River, the story explores identity, race, and morality in pre–Civil War America through a gripping and unconventional narrative.
  
  The novel centers on David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson, a sharp-minded lawyer whose reputation is ruined early in life after a misunderstood remark leads the townspeople to dismiss him as a fool. Living on the margins of society, Wilson spends his time collecting fingerprints—an unusual hobby that later proves crucial to unraveling a shocking crime.
  
  Running parallel to Wilson's story is the powerful and unsettling tale of two boys—one born enslaved and the other born free—who are secretly switched at birth by a desperate mother. As they grow up, the consequences of this deception expose the absurdity and cruelty of racial classifications and social hierarchies. Twain uses this dramatic premise to challenge the idea that race determines character, intelligence, or worth.
  
  Part courtroom drama, part social satire, Pudd'nhead Wilson examines how prejudice, hypocrisy, and rigid social norms distort justice and human relationships. Twain's use of fingerprint evidence—one of the earliest appearances of forensic science in fiction—adds a surprising modern element to the story.
  
  Serious, unsettling, and often ironic, Pudd'nhead Wilson stands apart from Twain's more lighthearted novels, revealing his willingness to confront the moral failures of American society. It is an essential read for lovers of classic literature, social commentary, and thought-provoking fiction that remains strikingly relevant today.

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