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  The Pancake

  Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

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  Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales. 
  The Pancake is the tragic tale of one piece of fried batter's desperate escape attempt from the woman who cooked it, her seven ravenous children, her husband, a passer-by, assorted poultry and a greedy pig.

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  The Flowering of the Strange Orchid

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels, and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid" is a creepy horror story about an orchid collector who buys an unknown species from the Andaman Islands. The botanist who collected it had died in a mangrove swamp in the process - allegedly from an attack of jungle leeches. The collector is obsessed by his new acquisition and waits excitedly for it to sprout leaves and then flower. Finally the great day arrives - but there is something very strange about this flower - something very strange indeed....

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  The Short Stories of Kenneth...

  Kenneth Grahame

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  Kenneth Grahame was born on 8th March 1859 in Edinburgh. 
   
  At age 5 his mother succumbed to puerperal fever.  His father, who had a drinking problem, now sent his 4 children to live with their grandmother at her large house in Cookham, Berkshire. Here the children lived in large open grounds next to the river.  These early experiences would in later years, be retold in his writing through a myriad of characters. 
   
  Grahame loved being a pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford and wanted to enroll at the university there but his guardian demurred on account of the cost. 
   
  Instead, a banking career was chosen for him, starting in 1879 at the Bank of England, where he rose steadily to the rank of its Secretary until retiring, with a pension, in 1908 due to ill health. 
   
  Alongside his commercial career Grahame had written and published various stories and essays in several periodicals. Some were anthologized as ‘Pagan Papers’ in 1893, and two years later ‘The Golden Age’ and later still ‘Dream Days’ and its masterpiece ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ became part of many home libraries.  His ability to view life through the lens of a young and curious child was superb, enabling the reader to easily identify with the character.   
   
  Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899 and they had one child; Alastair, born semi-blind and plagued by health problems.  In a heart-rending tragedy he would later take his own life whilst attending Oxford University in 1920.   
   
  In 1908 Grahame reworked many of the bedtime stories he had fashioned for his son into the enduring favourite; ‘The Wind in the Willows’, describing the heart-warming adventures of Mr Toad and his friends.   
   
  Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on 6th July 1932. 
  01 - Kenneth Grahame - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - A Saga of the Seas by Kenneth Grahame 
  03 - Dies Irae by Kenneth Grahame 
  04 - The Magic Ring by Kenneth Grahame 
  05 - Mutabile Semper by Kenneth Grahame 
  06 - The Inquity of Oblivion by Kenneth Grahame

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  Bernice Bobs Her Hair

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  Pretty but socially clueless Bernice lets her know-it-all cousin push her around, but eventually, something's gotta give! (Introduction by BellonaTimes)

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  Nikolai Gogol - A Short Story...

  Nikolai Gogol

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  Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore.   
   
  His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre.  This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12.  Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters. 
   
  In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him. 
   
  Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals.  These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day.  He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity.  Eight stories were published as ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’.  Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature.   
   
  His success continued with his brilliant plays ‘The Inspector General’ and the comedy ‘The Marriage for the Theatre’, both being highly acclaimed.   
   
  In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post.  With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal ‘Dead Souls’, Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera.  
   
  In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43. 
   
  1 - Nikolai Gogol - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - The Nose by Nikolai Gogol 
  3 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  4 - Old Fashioned Landowners by Nikolai Gogol 
  5 - St Johns Eve by Nikolai Gogol 
  6 - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol

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  Thirteen Stories

  Eudora Welty

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  “I’ve read her Thirteen Stories many times, and I’m always awed by how much comedy, pathos, satire and lyricism she manages to squeeze into her stories.” —Sue Monk Kidd   A strong sense of place—in this case Mississippi—along with often larger-than-life characterizations of ordinary folk with all their glorious eccentricities and foibles, and above all a completely distinctive voice, come together in Eudora Welty’s fiction to offer us a world that is sometimes sad, sometimes comic, often petty, and always compassionate.   Here is a baker’s dozen of Welty’s very best, including: “The Wide Net,” in which a pregnant wife threatens to drown herself, despite fear of the water, and a communal dragging of the river turns into a celebratory fish-fry; “Petrified Man,” revealing the savagery of small-town gossip; “Powerhouse,” Welty’s prose answer to jazz improvisation and the emotional heart of the blues; and “Why I Live at the P.O.”, the hilariously one-sided testimony of a postmistress who believes herself wronged by her family. With her highly tuned ear and sharp insight into human behavior, Eudora Welty has crafted stories as vital and unpredictable as they are artful and enduring.   “Miss Welty has written some of the finest short stories of modern times.” —The New York Times   “Eudora Welty is one of our purest, finest, gentlest voices.” —Anne Tyler

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