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  Tales of Horror

  H.P. Lovecraft

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  The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel.  But it is an art in itself.  To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task.  Many try and many fail.  In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers.  Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say.  In this volume we examine some of the short stories of HP Lovecraft. There are rather few masters of horror writing out of the many who write horror.  HP Lovecraft along with Edgar Allan Poe have achieved fame because their work is of a standard of excellence that few if any can rival.   Here we concentrate on HP Lovecraft, even the name has a sliver of the night about it.  Born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island he was a prodigious youth but a sickly one.  Raised mainly by his Grandfather and Aunts at 14 he contemplated suicide on the death of his grandfather and the crushing financial blow that brought to himself and his mother.  A set of literary spats in a newspaper brought him attention away from his poetry writings.  But until the last decade of his life the works for which we is so well know did not arrive.   That last decade, writing again in Providence was prolific but with little income his life downgraded rented house by rented house and in 1936, often malnourished he was diagnosed with cancer and succumbed to it the following year.

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  Crimson and the Battle of Lonely...

  Valerie Pike

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  The lonesome dragon, Crimson, is stranded in a cave with a wish-catching bat fairy, Flame Twig, and is determined to make the best of a bad situation. When he sheds his scales, they turn into rubies. The spirited dragon does not fit in with the other greedy dragons and misses his family.  Crimson soars out into the unknown lands surrounding his cave.  During his adventure, he meets other dragons, including Sparks Snorter, a clever and sly warrior dragon who lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean, Green Smasher the Gold Hoarder, who lives in a lair near an inactive volcano, and Green Smasher's two-headed daughter, Amethyst, who embodies the best and worst of dragon character.  Unfortunately, friendship is not what Crimson finds.Soon a Princess Penelope who lives at the base of Lonely Mountain in the Castle of Contentment ventures to his lair in search of love. They become friends and get into various adventures together. Crimson gives Penelope a magical ruby necklace.Readers will delight in the adventures of Crimson and Penelope as they encounter fairies and get caught up in an epic dragon battle of greed and revenge that threatens to destroy Penelope's Kingdom. Will Crimson win at the end and restore harmony to the townspeople?  Will Crimson overcome his loneliness and find a kind soul to be a friend?

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  On The Gull's Road

  Willa Cather

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  "On the Gulls' Road" is a touching short story by Willa Cather, first published in McClure's in December 1908. A fellow painter visits the narrator, and is mesmerised by his painting of Alexandra Ebbling, a married woman, whom the narrator met on a ship from Genoa to New York City. On the ship, he and Mrs. Ebbling enjoyed many conversations about life, love, and personal experiences. The courtship goes on for the entire trip and grows stronger each day. The man is smitten by Mrs. Ebbling and cannot wait until the next time they meet. The man paints a picture of Mrs. Ebbling while they talk and enjoy the sunshine and the sea so he can always remember the woman. They tell each other things about their hopes and dreams. All the while Mrs. Ebbling knows that nothing can come of the affair. She is married and close to death. The man has high hopes for her to run away with him but she has to tell him that it can never happen. Mrs. Ebbling gives the man a gift that he is not to open until she tells him to. In the following winter, he is informed that she had died. Inside the gift she had given him, there is a letter from her thanking him for all the memories he gave her of a love that almost happened, along with a lock of her golden hair, a withered magnolia flower, and two pink sea shells. In the end, theirs was a love that stood the test of time, separation, and even death.

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  Cutting Edge - New Stories of...

  Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret...

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  Joyce Carol Oates, a queenpin of the noir genre, has brought her keen and discerning eye to the curation of an outstanding anthology of brand-new top-shelf short stories (and poems by Margaret Atwood!). While bad men are not always the victims in these tales, they get their due often enough to satisfy listeners who are sick and tired of the gendered status quo, or who just want to have a little bit of fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society. This stylistically diverse collection will make you squirm in your seat, stay up at night, laugh out loud, and inevitably wish for more.Featuring brand-new stories by: Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood (poems), Valerie Martin, Aimee Bender, Edwidge Danticat, Sheila Kohler, S. A. Solomon, S. J. Rozan, Lucy Taylor, Cassandra Khaw, Bernice L. McFadden, Jennifer Morales, Elizabeth McCracken, Livia Llewellyn, Lisa Lim, and Steph Cha.

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  The Maison Tellier

  Guy de Maupassant

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  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France.  
   
  Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. 
   
  After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.   
   
  Maupassant’s education was such that he rebelled against religion and other societal norms but a developing friendship with Gustave Flaubert began to turn his mind towards creativity and writing. 
   
  After graduation he volunteered for the Franco-Prussian war. With its end he moved to Paris to work as a clerk in the Navy Department.  Gustave Flaubert now took him under his wing.  Acting as a literary guardian to him, he guided the eager Maupassant to debuts in journalism and literature.  For Maupassant these were exciting times and the awakening of his creative talents and ambitions. 
   
  In 1880 he published what is considered his first great work, ‘Boule de Suif’, (translated as as ‘Dumpling’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Ball of Fat’, or ‘Ball of Lard’) which met with a success that was both instant and overwhelming.  Flaubert at once acknowledged that it was ‘a masterpiece that will endure.’ Maupassant had used his talents and experiences in the war to create something unique.  
   
  This decade from 1880 to 1891 was to be the most pivotal of his career.  With an audience now made available by the success of ‘Boule de Suif’ Maupassant organised himself to work methodically and relentlessly to produce between two and four volumes of work a year.  The melding of his talents and business sense and the continual hunger of sources for his works made him wealthy. 
   
  In his later years he developed a desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death as well as a paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth.  
   
  On January 2nd, 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat.  Unsuccessful he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris.  It was here on July 6th, 1893 that  
  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 42.

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  The Vampire Maid

  Hume Nisbet

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  James Hume Nisbet (1849 - 1923) was born in Scotland but travelled extensively in Australia before returning to his native country. He became a writer in middle-age and wrote prolifically, mainly mystery and adventure fiction. 
  
  
  "The Vampire Maid" is a classic vampire story about a traveller who takes lodgings with an apparently kind landlady and her pale invalid daughter, who instantly casts a spell upon him.

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