Editora: Bu Classics Books
Gather around the festive pine as a narrator recalls the toys, gifts, and ghost stories of Christmases past. The sparkle of ornaments evokes both the innocence of childhood and the eerie tales told by the winter fire. A nostalgic journey that blends the joy of the season with the haunting power of memory.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died. Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained. His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13. In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army. In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre. Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life. For them this was The Jazz Age. For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic. He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names. The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews. As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t. Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936. His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check. His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents. Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit. The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers. On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack.Ver livro
Orejas de ellos, "the things that listen", whispered the superstitious fishermen when the strange occurrences began off the Philippine coast. How else explain the sudden disappearance of a vessel beneath a mysterious curtain of foam? The writhings of thousands of maddened fish trapped in a coffin-like area of ocean? What monsters gorged at the bottom of the Luzon Deep and what were their plans? Radar expert Terry Holt and the crew of the Esperance had to devise a weapon against the horrifying creatures which threatened mankind with extinction. Here are terror, excitement, and the clutch of cold death as combined by a master hand in the field of science fiction. (Summary by from original book jacket)Ver livro
Hector Hugh Munro, more familiarly known by his pen-name ‘Saki’ was born in what was then Akyab in British Burma on 18th December 1870. His father was an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police, and his mother the daughter of a Rear Admiral. When he was 2 his mother died and he and his siblings were sent back to England to be raised by their grandmother and paternal maiden aunts in a strict, puritanical household near Barnstaple, Devon. Educated by governesses Saki used many of these women as character models for his later writing. At 17 his father retried and returned to England and then embarked on a series of European travels with Saki and his siblings. After a short stint working in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police Saki decided to move to London to make a living as a writer. Initially he wrote as a journalist for a number of newspapers and magazines before attempting an historical study, ‘The Rise of the Russian Empire’, whose real value lay in directing him to writing short stories instead, the first of which, ‘Dogged’, he published in 1899. From here it was a short stab of the pen to writing political satire before in 1902 he became the foreign correspondent for The Morning Post, first in the Balkans, then Russia, Paris and back to London in 1908, where 'the agreeable life of a man of letters with a brilliant reputation awaited him.' Collections of his short stories full of witty, mischievous and often macabre stories that satirized Edwardian society and two novels now appeared in the years up to the Great War. At its’ outbreak he was 43 but managed to join as an ordinary trooper. More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially too sick or injured. On 14th November 1916 Hector Hugh Munro was sheltering in crater during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was shot and killed by a German sniper. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that bloody cigarette out!"Ver livro
Mary Frances Butts was born on 13th December 1890 in Poole, Dorset. Her early years were spent at Salterns, an 18th-century house overlooking Poole Harbour. Sadly in 1905 her father died, and she was sent for boarding at St Leonard's school for girls in St Andrews. Her mother remarried and, from 1909, Mary studied at Westfield College in London, and here, first became aware of her bisexual feelings. She was sent down for organising a trip to Epsom races and only completed her degree in 1914 when she graduated from the London School of Economics. By then Mary had become an admirer of the occultist Aleister Crowley and she was given a co-authorship credit on his ‘Magick (Book 4)’. In 1916, she began the diary which would now detail her future life and be a constant reference point for her observations and her absorbing experiences. During World War I, she was doing social work for the London County Council in Hackney Wick, and involved in a lesbian relationship. Life changed after meeting the modernist poet, John Rodker and they married in 1918. In 1921 she spent 3 months at Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Sicily; she found the practices dreadful and also acquired a drug habit. Mary now spent time writing in Dorset, including her celebrated book of short stories ‘Speed the Plough’ which saw fully develop her unique Modernist prose style. Europe now beckoned and several years were spent in Paris befriending many artists and writing further extraordinary stories. She was continually sought after by literary magazines and also published several short story collections as books. Although a Modernist writer she worked in other genres but is essentially only known for her short stories. Mary was deeply committed to nature conservation and wrote several pamphlets attacking the growing pollution of the countryside. In 1927, she divorced and the following year her novel ‘Armed with Madness’ was published. A further marriage followed in 1930 and time was spent attempting to settle in London and Newcastle before setting up home on the western tip of Cornwall. By 1934 the marriage had failed. Mary Butts died on 5th March 1937, at the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, after an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. She was 46.Ver livro
This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. “The Disinterment of Venus” is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith that transports us to the year 1550. In the Perigon Abbey in Averoigne, something extraordinary and scandalous has occurred. Three monks—Paul, Pierre, and Hughes—unearth a marble statue of a goddess hidden in the monastery garden. Its arms and bosom evoke both pious terror and mysterious excitement. Could it be the ancient Venus herself? This discovery leads to a forbidden history, drawing the reader into the dark world of Averoigne. Will the daring monks uncover the truth about this enigmatic figure? “The Disinterment of Venus” is a tale that immerses you in the whirl of mystical secrets and forbidden love. Are you ready for this journey?Ver livro
The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is H F W Tatham.Ver livro
