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  Age of Specialisation The...

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.
  AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION: There is something of the phonograph in all of us, but in the sort of eminent person who makes public speeches about education and reading, and who gives away prizes and opens educational institutions, there seems to be little else but gramophone.

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  Grim Tales - A pioneering volume...

  Edith Nesbit

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  Edith Nesbit was born on the 15th August 1858 in Kennington, then part of Surrey.   
   
  Due to the health issues and tuberculosis of her sister Mary, Nesbit’s early life was one of constant changes of house both in England and on the continent. 
   
  At age 17, Nesbit met Hubert Bland and they married three years later―whilst she was 7 months pregnant.  Bland also kept his affair with another woman going throughout their marriage and the two children of that relationship were raised by Nesbit as well as her own three with Bland. 
   
  Together they were founder members of the Fabian Society in 1884 naming their son Fabian in its honour.  They also edited the Society's journal; ‘Today’.  Nesbit was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism during those years but gradually her work for them dwindled as her career as a children’s writer grew.  Her most famous success was ‘The Railway Children’ but she was also very prolific and greatly accomplished in poetry, short stories―especially her macabre ghost and supernatural stories―and novels for adults.  
   
  In February 1917, some three years after the death of Bland she married Thomas ‘the Skipper’ Tucker in Woolwich, where he was a ship's engineer on the Woolwich Ferry. 
   
  Edith Nesbit died from lung cancer on the 4th May 1924 at her house ‘The Long Boat’ at Jesson, St Mary's Bay, New Romney in Kent.  She was 65.

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  A Dead Woman's Secret - From...

  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 Double - A Petersburg Poem

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  The Double: A Petersburg Poem (Russian: Двойник. Петербургская поэма, romanized: Dvoynik. Peterburgskaya poema) is a novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published on 30 January 1846 in the Otechestvennye zapiski. It was subsequently revised and republished by Dostoevsky in 1866.

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  David Copperfield

  Charles Dickens

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  "David Copperfield," often referred to as "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery," is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a book in 1850. It follows the life journey of David Copperfield, from his birth and idyllic early childhood through trials and tribulations in youth, to his eventual success and happiness as an adult. The story is written in the first person and has been described by Dickens himself as his "favorite child" among his works. Throughout the narrative, Dickens addresses themes like class, family, and the challenges and rewards of personal development.

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  Ben Pitcher's Elly - Mann delves...

  Mary E. Mann

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  Mary Rackham was born in Norwich on 14th August 1848 to a merchant family.  Little is known of her early life and her biography only re-appears in September 1871 with marriage to Fairman Joseph Mann, a farmer with 800 acres.   
   
  Mary moved to Shropham, Norfolk and became involved with the workhouse, visiting the sick and other unfortunates of the parish, her observations and experiences a valuable source for her later stories.  
   
  She took up writing, partly to offset the dreary village life of her surroundings, in the 1880s and published her first novel, ‘The Parish of Hilby’ (1883) at her own expense. It was well received by the critics.  
   
  Thus began a career that spanning three decades provided thirty-three novels, hundreds of short stories, and fourteen plays.  Her work was largely focused on rural life in Norfolk and centered on the fictional town of Dulditch, with grim but authentic accounts of poverty and deprivation.  
   
  Her marriage produced one boy and three girls. With her husband's death in 1913, she moved to Sheringham.  
   
  She is regarded as a major contributor to East Anglian literature with particular praise given to her short stories. 
   
  Mary E Mann died on 19th May 1929.  She was 80.  Her grave-marker is a carved open book with the epitaph ‘We bring our years to an end, as if it were a tale that is told’. 
   
  Life in ‘Ben Pitcher's Elly’ is degrading, awful and unvarnished.  The chances of this young girl having a happy life are remote but her story must be heard.

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