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  Top 10 Short Stories The - Mens...

  Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain,...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  As the new nation gathered its strength it pushed into new territories, underwent a tumultuous civil war and tried to reconcile itself into a whole.  Its authors wrote stories of intense beauty and detailed witness.  Literature was engaging and persuasive and now a mass-market industry open to a far wider audience. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 -  The 19th Century - The American Men - An Introduction 
  2 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 
  3 - The Million Pound Bank Note by Mark Twain 
  4 - The Romance of Certain Old Clothes by Henry James 
  5 - The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving 
  6 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane 
  7 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 
  8 - The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte 
  9 - The Repairer of Reputations Part 1 by Robert W Chambers 
  10 - The Repairer of Reputations Part 2 by Robert W Chambers 
  11 - The Lady, or the Tiger by Frank Stockton 
  12 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  The Three Musketeers

  Alexandre Dumas

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  The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a musketeer. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis -- inseparable friends who live by the motto, "One for all, and all for one".Dumas' version of the story covers the adventures of D'Artagnan and his friends, as they are involved in intrigues involving the weak King Louis XIII of France, his powerful and cunning advisor Cardinal Richelieu, the beautiful Queen Anne of Austria, her English lover, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, and the Siege of La Rochelle. Adding to the intrigue are the mysterious Milady de Winter, and Richelieu's right-hand man, the Comte de Rochefort.

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  The Iliad & The Odyssey

  Homer Homer

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  The Iliad (Ancient Greek: Ἰλιάς Iliás; sometimes referred to as the Song of Ilion or Song of Ilium) is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege; the earlier events, such as the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of the war, and related concerns tend to appear near the beginning. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles' imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as these events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly, when it reaches an end the poem has told a more or less complete tale of the Trojan War.The Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια Odýsseia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other Homeric epic. The Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon; it is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature, while the Iliad is the oldest. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia. The poem mainly focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths), king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed Odysseus has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres (Greek: Μνηστῆρες) or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.

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  The Way Through the Woods

  Colin Dexter

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  They called her the Swedish Maiden – the beautiful young tourist who disappeared on a hot summer’s day somewhere in North Oxford. Twelve months later the case remained unsolved – pending further developments – at Thames Valley CID. 
   On holiday in Lyme Regis, Chief Inspector Morse is startled to read a tantalizing article in The Times about the missing woman. An article which lures him back to Wytham Woods near Oxford… and straight into the most extraordinary murder investigation of his career.

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  Julius Caesar (Argo Classics)

  William Shakespeare

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  William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. 
  ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’ 
  Shakespeare's political thriller tells the story of the conspiracy against Caesar, his assassination and the defeat of his conspirators. 
  Jealous conspirators convince Caesar's friend Brutus to join their assassination plot against Caesar. To stop Caesar from gaining too much power, Brutus and the conspirators kill him on the Ides of March. Mark Antony drives the conspirators out of Rome and fights them in a battle. Brutus and his friend Cassius lose and kill themselves, leaving Antony to rule in Rome. 
  All of the Shakespeare plays within the ARGO Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts, and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations. 
  Thurston Dart, Professor of Music at London University and a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, directed the music for this production. 
  The full cast includes: John Wilders; George Rylands; Anthony White; Clive Swift; John Dover Wilson; Donald Beves; John Barton; Anthony Jacobs; Tony Church; Roger Prior; Denys Robertson; Michael Jaffe; Gary Watson; Roderick Cook;John Arnott; David Buck; John Arnott; Noel Annan; David Buck; Gary Watsom; Julian Pettifer; John Bird; John Arnott; Chris Renard; Chris Renard; Mark Griffiths; Clive Swift; Wendy Gifford; Dorothy Mulcahy. 
  The theatre production, short in duration but rich in content, showcases the best of European dramatic arts. The performing skills of the actors are truly commendable. 
  For fans of Richard Parsons (GCSE English Shakespeare Text Guide), and Arthur Miller (Incident at Vichy).

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  Man Overboard

  F. Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer, born in Italy and educated in the USA. He also studied at the universities of Cambridge and Heidelberg. He was a prolific writer in many fields but it was his novels that were most popular, commanding a large following.  His stories of the macabre and supernatural are very highly regarded.Public Domain (P)2017 Spiders' House Audio/Roy Macready

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