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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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  Northanger Abbey - Unabridged

  Jane Austen

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  This early novel is often called Jane Austen's Gothic parody. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers are quintessential gothic ingredients;, but the listener is also rewarded with Austen's typical and wonderful sense of satirical humor!.. Our heroine is Catherine Morland, a seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, an avid reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her with doubt and fear... What lies behind the death of Henry's mother? Is there a terrible family secret? Can she really rely on Henry? Or has our lovely heroine just read to many gothic stories?

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  The Old Man in the Corner - and...

  Baroness Orczy

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  An old man sits in the corner of a London tea house. In comes a young lady reporter, and a conversation ensues. 'Mysteries!' he comments. 'There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation.' At first, the reporter wants to terminate the exchange, swiftly. But she cannot walk away when a notorious unsolved murder becomes the topic of their conversation and this slightly disreputable yet decided character declares that the solution, of course, is obvious! Miss Polly Burton may be dismissive, but she finds herself drawn into the story he presents. And the scene is set.Though best known for The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Hungarian novelist Baroness Orczy was a prolific and versatile writer who could turn her pen to other genres. So, in the social and literary context of the huge success of Sherlock Holmes, she developed a memorable but nameless character with remarkable powers of detection. The first stories appeared in The Royal Magazine in 1901, and other series followed. The first collection appeared in book form in 1905. Entitled The Old Man in the Corner, it contained a dozen entertaining stories, opening with 'The Fenchurch Street Mystery' and continuing with 'The Robbery in Phillimore Terrace', 'The York Mystery' and 'The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway'. Classic diverting crime of its time. Read with a light touch by Martyn Swain

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  Dracula's Guest and Other Weird...

  Bram Stoker

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  Published two years after Bram Stoker’s death, this collection of short stories from the famed author contains nine pieces filled with horrors and thrills. Filled with haunting rats, inexplicable tension, and an appearance from Dracula himself, Stoker’s short stories uphold his reputation from his previous works and allow new audiences to re-discover the master of horror. This collection includes “Dracula’s Guest,” “The Judge’s House,” “The Gipsy Prophecy,” “The Coming of Abel Behenna,” “The Burial of the Rats,” “A Dream of Red Hands,” “Crooken Sands,” and “The Secret of the Growing Gold.”

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  The Old Ancient Ship

  Morley Roberts

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  Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an adventurer who worked on railways and cattle and sheep ranches all over Africa and the Americas and still found time to write a large number of very varied novels and stories with a zest that only real-life experience can give.'The Old Ancient Ship' is a mysterious and ghostly sea story. A strange old mariner, Bill Blood, has hitched a ride on a boat travelling to a remote set of islands in the Pacific. When they make a forced stop at one island to repair a leak in the ship, the crew are eager to go aboard the deserted island and explore. Bill Blood goes with them and leads them to an ancient ship full of skeletons lying in the middle of the tropical forest and overgrown with creepers and foliage. Blood tells them the peculiar and terrible tale of the ancient vessel and those who died in her....

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  The Lost World

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  "The Lost World" is a science fiction novel published in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned creator of Sherlock Holmes. This story revolves around an expedition to a plateau in South America, where Professor Challenger claims to have discovered living dinosaurs. Accompanied by journalist Edward Malone, adventurer Lord John Roxton, and skeptic Professor Summerlee, the group embarks on a thrilling journey to verify Challenger's claims. Beyond the initial challenges, they encounter prehistoric creatures and indigenous tribes, blending action, adventure, and a touch of humor. The novel is considered one of the pioneering works of the "lost world" genre.

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