Other books that might interest you

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  Rappaccini's Daughter

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. 
   
  At only four years old, his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron.  
   
  He was sent to college at his maternal uncle’s insistence. During these years he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future U S president Franklin Pierce. These friendships were lifelong and to have a crucial impact on his writings and career.  
   
  At college Hawthorne had made attempts at writing short stories and essays but without opportunities to publish. It was only in 1828 that he finally published his novel ‘Franshawe’ to little success and so he began work as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge.  
   
  Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.   
   
  Finally. in 1850 came spectacular literary and commercial success with ‘The Scarlet Letter’ followed by ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ the following year.  
   
  In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography of presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. After Pierce’s victory he was appointed consul in Liverpool, a position that offered prestige, money and fame. At the end of this appointment he returned several times to Europe before settling in Massachusetts and resuming writing and publication. 
   
  During the early 1860’s his health declined and on 19th May 1864 during a trip to Plymouth, New Hampshire. He was 59 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  
   
  ‘Rapaccinni’s Daughter’ is a classic piece of literature from his pen.  Set in Italy, it is an unsettling story of romance destroyed by science.

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  If I Had the Wings

  Helen Klonaris

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  Growing up gay is fraught with constraints and even danger in the small Greek-Bahamian community that feels its traditional culture and religious pieties are under threat. The main characters in Helen Klonaris's poetic, inventive and sometimes transgressive collection of short stories confront this reality as part of their lives. Yet there are also ways in which young women in several of the stories search for roots in that tradition – to find within it, alternatives to the dominant influence of the Orthodox church. These include attempts to make connections between their Caribbean lives and the figures and narratives drawn from Greek mythology.
  
  Klonaris focuses closely on family relationships, in particular the compexities of father/daughter relationships – ranging from over-bearing authority, absence and incest. Klonaris's characters are very much part of the wider realities in Bahamian society, including the presence of unregistered immigrants from Haiti, and the interplay between fear, repression, hypocrisy and resistance in the relations between the state, the churches and the LGBT community.

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  The Terrible Old Man

  H. P. Lovecraft

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  Howard Philips Lovecraft was an American writer world-famous for his horror fiction works. He was interested in influence of things of non-human nature on human beings. In his stories the reality that we know is merely a thin insecure cover, and what is hidden below may definitely drive you insane. This is a story of three robbers planning to obtain the treasure of a weird and lonely old but rich man. What remains unknown to them is that the man inspires the whole town with awe. And it’s not his oddly set and colored stones in the yard and talking to glass bottles, what something invisible but perceptible behind this. The three friends hatch out a plan and begin to fulfill it. The story lets its readers dive into the atmosphere of a classic Lovecraftian horror and gives them creeps.A SmartTouch Media production.

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  The Ransom of Red Chief and Others

  O. Henry

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  Four favorite tales from the pen of American short-story writer O. Henry that burst with his humor, pathos, and endearing observations on children, the poor, and dogs! In this collection: “The Ransom of Red Chief” (two kidnappers hatch a plot and get more than they bargain for!), “Memoirs of a Yellow Dog” (a put-upon pup and his master yearn for a better life), “The Cop and the Anthem” (all poor Soapy wanted was a warm bed for the winter), and “The Gift of the Magi” (the classic Christmas tale of love and giving from the heart). Performed by Mark Redfield with Mackenzie Menter. Original music by Jennifer Rouse.

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  A Haunted House

  Virginia Woolf

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  Adeline Virginia Woolf (January 1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the preeminent modernists of the 20th century. Her stories often seem to take the form of a stream of consciousness.'A Haunted House' tells the story of a ghostly couple flitting from one room to the next in search of their hidden treasure...but what is it?

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  Driving to Geronimo's Grave and...

  Joe R. Lansdale

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  From the Dusty Great Depression to the far future, to the wild west, to the era of big fin automobiles, soda shops and double features, as well as dark journey on an icy ocean full of ravenous sharks and a fantastic shipwreck that leads its survivors into a nightmarish Lovecraftian world of monsters and mystery, Joe R. Lansdale returns with a pack of stories for your consumption and enjoyment. There's even killer machines, a big ole grizzly bear, and entertaining story notes. Joe R. Lansdale has been writing novels and stories, as well as screenplays and comics, for over forty-five years, and this is his latest concoction, encompassing stories informed by a variety of genres, but not quite comfortably fitting into any of them.  The reason is simple.  Joe R. Lansdale is his own genre.

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