Editorial: Fractal Press
A selection of twelve stories from the creator of detective Holmes and Dr. Watson featuring: The Horror of the Heights, The Leather Funnel, The New Catacomb, The Case of Lady Sannox, The Terror of Blue John Gap, The Brazilian Cat, The Lost Special, The Beetle-Hunter, The Man with the Watches, The Japanned Box, The Black Doctor, The Jew's Breastplate.
Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation is a short story by H. G. Wells. Herbert George "H. G." Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction," as are Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of "Journalist." Most of his later novels were not science fiction. Some described lower-middle class life (Kipps; The History of Mr Polly), leading him to be touted as a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole. Wells's first non-fiction bestseller was Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought (1901). When originally serialised in a magazine it was subtitled, "An Experiment in Prophecy," and is considered his most explicitly futuristic work. It offered the immediate political message of the privileged sections of society continuing to bar capable men from other classes from advancement until war would force a need to employ those most able, rather than the traditional upper classes, as leaders. Anticipating what the world would be like in the year 2000, the book is interesting both for its hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek greater sexual freedom; the defeat of German militarism, and the existence of a European Union) and its misses (he did not expect successful aircraft before 1950, and averred that "my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea").Ver libro
First published in Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in successive subsequent editions of this collection, in which it was the fourth of the Mulvaney stories.Private Stanley Ortheris, small, tough, a crack shot, Cockney to his bones, and serving the Queen in India, is plunged in suicidal gloom. He is overcome with homesickness for London, '...sick for the sounds of 'er and the stinks of 'er; orange-peel and hasphalte an' gas comin' in over Vaux'all Bridge. Sick for the rail goin' down to Box 'ill, with your gal on your knee an' a new clay pipe to your face...'. To jerk him out of his depression, the narrator offers to help him desert, get to Karachi, and take ship for England. Ortheris agrees to rendezvous in the long grass by the riverbank, dressed in civlian clothes, to pick up a rail ticket. But when they meet him at dusk, the mood has left him, he is contrite and desperate to get back into uniform, to the life he knows with Mulvaney and Learoyd.Ver libro
The Victorian-era fairy tale and sequel to The Princess and the Goblin from the Scottish author who influenced C.S. Lewis. This second “Curdie” installment, published in 1882, is far more than a mere “children’s story.” The themes and linguistic style of The Princess and Curdie are considerably more advanced, and the depth of its spiritual analogies extensive in subtlety and scope. After being thrust into the rose-fire, the discerning gift of Curdie’s hand to know toward what any man or woman is growing (beast or child), is one of MacDonald’s most memorable, though chilling, images. It is a theme that became profoundly illuminated in later years by MacDonald’s spiritual protégé C.S. Lewis, when he wrote in Mere Christianity, “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature.” Lewis’s words embody a truth that emerges directly out of Curdie’s story. This edition for The Cullen Collection is unedited in any way. Praise for The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie “The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie are two of the most unusual and haunting fairy tales ever written.”—The Guardian “Absorbing stories, a rich feast for the imagination also intended to nourish the souls and intellects of the hearers.”—Vintage NovelsVer libro
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.SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP: "Is a railway porter a railway porter first and a man afterwards, or is he a man first and incidentally a railway porter?" That is the issue between this tawdrification of trade unionism which is called Syndicalism, and the ideals of that Great State, that great commonweal, towards which the constructive forces in our civilisation tend.Ver libro
The Beautiful and Damned, first published by Scribner's in 1922, is F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel. It explores and portrays New York café society and the American Eastern elite during the Jazz Age before and after the Great War and in the early 1920s. As in his other novels, Fitzgerald's characters in this novel are complex, especially with respect to marriage and intimacy. The work generally is considered to be based on Fitzgerald's relationship and marriage with his wife Zelda Fitzgerald.The Beautiful and Damned tells the story of Anthony Patch, a 1910s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune, and his courtship and relationship with his wife Gloria Gilbert. It describes his brief service in the Army during World War I, the couple's post-war partying life in New York, and his later alcoholism. Gloria and Anthony's story deals with the hardships of a relationship, especially when each character has a tendency to be selfish.Ver libro
W. W. Jacobs was best known for his humorous tales of sailors, often related by his most popular and enduring character: the night-watchman on the wharf in Wapping, recounting the preposterous adventures of his acquaintances Ginger Dick, Sam Small, and Peter Russet. These three characters, pockets full after a long voyage, would take lodgings together determined to enjoy a long spell ashore; but the crafty inhabitants of dockland London would soon relieve them of their funds, assisted by the sailors' own fecklessness and credulity.In this story, Sam Small meets a man in a pub who claims to be a detective in need of a sailor to help him catch a pickpocket. Ginger Dick and Peter Russet point out that the whole plot is a set-up which will result in Sam being robbed himself. Sam refuses to listen to them, so Ginger and Peter decide to take matters into their own hands...Ver libro
