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  The City of Dreadful Night

  James Thomson

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  James Thomson was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland on the 23rd November 1834.   
   
  At the age of 8 his sister died and his father suffered a stroke.  Thomson was now sent south to be raised in a London orphanage, the Royal Caledonian Asylum on Chalk near Holloway.  Shortly thereafter he was given the news that his mother had also now died. It was a bleak beginning to the next chapters of his life and would undoubtedly go a long way towards shaping both his character and his future. 
   
  Thomson trained as an army schoolmaster at the Royal Military Asylum in Chelsea and served in Ireland.  After a decade of Army life he left the military and moved to London to find work as a clerk. 
   
  What Thomson also possessed was a powerful and unique writing gift.  Unfortunately, his own demons curtailed him from leaving a larger literary legacy.  But what he did leave are works that can be difficult but very rewarding, allowing us to observe, to understand and make sense of themes and issues that we might at first shy away from.  He also used the suffix B V (Bysshe – taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley and Novalis - the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) this was to avoid confusion with the earlier Scottish poet of the same name.  For Thomson life always had a complication. 
   
  Stories, essays and poems were submitted to various publications during his life and undoubtedly the creative high point of his life is ‘The City of Dreadful Night’.  Within its bleak verse are the struggles of Thomson’s own chaotic tortures with depression, insomnia and alcoholism in the uncaring world that surrounded him.  It was published to favourable reviews from the critics but by now Thomson’s health was rapidly declining. 
   
  James Thomson B V died, in London, at the age of 47, on 3rd June 1882, from a broken blood vessel in his bowel.

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  Life Triumphant The: Mastering...

  James Allen

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  Offering his patented brand of spiritual advice that relied as much on self-empowerment as inspiration, James Allen-one of the most popular writers in the field at the turn of the 20th century-sets out to show the elements of character and conduct that go towards building a "life of calm strength and superlative victory." In helping the reader achieve "victory over all the dark things of life," Allen has written a self-help book for anyone "eager to learn, and earnest to achieve." This is another inspirational landmark from the bestselling author of As a Man Thinketh. British author and pop philosopher JAMES ALLEN (1864-1912) retired from the business world to pursue a life of writing and contemplation. He authored many books about the power of thought including The Way of Peace, The Mastery of Destiny, and Entering the Kingdom

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  Bleak House

  Charles Dickens

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  Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon.
   
  At the novel's core is long-running litigation in England's Court of Chancery, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. The litigation, which already has taken many years and consumed between £60,000 and £70,000 in court costs, is emblematic of the failure of Chancery.
   
  Though Chancery lawyers and judges criticised Dickens's portrait of Chancery as exaggerated and unmerited, his novel helped to spur an ongoing movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s

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  The Registered Packet

  J. S. Fletcher

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  Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and nonfiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the Victorian 'golden age' of the short story.'The Registered Packet' is the story of Martineau, a young man returning home by ship after a two-year absence. On the ship he meets a stranger and volunteers to deliver a small parcel for him to the nearest post office, in order that his fellow traveller might catch his train. But on arrival in Hull, Martineau inadvertently leaves his bag in the cab. He is able to track down the vehicle and find his bag again, but to his horror the packet which was entrusted to him has disappeared. He and his brother set off in search of the missing package...and what follows is an extraordinary tale.

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  A Tough Tussle

  Ambrose Bierce

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  Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-circa 1914) was an American author, journalist, short story writer and satirist who disappeared in 1913 under mysterious circumstances and was never seen again. 'A Tough Tussle' is a weird and horrible ghost story about a soldier in the Civil War who finds himself stationed on sentry duty, alone in a wood at night, next to the corpse of an enemy soldier. While he waits and watches, the body appears to change position....

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  Whilomville Stories

  Stephen Crane

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  This collection consists of thirteen stories. The stories are set in the mythical town of Whilomville used by Stephen Crane for many of his best stories.  They appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine between 1899 and 1900.  The writing is crisp, the stories are poignant and funny (usually) and always tell us something about our quirky human nature.   - Summary by Phil chenevert

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