Other books that might interest you

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  Two Tales From Lord Dunsany

  Lord Dunsany

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  Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, (July 24, 1878 - October 25, 1957), commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist who published more than 90 books during his lifetime, as well as hundreds of short stories, plays, and essays. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. The following recording includes the short stories "The Sword of Welleran" and "Carcassone."

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  The Gilded Age A Tale of Today

  Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner

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  Arguably the first major American novel to satirize the political milieu of Washington, D.C. and the wild speculation schemes that exploded across the nation in the years that followed the Civil War, The Gilded Age gave this remarkable era its name. Co-written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, this rollicking novel is rife with unscrupulous politicians, colorful plutocrats, and blindly optimistic speculators caught up in a frenzy of romance, murder, and surefire deals gone bust. First published in 1873 and filled with unforgettable characters such as the vainglorious Colonel Sellers and the ruthless Senator Dilsworthy, The Gilded Age is a hilarious and instructive lesson in American history. the story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn.

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  Female Short Story The - A...

  Louisa May Alcott, Mary...

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  A wise man once said ‘The safest place for a child is in the arms of his mother’s voice’.  This is a perfect place to start our anthology of female short stories. 
   
  Some of our earliest memories are of our mothers telling us bedtime stories. This is not to demote the value of fathers but more to promote the often-overshadowed talents of the gentler sex. 
   
  Perhaps ‘gentler’ is a word that we should re-evaluate. In the course of literary history it is men who dominated by opportunity and with their stranglehold on the resources, both financial and technological, who brought their words to a wider audience.  Men often placed women on a pedestal from where their talented words would not threaten their own.   
   
  In these stories we begin with the original disrupter and renegade author Aphra Behn.  A peek at her c.v. shows an astounding capacity and leaves us wondering at just how she did all that. 
   
  In those less modern days to be a woman, even ennobled, was to be seen as second class.  You literally were chattel and had almost no rights in marriage.  As Charlotte Smith famously said your role as wife was little more than ‘legal prostitute’.  From such a despicable place these authors have used their talents and ideas and helped redress that situation.   
   
  Slowly at first.  Privately printed, often anonymously or under the cloak of a male pseudonym their words spread.  Their stories admired and, usually, their role still obscured from rightful acknowledgement. 
   
  Aided by more advanced technology, the 1700’s began to see a steady stream of female writers until by the 1900’s mass market publishing saw short stories by female authors from all the strata of society being avidly read by everyone.  Their names are a rollcall of talent and ‘can do’ spirit and society is richer for their works.   
   
  In literature at least women are now acknowledged as equals, true behind the scenes little has changed but if (and to mis-quote Jane Austen) there is one universal truth, it is that ideas change society.  These women’s most certainly did and will continue to do so as they easily write across genres, from horror and ghost stories to tender tales of love and making your way in society’s often grueling rut.  They will not be silenced, their ideas and passion move emotions, thoughts and perhaps more importantly our ingrained view of what every individual human being is capable of.    
   
  It is because of their desire to speak out, their desire to add their talents to the bias around them that we perhaps live in more enlightened, almost equal, times.   
   
  Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. 
   
  01 - The Female Short Story. A Chronological History - An Introduction - Volume 3 
  02 - A Witch's Den by Helena Blavatsky 
  15 - The Ghost in the Clock Room by Hesba Stretton 
  04 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell 
  05 - The Brothers by Louisa May Alcott 
  06 - Carnivorine by Lucy Hamilton Hooper 
  04 - The Face in the Glass by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 
  08 - The Moonstone Mass by Harriet Prescott Spofford 
  09 - The General's Will by Vera Jelihovsky 
  10 - The Story of the RipplingTrain by Mary Louisa Molesworth 
  11 - The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth by Rhoda Broughton 
  12 - A Twin Identity by Edith Stewart Drewery&

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  The Black Monk and Other Stories

  Anton Chekhov

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  Chekhov can characterize with a single well-selected detail. He sums up relationships among a group of people, or the beliefs held by an entire country, by finding those key objects that crystallize his characters' strongest emotions. These four stories dramatize an array of obsessions that are at once purely Russian and deeply universal. Ralph Cosham's voice is so clear and unaccented as he reads these tales that he is a bit surprising; the complex Russian names stand out, jolting the listeners. But that's the only shock here, as Cosham fits his delivery to Chekhov's style, surging to pile description on description, then pausing, to give entire scenes a unified feel and pace.

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  The Green Mamba

  Edgar Wallace

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  Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was an English writer of 957 short stories and over 170 novels. He is widely recognized as one of the most prolific writers of his age. 
  
  'The Green Mamba' is a story in which Wallace's famous detective, Mr. J. G. Reeder, outsmarts one of the leading master criminals in London at the very moment when he is on the verge of his greatest criminal coup.A Red Door Consulting production.

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  The Call of the Wild

  Jack London

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  Call of the Wild is the story of Buck, a magnificent dog who is stolen from his idyllic life and sold for use on a Yukon dogsled team. His travels are not only of a physical nature, as he learns hard discipline from men who must discipline their dog teams, but his own journey back to his primordial roots in the frozen tundra — the roots of wolf. This amazing story of transformation is beautifully written and provides a glimpse of the hard life in the Yukon Territory during the 1900s.

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