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  A Garland of Earth - From their...

  Dorothy Edwards

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  Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards was born on 7th June 1831 in Islington, London.  She was educated at home by her mother and showed early promise as a writer, publishing her first poem at the age of 7 and her first story at 12.  Thereafter several popular periodicals published her poetry, stories and articles. 
  In addition she also illustrated some of her own writings and painted scenes from books she had read.  This talent was not supported by her parents, who saw an artist’s life as scandalous.  Undeterred Amelia took up composing and performing music until a bout of typhus caused throat damage.  Other interests soon followed until, early in the 1850s, Amelia focused exclusively on writing.  Her early novels were well received, and with ‘Barbara's History’ in 1864, a work revolving around bigamy, her reputation was established.  
  Amelia’s pen was also the purveyor of ghost stories for magazines and are still anthologized as classic tales to this day. 
  In January 1851, Amelia became engaged, apparently to please her parents, but she quickly broke it off.  In reality her emotional attachments were almost exclusively with women.  From the early 1860s she lived with Ellen Drew Braysher, a widow 27 years her senior, until both women died in early 1892.  During this relationship other women also entered and left her life.  Her frequent travelling companion, Lucy Renshaw, accompanied her to Egypt in the winter of 1873 and there she found a life-changing interest in Egyptology.  Aware of increasing threats from tourism and modern development she became an advocate for their research and preservation.  
  To advance the work Amelia largely abandoned much of her writing in favour of Egyptology and even took on strenuous lecture tours to raise funds. 
  After catching influenza, Amelia Edwards, ‘the Godmother of Egyptology’ died on 15th April 1892 at Weston-super-Mare.  She was 60.

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  August Heat - From their pens to...

  W F Harvey

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  William Fryer Harvey AM was born on 14th April 1885 into a wealthy Quaker family in Leeds, West Yorkshire. 
  He was educated at the Quaker Bootham School in Yorkshire and Leighton Park School in Reading before university at Balliol College, Oxford.  
  His health was fragile and he poured his energies into writing short stories and in 1910 published his first collection ‘Midnight House’. 
  In the Great War he was with the Friends' Ambulance Unit and then served as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy.  There he received the Albert Medal for Lifesaving but lung damage received at that time troubled him for the rest of his life. 
  He continued to write short stories, and even a memoir, but by 1925 ill health had forced his retirement to any outside work.  Three years later he published his second collection which contained his macabre classic ‘The Beast with Five fingers’, only one more collection would come from his pen in his lifetime. 
  For many years of his life he now lived in Switzerland with his wife but a yearning to be home saw them come back to England in 1935. 
  W F Harvey died in Letchworth on the 4th June 1937. He was 52.

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  The Doll

  Charles W. Chesnutt

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  Charles Chesnutt's "The Doll" is a story of seeking truth, facing discrimination, and making bold choices for the sake of one's own livelihood.
  "The Doll", depicts the African American barber as a human character by showing him struggle with and simply show human thoughts and emotions. The story takes place during a time of huge racial prejudice, a time in which some people did not even consider African Americans to be human.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The -...

  Franz Kafka, Anton Chekhov,...

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  The Top 10 – Eastern Europe - An Introduction 
   
  From the Central plain of Europe to the Urals, many thousands of miles away, the nations of Eastern Europe have risen to become Empires and fallen underfoot to others.  Their literary tradition has always been strong and vibrant, bold and beguiling.  Within the many cultures and societies the narrative of the human condition is told in many startling and beautiful ways. 
   
  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  1 - The Top Ten - Eastern Europe - An Introduction 
  2 - A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka 
  3 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 
  4 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  5 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
  6 - The Shot by Alexander Pushkin 
  7 - A Legend of Old Egypt by Boleslaw Prus 
  8 - Hide And Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub 
  9 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev 
  10 - The Bundle of Letters by Moritz Jokai 
  11 - The Chamomile Drops by Jaroslav Hasek

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  Wonder Of Women - Stories About...

  Kate Chopin, Edith Nesbit, Edith...

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  Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law.  However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many.  
   
  In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status.  Women were chattel and property.  There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the rules and do as you were told.  Many did. 
   
  But whilst male society sought to place obstacles in the path to equality, it could not deny their literary talents, which many times they circumvented by using male pseudonyms.  However, the soaring sales of magazines and periodicals during the Victorian Age meant they had voracious appetites for literature, whatever the sex of its gender. 
   
  Dozens of authors appeared to fill the need.  Narratives had new ideas.  Characters were emboldened by societal changes and the female voice taking responsibility. 
   
  The women included here are talents that dazzle.  Put them up against anyone and they rise to the top.  Whether they remain with an avid readership today or faded to obscurity with the passing of the times their quality remains undimmed.   
   
  1 - Women of Wonder - Affairs - An Introduction 
  2 - The Storm by Kate Chopin 
  3 - From the Dead by Edith Nesbit 
  4 - Souls Belated by Edith Wharton 
  5 - The Legacy by Virginia Woolf 
  6 - The Pleasant Husband by Marjorie Bowen 
  7 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford 
  8 - Lena Wrace by May Sinclair 
  9 - The Difference by Ellen Glasgow 
  10 - Behind the Curtain by Gertrude Barrows Bennett writing as Francis Stevens 
  11 - The Kiss by Kate Chopin

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  A Broken Trust - From their pens...

  Elizabeth Corbett

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  Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett was born on the 16th August 1846 at Standishgate, near Wigan. 
  After a good education she worked as a journalist for the Newcastle Daily Chronicle and went on to become a widespread and popular writer of adventure and society novels. 
  As a feminist writer it is a little bizarre that she published as Mrs George Corbett.  Her most ardent feminist work was ‘New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future,’ though other of her works were also similarly themed and dealt with one of the great issues of the day in Victorian society. 
  She married George Corbett in Sheffield in 1868.  They went on to have 4 children, of which only 3 survived. 
  As a writer she was not overly prolific but was perhaps most admired for her female detectives.  During her literary career Detective books were all the rage and authors of both sexes attempted to bring new and unusual angles of characters and narratives before the voracious public.   
  Corbett’s first was in a collection of short stories ‘Adventures of a Lady Detective featuring Dora Bell'.  A later novel introduced a further detective in the guise of Annie Cory. 
  Elizabeth Corbett died on in 1930.

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