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  The Stories of Jane Gardam

  Jane Gardam

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  “Pure delight . . . One perfect story after another” from the Whitbread Award–winning author of the Old Filth trilogy (The Sunday Telegraph). 
   
  From the inimitable Jane Gardam, whose Old Filth trilogy cemented her status as one of England’s greatest living novelists, comes a collection of short stories that showcase her subversive wit, gentle humor, and insight into the human condition. Gardam’s versatility is on full display, while her sublime grasp of language and powers of observation remain as provocative as ever. 
   
  “A formidable collection that is at once outlandish and entirely convincing . . . It is Gardam’s gift for the ecstatic, for showing us what a place of wonders is the world and the hearts that dwell in it, that endows this collection with a dangerous and formidable energy, richer and more concentrated than any novel. She gives us miracle heaped upon miracle, and insists that they should each one be handled with care.” —The Guardian 
   
  “Unexpected appearance of figures from the past drive many of these sly, bighearted tales.” —The New York Times 
   
  “Readers will feel lucky to have so much good writing in one place.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) 
   
  “Gardam’s preference for short stories shows in this extraordinary collection of great writing.” —NewPages Book Reviews 
   
  “A rich haul from a well of talent.” —Kirkus Reviews

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  Jannat Ka Bhoot

  Azeem Baig Chughtai

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  Jannat Ka Bhoot is a selection from the works of Mirza Azeem Baig Chugtai. About the author: Mirza Azeem Chughtai known in literary circles by his pen name Shabnam Romani, was a renowned Urdu poet based in Karachi, Paksitan. Shabnam Romani wrote a number of books including Jazeera, Doosra Himala, and Tohmat. He was the publisher and editor of quaterly Aqdar, a literary Urdu magazine and wrote a regular column in The Daily "Mashriq" Karachi

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  The Pursuing Shadow

  Andrew Soutar

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  Andrew Soutar (1879-1941) was a British author and journalist best known for his novels and short stories.'The Pursuing Shadow' is the story of Spatz, an unscrupulous and self-absorbed businessman who has left a trail of devastation behind him in the form of destroyed business partners, one of who lost an arm as a result of a suicide attempt when cheated by Spatz. But karma catches up with everyone, and the amputee finally returns to find Spatz at the precise moment of his own downfall.

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  Claude Gueux

  Victor Hugo

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  Victor Marie Hugo was born on 26th February 1802 in Besançon, France.   
   
  There can be no doubt that Hugo is ranked as the greatest of French authors and poets. In addition to this he fought against social injustice throughout his life and from his frequent elections to the French Assembly. 
   
  Hugo published his first novel, Han d’Islande (1823), the year after his marriage and so began an immense canon of fiction and poetry not only for France but to World literature.  
   
  He was elected to the Académie Française in 1841 and the same year came a peerage and entrance to the Higher Chamber as a pair de France, where he spoke against the death penalty, social injustice and in favour of press freedom.  
     
  In the years leading up to the Revolution of 1848 Hugo began to lean towards Republicanism and greater freedoms.  With the formation of the Second Republic, he was again elected to the Assembly. 
   
  When Napoleon III seized power in 1851, and established an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. This, of course, meant exile where he remained until 1870.  In exile he published his greatest work ‘Les Misérables’, and further widely honoured collections of poetry. 
   
  Returning home he was again elected to the National Assembly and the Senate.  It was the time of the Franco-Prussian war and with Paris under siege and food ever more scarce, he wrote in his diary that he was now "eating the unknown". 
   
  Later he was instrumental in strengthening the rights of artists and copyright, steps which led to the international protections of the Berne Convention.  
   
  Victor Hugo died on 22nd May 1885, aged 83.    
   
  In ‘Claude Gueux’ one prisoner dares to challenge a system and its cruel Governor who takes away his only friend purely out of spite.  The consequences are appalling.

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  The Dungeon Date

  Martin Lundqvist

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  As the rumours about his alleged vaccine damages have spread, Geoffrey goes home with the only woman at the gala dinner that knows that the rumours are false. Unfortunately, his planned hook-up, Sandra Barnes, turns out to be a madwoman who chains Geoffrey to a bed and claims that his refereeing calls caused the death of her boyfriend. Will anyone save Geoffrey, or will his days end in the clutches of a madwoman? There is only one way to find out, listen to this audiobook.

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  British Short Story The - Volume...

  Ada Ester Leverson, William...

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  These British Isles, moored across from mainland Europe, are more often seen as a world unto themselves.  Restless and creative, they often warred amongst themselves until they began a global push to forge a World Empire of territory, of trade and of language. 
   
  Here our ambitions are only of the literary kind.  These shores have mustered many masters of literature. So this anthology’s boundaries includes only those authors who were born in the British Isles - which as a geographical definition is the UK mainland and the island of Ireland - and wrote in a familiar form of English. 
   
  Whilst Daniel Defoe is the normal starting point we begin a little earlier with Aphra Behn, an equally colourful character as well as an astonishing playwright and poet.  And this is how we begin to differentiate our offering; both in scope, in breadth and in depth.  These islands have raised and nurtured female authors of the highest order and rank and more often than not they have been sidelined or ignored in favour of that other gender which usually gets the plaudits and the royalties. 
   
  Way back when it was almost immoral that a woman should write.  A few pages of verse might be tolerated but anything else brought ridicule and shame.  That seems unfathomable now but centuries ago women really were chattel, with marriage being, as the Victorian author Charlotte Smith boldly stated ‘legal prostitution’.  Some of course did find a way through - Jane Austen, the Brontes and Virginia Woolf but for many others only by changing their names to that of men was it possible to get their book to publication and into a readers hands.  Here we include George Eliot and other examples. 
   
  We add further depth with many stories by authors who were famed and fawned over in their day.  Some wrote only a hidden gem or two before succumbing to poverty and death. There was no second career as a game show guest, reality TV contestant or youtuber. They remain almost forgotten outposts of talent who never prospered despite devoted hours of pen and brain. 
   
  Keeping to a chronological order helps us to highlight how authors through the ages played around with characters and narrative to achieve distinctive results across many scenarios, many styles and many genres. The short story became a sort of literary laboratory, an early disruptor, of how to present and how to appeal to a growing audience as a reflection of social and societal changes.  Was this bound to happen or did a growing population that could read begin to influence rather than just accept? 
   
  Moving through the centuries we gather a groundswell of authors as we hit the Victorian Age - an age of physical mass communication albeit only on an actual printed page.  An audience was offered a multitude of forms: novels (both whole and in serialised form) essays, short stories, poems all in weekly, monthly and quarterly form.  Many of these periodicals were founded or edited by literary behemoths from Dickens and Thackeray through to Jerome K Jerome and, even some female editors including Ethel Colburn Mayne, Alice Meynell and Ella D’Arcy. 
   
  Now authors began to offer a wider, more diverse choice from social activism and justice – and injustice to cutting stories of manners and principles.  From many forms of comedy to mental meltdowns, from science fiction to unrequited heartache.  If you can imagine it an author probably wrote it.  
   
  At the end of the 19th Century bestseller lists and then prizes, such as the Nobel and Pulitzer, helped focus an audience’s attention to a books literary merit and sales worth. Previously coffeehouses, Imperial trade, unscrupulous overseas printers ignoring copyright restrictions, publishers with their book lists as an appendix and the gossip and interchange of polite society had been the main avenues to secure sales and profits.

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