Other books that might interest you

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  Mary E Mann - A Short Story...

  Mary E. Mann

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  Mary Rackham was born in Norwich on 14th August 1848 to a merchant family.  Little is known of her early life and her biography only re-appears in September 1871 with marriage to Fairman Joseph Mann, a farmer with 800 acres.   
   
  Mary moved to Shropham, Norfolk and became involved with the workhouse, visiting the sick and other unfortunates of the parish, her observations and experiences a valuable source for her later stories.  
   
  She took up writing, partly to offset the dreary village life of her surroundings, in the 1880s and published her first novel, ‘The Parish of Hilby’ (1883) at her own expense. It was well received by the critics.  
   
  Thus began a career that spanning three decades provided thirty-three novels, hundreds of short stories, and fourteen plays.? Her work was largely focused on rural life in Norfolk and centered on the fictional town of Dulditch, with grim but authentic accounts of poverty and deprivation.  
   
  Her marriage produced one boy and three girls. With her husband's death in 1913, she moved to Sheringham.  
   
  She is regarded as a major contributor to East Anglian literature with particular praise given to her short stories. 
   
  Mary E Mann died on 19th May 1929.  She was 80.  Her grave-marker is a carved open book with the epitaph ‘We bring our years to an end, as if it were a tale that is told’. 
   
  1 - The Short Stories of Mary E Mann - An Introduction 
  2 - Wolf Charlie by Mary E Mann 
  3 - Ben Pitcher's Elly by Mary E Mann 
  4 - Some of the Shipwrecked by Mary E Mann 
  5 - Rats by Mary E Mann 
  6 - Clomayne's Clerk by Mary E Mann 
  7 - The Country Doctor by Mary E Mann 
  8 - Little Brother by Mary E Mann

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  Twenty Fathoms Down

  L. Ron Hubbard

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  Daring and defiant, there's no stopping diver Hawk Ridley as he takes the plunge into an ocean of untold riches and danger. Fighting off ruthless rivals in search of gold is nothing new to Hawk... but fighting off a beautiful woman is a different story. Is she an innocent stowaway or a seductive saboteur? The answer comes Twenty Fathoms Down — as Hawk makes a discovery that will blow you out of the water. Dive deep into the action and intrigue, as the audio version of Twenty Fathoms Down plunges you into an adventure as stirring as the sea itself.

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  Taming Charlotte

  Linda Lael Miller

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  From bestselling author Linda Lael Miller comes the story of a firebrand heroine and a dashing sea captain—an engaging couple that is fiery and tempestuous, but captive to an unspoken mutual desire. Kidnapped and confined in a harem—that’s not the scenario Charlotte Quade envisioned when she prayed for just one grand adventure before sailing home to Washington Territory from Europe. While exploring the ancient, exotic island kingdom of Riz, Charlotte foolishly lost her way. In a dizzying moment, she was snatched, bound up in a sack and unceremoniously dumped... more—completely naked!—in the ship’s cabin of the very same man who had caught her fancy as a young girl in Seattle: Captain Patrick Trevarran.But Charlotte’s dream lover turned out to be no gentleman! He had once gallantly fetched her, as a mischievous teenager, from the riggings of his ship, but now he appraised her with exasperation and quickly packed her off to the harem of a sultan friend. When they were reunited—as much by mercy as by fate—it was clear that Patrick wished merely to tease and trifle with this pretty, rebellious American. But, through their adventure, Charlotte had discovered a provocative man torn between recklessness and devotion, between storm and calm. Now, with all the strength and passion she possessed, Charlotte would chart a course that would sweep them at last to their destiny—a glorious and resounding love.

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  The Four Fists

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died.  Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained. 
   
  His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.   
   
  In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army.  In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre.  Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life.  For them this was The Jazz Age.  For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic. 
   
  He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names.  The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews.  As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.   
   
  Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936.  His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check.  His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents.   Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit. 
   
  The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers.  On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack. 
   
  Amongst his many short story gems is ‘The Four Fists’. It follows a life, from boyhood to maturity, and how an occasional brush with physical force influences and changes that life.

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  The Cactus

  O. Henry

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  “Cactus” is included in the short story collection, called «Waifs And Strays», published in 1910. This novel tells us the love story of a young man named Trysdale. He was inspired with love to a girl. Reciprocating his feelings, she lifted him on a pedestal, sincerely praising his skills and talents. But did all these praises were deserved? Trysdale did not doubt it, taking the admiration for granted, gave himself over to the power of arrogance and vanity. What has it led to and what role a cactus played, you will find out by reading O. Henry’s short story of the same name.A SmartTouch Media production.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Sheridan Le Fanu, James Joyce,...

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  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. 
   
  The Irish Short Story tradition is packed with literary leviathans who take the raw ingredients of the land, it’s people and their own talents to create quite dazzling narratives in these perfectly pitched short stories.  Genius has many names. 
   
  01 - The Top 10 - The Irish - An Introduction 
  02 - The Dead by James Joyce 
  03 - The Knitted Collar by Mary Anne Hoare 
  04 - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter by Sheridan Le Fanu 
  05 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell 
  06 - An Irish Problem by Somerville and Ross 
  07 - All Souls Eve by Dora Sigerson Shorter 
  13 - The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker 
  09 - A Rich Woman by Katharine Tynan 
  10 - The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde 
  11 - Dhoya by W B Yeats

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