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  As the Crow Flies - From their...

  John Davys Beresford

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  John Davys Beresford was born on 17th March 1873.  His life was blighted by infantile paralysis which left him partially disabled. 
  After an education at Oundle school he trained to be an architect.  However, he quickly decided that his life was to be centred on a literary career.  His first offerings were in drama and as a journalist. 
  As well as being a book reviewer for the Manchester Guardian he contributed to New Statesman, The Spectator, Westminster Gazette, and the Theosophist magazine The Aryan Path.   
  His spiritual journey in early adulthood had claimed him as an agnostic, in defiance of his clergyman father.  This view he later abandoned in preference to describing himself as a Theosophist and a pacifist. 
  As well as many novels, many themed with spiritual and philosophical elements.  Beresford was also a gifted short story writer particularly across the science-fiction, horror and ghost genres. 
  All of these elements helped him to obtain a prominent place in Edwardian Literary London. 
  John Davys Beresford died on the 2nd February 1947. He was 73.

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  The Fullness of Life - From...

  Edith Wharton

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  Edith Newbold Jones was born in New York on January 24, 1862.   Born into wealth, this background of privilege gave her a wealth of experience to eventually, after several false starts, produce many works based on it culminating in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘The Age Of Innocence’ 
  Marriage to Edward Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years older in 1885 seemed to offer much and for some years they travelled extensively.  After some years it was apparent that her husband suffered from acute depression and so the travelling ceased and they retired to The Mount, their estate designed by Edith.  By 1908 his condition was said to be incurable and prior to divorcing Edward in 1913 she began an affair, in 1908, with Morton Fullerton, a Times journalist, who was her intellectual equal and allowed her writing talents to push forward and write the novels for which she is so well known.  
  Acknowledged as one of the great American writers with novels such as Ethan Frome and the House of Mirth among many.  Wharton also wrote many short stories, including ghost stories and poems which we are pleased to publish.  
  Edith Wharton died of a stroke in 1937 at the Domaine Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt.

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  Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

  Winifred Watson

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  Set in 1930s London, Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day recounts twenty-four hours in the life of a governess who turns up for a very unexpected first day at work. Watson’s comedic, light-hearted novel is read by Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand, who plays Miss Pettigrew in the 2008 film production.Middle-aged governess Guinevere Pettigrew visits her employment agency one morning and is mistakenly sent to the glitzy home of a nightclub singer. Miss Pettigrew meets the glamorous Miss Delysia LaFosse and embarks on a whirlwind adventure. These two very different women soon become friends, and Miss Pettigrew proves to be the perfect companion. Instead of having to look after unruly children, Miss Pettigrew spends her evening at a party. But what will happen when the day finally ends? Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1938, this edition includes a preface by author and retired academic Henrietta Twycross-Martin.

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  Nathaniel Hawthorne - Six of the...

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. 
   
  Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. 
   
  In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. 
   
  These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master. 
   
  1 - Six of the Best - Nathaniel Hawthorne -  An Introduction 
  2 - Nathaniel Hawthorne - An Introduction 
  3 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  4 - The Devil In Manuscript By Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  5 - The Artist of the Beautiful by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  6 - The Wedding Knell By Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  7 - Rappaccini's Daughter - Part 1 by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  8 - Rappaccini's Daughter - Part 2 by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  9 - Roger Malvin's Burial by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  A Pink Stocking

  Anton Chekhov

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  "The Pink Stocking" by Anton Chekhov is a short story that unfolds on a dreary, rainy day with Pavel Petrovitch Somov, feeling bored and restless, pacing in his study. His wife, Madame Somov, is described as a pretty little lady wearing a light blouse and pink stockings, busily writing a letter to her sister Varya. Curious and looking for a distraction, Somov asks to read the letter and, while initially disinterested, he becomes increasingly concerned and confused as he progresses through the pages. Upon finishing the letter, he reacts with shock and disbelief, flinging the sheets on the table and uttering that the content is "beyond anything" and "positively incredible." The story hints at a marital dynamic filled with secrets and perhaps suggests that Madame Somov has written something unexpected or alarming, leaving both the character and the reader with a sense of perplexity and intrigue.

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  When I Was Dead - A creepy...

  Vincent O'Sullivan

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  Vincent O'Sullivan was born on the 28th November 1868 in New York City.  He was initially educated through the New York public school system before finishing his studies in England.  As a young man he remained in London and travelled often to Paris.  
  O’Sullivan lived a very comfortable life with income from the family coffee business.  He had no real need to work but decided that a literary lifestyle was for him.   
  In 1896 he released his first volume of supernatural fiction ‘A Book of Bargains’.  Within its pages were classic stories that involved pacts with the Devil, reanimated corpses and psychic vampires. 
  Over the course of his career, he wrote a mere 10 volumes of short stories, novels, poetry together with some occasional criticism. 
  In 1909 his brother, who ran the company, entered its resources into some terribly mis-timed trades in coffee futures and ruin for both the company and the family quickly followed. 
  From now until his death O’Sullivan was destitute, life was exceedingly difficult. 
  Vincent O’Sullivan died on the 18th July 1940 in Paris.  He was 71.  He was buried in a paupers grave along with the remains of others.

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