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  Tales from Edgar Allan Poe -...

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement.  Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.  He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Here is a second collection of some of his best stories:  "Masque of the Red Death", "Three Sundays In A Week", "The Sphinx", and "Hop-Frog".
  Don't miss the other volumes in the Tales from Edgar Allan Poe collection.
  ©2011 Listen & Live Audio, Inc. (P)2011 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.

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  The Devil Light - Former soldier...

  Edgar Wallace

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  Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London.  Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook.  
   
  By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the Infantry being posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur.  
   
  In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time.  
   
  By 1904 he had completed his first thriller, The Four Just Men. Since nobody would publish it he resorted to setting up his own publishing company which he called Tallis Press. 
    
  In 1911 his Congolese stories were published in a collection called Sanders of the River, which became a bestseller. He also started his own racing papers, Bibury’s and R. E. Walton’s Weekly, eventually buying his own racehorses and losing thousands gambling.  A life of exceptionally high income was also mirrored with exceptionally large spending and debts.  
   
  Wallace now began to take his career as a fiction writer more seriously, signing with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921. He was marketed as the ‘King of Thrillers’ and they gave him the trademark image of a trilby, a cigarette holder and a yellow Rolls Royce. He was truly prolific, capable not only of producing a 70,000 word novel in three days but of doing three novels in a row in such a manner. It was estimated that by 1928 one in four books being read was written by Wallace, for alongside his famous thrillers he wrote variously in other genres, including science fiction, non-fiction accounts of WWI which amounted to ten volumes and screen plays. Eventually he would reach the remarkable total of 170 novels, 18 stage plays and 957 short stories. 
   
  Wallace became chairman of the Press Club which to this day holds an annual Edgar Wallace Award, rewarding ‘excellence in writing’.  
   
  Diagnosed with diabetes his health deteriorated and he soon entered a coma and died of his condition and double pneumonia on the 7th of February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills. He was buried near his home in England at Chalklands, Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.

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  The Game

  Jack London

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  "It was 'the game'—the struggle of the men, the colorful, brutal, and fascinating game."
  
  Joe Fleming is a clean-living young man with a bright future and a woman he loves, Genevieve. But Joe has a secret passion: he is a prize-fighter. On the eve of their wedding, Joe agrees to one final bout—one last time to play "the game." Genevieve, initially repulsed by the violence, agrees to watch the fight from a secret vantage point, hoping to understand the strange, masculine world that captivates her fiancé. What follows is a visceral, blow-by-blow account of a match that serves as a profound meditation on the animalistic nature of man and the tragic interference of fate.
  
  The "Red Muscle" Philosophy: London applies his trademark naturalism to the sport of boxing. He describes the physical "machinery" of the fighters with scientific precision, portraying the ring not just as a sport, but as an arena where the "blood-heritage" of prehistoric ancestors resurfaces in the modern world.
  
  A Clash of Worlds: The novella highlights the stark contrast between the "woman-world" of the home and the "man-world" of the ring. Through Genevieve's eyes, the reader experiences the shocking transition from the gentle Joe she knows to the fierce, efficient athlete he becomes under the lights. It is a story about the irresistible pull of competition and the price one pays to be a champion.
  
  Step into the ring. Purchase "The Game" today and experience the raw power of Jack London's prose.

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  Washington Irving - A Short...

  Washington Irving

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  Washington Irving was born on 3rd April, 1783, the youngest of 11, in New York. 
    
  Irving found his real interests away from school in literature and the theatre.  An outbreak of yellow fever at 15 moved him away from Manhattan and into the surrounding countryside providing valuable settings for later works such as ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. 
   
  By 19 Irving was writing regularly to the New York Morning Chronicle, commenting on the theatrical and social scenes.  When his health began to fail, he was sent on the Grand Tour of Europe.  Bizarrely he ignored most of the great sights on offer to concentrate on developing his social and conversational powers.  His health, though, did improve.  
   
  In 1806, back in New York to study law, he scraped a pass at the bar and then founded with several others the literary magazine Salmagundi. Irving nicknamed the city ‘Gotham City’, a name still in use today.  Moderately successful, the magazine spread Irving’s reputation beyond New York. 
   
  In 1809 while mourning the death of his teenage fiancée Irving finished his first significant book, ‘A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynsasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker’.  It satirised local history, local historians and politics.  It received great critical acclaim. 
   
  Unfortunately his family’s established trading company was now facing great upheavals and Irving was dispatched to England to try to sort it out.  After two years he could see no way out but bankruptcy.  This left him in England with no real employment prospects, and so he returned to writing.  
   
  He sent some short stories back to New York to be published as ‘The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent’.  The first part included ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and was extremely successful.  The sixth part contained ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’.  
   
  Beset by literary piracy, with no copyright law at the time, he set about publishing legitimate copies in England to outwit the bootleggers.  From now on Irving published concurrently in America and England in order to render piracy obsolete.  
   
  In August 1824, he published ‘Tales of a Traveller’, which included the famed ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’.  
   
  In 1826, the American Minister to Spain, invited him to Madrid where he could examine the many historical documents that he had access to.  Irving reveled in both the size of the libraries he was granted access to and their rich quality.  Historical works flowed from his pen further enhancing his reputation and fortune.   
   
  Following the completion of ‘Tales of the Alhambra’ in 1832, Irving returned to America after 17 years abroad. He was now a figurehead of American literature and dispensed advice to Edgar Allan Poe amongst others.  Irving also became an advocate for American copyright legislation.  
   
  A later appointment as Minister to Spain in 1842 left him disheartened at the antics of the various political factions he encountered.  It also afforded him no time to write as he had hoped.  
   
  On his return home he began an ‘Author’s Revised Edition’ of his works agreeing an unprecedented deal for 12 per cent of the retail profits.  
   
  Washington Irving died of a heart attack at his ‘Sunnyside’ home on the 28th November 1859 at the age of 76, a few months after completing his five volume George Washington biography, in whose honour he had been named. 
   
  01 - Washington Irving - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving 
  03 - The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving 
  04 - The Art of Book-Making by Washington Irving 
  05 - The Conquest of the Earth by the Moon by Washington Irving 
  06 - John Bull by Washington Irving

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  Sense and Sensibility

  Jane Austen

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  "Sense and Sensibility" is the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, who have contrasting temperaments. On the surface Elinor, the older sister represents sense or reason while Marianne represents sensibility or emotion, however upon closer examination we find that they both exhibit varying aspects of each characteristic. A classic coming of age story "Sense and Sensibility" was Jane Austen's first published novel.
  
  ©2020 Pandora's Box (P)2020 Pandora's Box

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  Sherlock Holmes: The...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of eight stories in the volume, His Last Bow. 
  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (May 22, 1859 - July 7, 1930) was a British author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction. 
  Public Domain (P)2017 Listen & Live Audio

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