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  A Patch on the Quilt

  Sapper

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  Herman Cyril McNeile, MC (1888 - 1937), who wrote under the pseudonym "Sapper", was a British soldier and author.A Patch on the Quilt is a short story about an actor who is pursued by a strange woman at the theatre with a very odd request. She has attended every performance of his play since it started, skipping meals to afford the tickets. She now wants him to come with her to a house in Kensington after his performance...which she says is part of her 'plan'. But who is this person and what could she possibly want from him?

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  William Wilson

  Sampi Books, Edgar Allan Poe

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  "William Wilson" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that tells the story of a man tormented by his double, who has shared not only his name but also his appearance since childhood. This moralistic double interferes in his degrading acts, leading to a fatal conflict.

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  The Grey Cat

  Barry Pain

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  Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his outstanding ghost and horror stories.'The Grey Cat' is a supernatural story about a very peculiar and sinister cat which follows an explorer home from Central Africa to London. It bears an uncanny resemblance to an old carved jade statuette of a cat which the man purchased before his departure...the one which the antiquarian dealer had tried to buy back from him hours later for double the price paid...and which is eagerly sought by a wealthy African gentleman in a grey suit.

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  Three Wars

  Emile Zola

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  Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was born in Paris on 2nd April 1840.  When he was 3 the family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast. At 7 his father died, leaving the family on a meagre pension. In 1858, they returned to Paris. His mother had planned a law career for Émile, but he failed his baccalauréat examination twice. 
   
  He took jobs as a clerk in a shipping firm and then in the sales department for the publisher Hachette. Zola also wrote political, literary and art reviews for newspapers.  
   
  As a writer Zola wrote numerous short stories, essays, plays and novels. When ‘La Confession de Claude’ was published and received the attention of the police Hachette fired him.  He continued to write and after his first major novel, ‘Thérèse Raquin’ (1867), Zola started the series called ‘Les Rougon-Macquart’, a carefully planned twenty-volume history of a single family under the reign of Napoléon III.  
   
  With the publication of ‘L'Assommoir’, Zola became wealthy. His subsequent works, ‘Nana’ and La Débâcle fared even better, increasing both fame and bank balance. He was now a figurehead of the literary bourgeoisie.  However, despite several nominations, he was never elected to the prestigious Académie Française. 
   
  The infamous Dreyfus Affair infuriated Zola who wrote in defence of Alfred Dreyfus.  His plan was to be prosecuted for libel so that the truth would be exposed.  It went badly wrong.  Zola was convicted for criminal libel in February 1898 and removed from the Legion of Honour. The judgment was overturned but a new suit began. Zola fled to England only to return when an Amnesty was granted.  Zola said of the affair, "The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it." 
   
  Émile Zola died on 29th September 1902 of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by an improperly ventilated chimney.  
   
  On 4th June 1908 Zola’s remains were transferred to the Panthéon, where he shares a crypt with Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.

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  Voyage to the Country of the...

  Jonathan Swift

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  "A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms" is a novel by Jonathan Swift: Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a merchantman, as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage, he is forced to find new additions to his crew who, he believes, have turned against him. His crew then commits mutiny. After keeping him contained for some time, they resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across, and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of deformed savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards, he meets the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses.

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  Frankenstein

  Mary Shelley

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  Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless matter," Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts. However, upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? And how far can we go in tampering with Nature?

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