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  Female Short Story The - A...

  Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, Mary...

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  A wise man once said ‘The safest place for a child is in the arms of his mother’s voice’.  This is a perfect place to start our anthology of female short stories. 
   
  Some of our earliest memories are of our mothers telling us bedtime stories. This is not to demote the value of fathers but more to promote the often-overshadowed talents of the gentler sex. 
   
  Perhaps ‘gentler’ is a word that we should re-evaluate. In the course of literary history it is men who dominated by opportunity and with their stranglehold on the resources, both financial and technological, who brought their words to a wider audience.  Men often placed women on a pedestal from where their talented words would not threaten their own.   
   
  In these stories we begin with the original disrupter and renegade author Aphra Behn.  A peek at her c.v. shows an astounding capacity and leaves us wondering at just how she did all that. 
   
  In those less modern days to be a woman, even ennobled, was to be seen as second class.  You literally were chattel and had almost no rights in marriage.  As Charlotte Smith famously said your role as wife was little more than ‘legal prostitute’.  From such a despicable place these authors have used their talents and ideas and helped redress that situation.   
   
  Slowly at first.  Privately printed, often anonymously or under the cloak of a male pseudonym their words spread.  Their stories admired and, usually, their role still obscured from rightful acknowledgement. 
   
  Aided by more advanced technology, the 1700’s began to see a steady stream of female writers until by the 1900’s mass market publishing saw short stories by female authors from all the strata of society being avidly read by everyone.  Their names are a rollcall of talent and ‘can do’ spirit and society is richer for their works.   
   
  In literature at least women are now acknowledged as equals, true behind the scenes little has changed but if (and to mis-quote Jane Austen) there is one universal truth, it is that ideas change society.  These women’s most certainly did and will continue to do so as they easily write across genres, from horror and ghost stories to tender tales of love and making your way in society’s often grueling rut.  They will not be silenced, their ideas and passion move emotions, thoughts and perhaps more importantly our ingrained view of what every individual human being is capable of.    
   
  It is because of their desire to speak out, their desire to add their talents to the bias around them that we perhaps live in more enlightened, almost equal, times.   
   
  Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. 
   
  01 - The Female Short Story. A Chronological History - An Introduction - Volume 1 
  02 - The Unfortunate Bride or The Blind Lady a Beauty by Aphra Behn 
  03 - Fantomina or, Love in a Maze by Eliza Haywood - Part 1 
  04 - Fantomina or, Love in a Maze by Eliza Haywood - Part 2 
  05 - The Story of Sir Bertrand by Anna Laetitia Barbauld 
  06 - Betty Brown, the St Giles Orange Girl by Hannah More 
  07 - The Changeling by Mary Lamb 
  08 - The White Pigeon by Maria Edgeworth 
  09 - Cousin Mary by Mary Russell Mitford 
  13 - The Mourner by Mary Shelley 
  11 - The Prediction by Mary Diana Dods writing as David Lyndsey 
  12 - The Quadroons by Lydia Maria Child<p

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  Baptism - A Vietnam Memoir

  Larry Gwin

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  A Yale graduate who volunteered to serve his country, Larry Gwin was only twenty-three years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1965. After a brief stint in the Delta, Gwin was reassigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in An Khe. There, in the hotly contested Central Highlands, he served almost nine months as executive officer for Alpha Company, 2/7, fighting against crack NVA troops in some of the war's most horrific battles.The bloodiest conflict of all began November 12, 1965, after 2nd Battalion was flown into the Ia Drang Valley west of Pleiku. Acting as point, Alpha Company spearheaded the battalion's march to landing zone Albany for pickup, not knowing they were walking into the killing zone of an NVA ambush that would cost them 10 percent casualties.Gwin spares no one, including himself, in his gut-wrenching account of the agony of war. Through the stench of death and the acrid smell of napalm, he chronicles the Vietnam War in all its nightmarish horror.

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  Fatal North - Murder and...

  Bruce Henderson

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  It began as President Ulysses S. Grant's bid for international glory after the Civil War-America's first attempt to reach the North Pole. It ended with Captain Charles Hall's death under suspicious circumstances, dissension among sailors, scientists, and explorers, and the ship's evacuation and eventual sinking. Then came a brutal struggle for survival by thirty-three men, women, and children, stranded on the polar ice. When news of the disastrous expedition and accusations of murder reached Washington D.C., it led to a nationwide scandal, an official investigation, and a government cover-up.The mystery of the captain's death remained unsolved for nearly 100 years. But when Charles Hall's frozen grave in northern Greenland was opened, forensic scientists were finally able to reach a shocking conclusion.Now, telling the complete story for the first time, bestselling author Bruce Henderson has researched original transcripts of the U.S. Navy inquests, personal papers of Captain Hall, autopsy and forensic reports relating to the century-old crime, the ship's original log, and personal journals kept by crewmen to bring to life one of the most mysterious tragedies of American exploration.

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  Doomed by Cartoon - How...

  John Adler, Draper Hill

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  The timely, true story of Thomas Nast, the granddaddy of political satire who destroyed a corrupt regime in 19th century New York City—with cartoons.   He was an unethical, bullying, and narcissistic politician; a blow-hard real estate magnate and notorious swindler; a master manipulator who thrived off voter fraud, graft, and the collusion of his right-hand sycophants. This is the 1870s.   The legendary William “Boss” Tweed, senator and third-largest landowner in New York City, is on a roll. He and his thieving minions have already duped the city out of an estimated two-billion dollars. It wasn’t going to be easy exposing him. He controlled the press—except for the magazine, Harper’s Weekly. And Harper’s had an invaluable weapon against the humorless and seemingly invincible Tweed: Thomas Nast, an influential political cartoonist who, day by day, brought Tweed’s corruption to light. With pen and ink, and a savage and righteous wink, Thomas Nast was determined to topple an empire.   Told through Nast’s scathing 160-plus serialized cartoons, the remarkable and unbelievable true story of Nast vs. Tweed was not only unprecedented for its day, but it set the tone for the battle between the freedom of the press and political malfeasance that resonates well into the twenty-first century.

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  Creepy California - Strange and...

  Keven McQueen

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  This “fun primer on California’s macabre and eccentric history” explores true crimes, paranormal reports, and other curious tales from the Pacific Coast (Paul Koudounaris).   California has many famous wonders—the beaches, vineyards, and glamorous neighborhoods are all well documented in guidebooks. But there are darker wonders here as well—the kind seldom shared with outsiders. In Creepy California historian Kevin McQueen explores strange tales of unexplained deaths, intentional live burials, true crimes, and ghosts who haunt the Pacific Coast.   From the uncanny to the outright paranormal, this chronicle of oddities includes the story of a coroner who “borrowed” the stylish clothes of a dead man and then sold the corpse’s head to a doctor; a rare look inside Stanford University’s secret collection of occult memorabilia; the tale of a haunted, two-story house in San Francisco that was painstakingly moved across town in an effort to dislodge its ghostly tenants; a profile of a lonesome Fort Bragg resident who carved a family for himself out of wood; and many others.   An intriguing look at the Golden State’s bounty of unsettling curiosities, Creepy California promises to keep you guessing what other mysteries lurk in the fog.

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  Game Changer - Chapter 1- NUMB

  Shawn 'Solo' Fonteno, Yusuf Jah

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  This is where my journey begins, Watts, California. My childhood was shaped by my close-knit extended family, and traumatic experiences that no young person should have to endure. This early phase of my life is entitled Numb due to the lack of emotional feeling growing up the way that I did created in me from my early days.

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