Other books that might interest you

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  Father Sergius

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Prince Stepan Kasatsky experiences a disappointment with his fiancé and decides to become a monk! There is a story line, but beneath it, Father Sergius struggles to find peace and, if not happiness, then at least contentment. But he is always disillusioned and ultimately unsatisfied. Only in the end does he find his way by letting go of what he struggled to attain all his life, i.e. to be better than everyone else in whatever he did, and settle for the mundane.

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  Yollop

  George Barr McCutcheon

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  Yollop is a striking, humorous and brilliant satire on crime waves, juries, prisons and reformers.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The -...

  Sheridan Le Fanu, Amelia...

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  The top 10 Victorian ghost short stories of all time. 
   
  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. 
   
  Across these decades of Imperial pomp another force lurks in the shadows, in the darkness, in the minds of these authors strange concoctions are brewed into deadly attacks upon our nerves.  These very familiar names bring very familiar torments. 
  1 - The Top 10 - The Victorian Ghost Story - An Introduction 
  2 - A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins 
  3 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 
  4 - The Phantom Coach  by Amelia Edwards 
  5 - The Old Nurses Story by Elizabeth Gaskell 
  6 - The Mezzotint by M R James 
  7 - The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling 
  8 - Thurnley Abbey by Perceval Landon 
  9 - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken by Sheridan Le Fanu 
  10 - Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson 
  11 - The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

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  The Magic City (Golden Deer...

  Edith Nesbit

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  After Philip's older sister and sole family member Helen marries, he goes off to live with his new step sister Lucy. He has trouble adjusting at first, thrown into the world different from his previous life and abandoned by his sister while she is on her honeymoon. To entertain himself he builds a giant model city from things around the house: game pieces, books, blocks, bowls, etc.  
  Then through some magic, he finds himself inside the city, and it is alive with the people he has populated it with. Some soldiers find him and tell him that two outsiders have been foretold to be coming: a Deliverer and a Destroyer. Mr. Noah, from a Noah's Ark playset, tells Philip that there are seven great deeds to be performed if he wants to prove himself the Deliverer. Lucy, too, has found her way into the city and joins Philip as a co-Deliverer, much to his chagrin.

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  A Witch's Den - A look into the...

  Helena Blavatsky

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  Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, often known as Madame Blavatsky, was born on 12th August 1831 into an aristocratic family in present day Dnipro in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.  She was the younger sister of the writer Vera Zhelikhovsky. 
   
  Much of Blavatsky’s life story relies on her own memories which changed much during her lifetime and therefore parts of it are unreliable.  What appears to be certain is that much of her life was lived first on family travels and postings and then on her journeys in an effort to further her own self-education and quest for knowledge. 
   
  As a teenager she developed an interest in Western esotericism and from there she claimed many travels including a trip to India where she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the ‘Masters of the Ancient Wisdom’, who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis of religion, philosophy, and science.  
   
  By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement, which was then popular both in Britain and abroad, even though she argued against its main tenet that those ‘contacted’ were the spirits of the dead.  
   
  She moved to the United States in 1873 and became close to the journalist Henry Steel Olcott who helped her gain public attention as a spirit medium and then also became an adherent to her principles.   
   
  In 1875 in New York City she co-founded the Theosophical Society and two years later published ‘Isis Unveiled’, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view from its ancient roots to the modern day.  Her work was even more popular in Asia than elsewhere and is said to have influenced both Ghandi and Nehru amongst many others.  
   
  In 1880, she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to a Hindu reform movement.  That same year she converted to Buddhism.  However, she was often plagued with accusations of fraudulent paranormal phenomena.  
   
  With her health failing she returned to London and published ‘The Secret Doctrine’, her commentary on claimed ancient Tibetan manuscripts, and other books.  
   
  Helena Blavatsky died in London of influenza during the global pandemic on 8th May 1891.  She was 59.

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  The Man In A Case

  Anton Chekhov

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  A Man in a Case, written by Anton Chekhov, is an example of realist literature and serves to illustrate his mastery of the craft. The story centers around the protagonist, Belikov, who is characterized by his extremely rigid adherence to social conventions and strictures. By confining himself within the boundaries of socially accepted norms, Belikov creates a metaphorical "case" that further restricts his access to self-expression and freedom. Read in English, unabridged.

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