Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  The Short Stories of Herman...

  Herman Melville

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  Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819.   
   
  At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension" and his opportunities for success seemed limited. 
   
  His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. 2 years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion.  These experiences helped provide the novels ‘Typee’, ‘Omoo’, and ‘White-Jacket’. 
   
  By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece, ‘Moby Dick’, was ready to be published.  It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville’s earnings on his masterpiece was a mere $556.37. 
   
  In succeeding years his reputation waned, life was increasingly difficult.  His family was growing and a stable income was essential. Melville took the advice of friends to try public lecturing, as others had, to increase his revenues. He embarked on three successful lecture tours, speaking on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome.  
   
  In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem ‘Clarel’. It was to no avail.  The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably. 
   
  It was only in late 1885 that Melville was at last able to retire after his wife inherited several legacies, enough to provide them with a reasonable income. 
   
  Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on 28th September 1891 from cardiovascular disease. 
  01 - Herman Melville - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville 
  03 - The Lightning Rod Man by Herman Melville 
  04 - The Fiddler by Herman Melville

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  The Second Gong - A Hercule...

  Agatha Christie

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  Lytcham Close, one of the oldest stately homes in England, is owned by the last remaining heir and ruled by his intolerable whims. Old Hubert demands complete silence when he plays music and times dinner exactly by a resounding gong. Rushing down at the sound of the second—or is it the first?—gong, Joan Ashby is about to find out that not only is dinner delayed, but something is going on that no one can explain. Everyone is thrown into disarray when Old Hubert never materializes and instead a new guest is announced: Hercule Poirot himself. What unfolds is a mystery of lovers, and a death that is not as it appears.

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  The Last Cellar - A Modern...

  Edgar Allan Poe, Michael

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  This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. An AI voice narrates this audiobook. 
  A chilling modern retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado. When an online influencer crosses the wrong person on a public livestream, a sinister plan unfolds beneath the city’s surface. Set during a glittering Halloween night, “The Last Cellar” is a psychological thriller that explores ego, betrayal, and revenge in the age of social media. 
   
  For fans of dark fiction, modern horror, and suspenseful short stories.

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  The Field Bazaar - From their...

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 22nd May 1859.  His childhood was blighted by his father’s heavy drinking which for some years broke up the family. Fortunately, wealthy uncles were willing to support them by paying for education and clothing.  
  He was accepted at the University of Edinburgh to study medicine and also began to write short stories the first, ‘The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe’, was published in Blackwood’s Magazine.  Despite several other stories and some articles in the British Medical Journal his medical studies took priority. 
  When these finished he was appointed as Doctor on the Greenland whaler ‘Hope of Peterhead’ in 1880 and then, after graduation, as ship’s surgeon on the SS Mayumba on its voyage to West Africa. 
  1882 saw a move to Plymouth and his own independent practice. With few patients he resumed writing and completed his first novel, ‘The Mystery of Cloomber’, although most of his output was short stories based on his experiences at sea.  
  He married Louisa Hawkins in 1885. However, two years later he met and fell in love with Jean Elizabeth Leckie, though they remained platonic out of respect for, and loyalty to, his wife. 
  His literary career suddenly burst into life in November 1886 with ‘A Study In Scarlet’, the first of the fabulously successful Sherlock Holmes stories.  
  With two children to support he now revisited his haphazard commercial arrangements and curtailed everything save for commissions from the Strand Magazine.  
  As a sportsman he was remarkably proficient. He was goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club and played ten first-class cricket matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club as well as captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in East Sussex.  
  In 1891 tired of writing Holmes stories, he began a series of historical novels and even went so far as to apparently kill off Holmes in a lethal brawl with his arch-nemesis Moriarty. 
  Despite heavy and sustained criticism he continued to write in support of the Boer War, a fact he thought contributed to his knighthood in 1902.  The following year to great relief and acclaim he brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead in his first outing for a decade. 
  Sadly, his wife Louisa died from TB in 1906 and, a year later, he at last married Jean.  
  During the War and for several years after family deaths had left him depressed. In a search for solace and answers he alighted upon spiritualism and, such was his interest, that he wrote several books on the subject. 
  On 7th July 1930 Conan Doyle was discovered in the hall of Windlesham Manor, his house in East Sussex, clutching his chest dying of a heart attack.  He was 71.

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  The Scaremongerer - From their...

  Ford Maddox

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  Ford Madox Ford was born Ford Hermann Hueffer on 17th December 1873 in Wimbledon, London, England.    
  Today he is best known for one book, ‘The Good Soldier’, which is regularly held to be one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.  But, rather unfairly, the breadth of his career has been overshadowed.  He wrote novels as well as essays, poetry, memoirs and literary criticism. Today he is well-regarded but known only for a few works rather than the grand arc of his career. 
  Ford collaborated with Joseph Conrad on three novels but would later complain that, as with all his collaborators, and those he so readily championed, his contribution was overshadowed by theirs.  
  He founded The English Review and The Transatlantic Review which were instrumental in publishing and promoting the works of so many authors and movements. 
  During WWI he initially worked on propaganda books before enlisting. Ford was invalided back to Britain in 1917, remaining in the army and giving lectures until the War’s end. After a spell recuperating in the Sussex countryside he lived mostly in France during the 1920s.  
  He published the series of four novels known as Parade’s End, between 1924 and 1928. These were particularly well-received in America, where Ford spent much of his time from the later 1920s to his death in 1939. 
  His last years were spent teaching at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. 
  His poetry is an excellent example of his talents.  His evocation of the horrors of War are outstanding examples of the time and have become greatly admired.  
  Ford Madox Ford died on 26th June 1939 at Deauville, France at the age of 65.

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  Selected Supernatural Short Stories

  E. Nesbit

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  E. Nesbit was an imaginative writer who helped shape modern children’s fiction by treating children as thoughtful and curious readers . She also wrote many subtle and restrained supernatural short stories. 
  Head Stories Audio presents 14 of these stories , narrated by Simon Hester. With original music.Man-Size in Marble – A village legend of stone effigies leads to a night of terror.The Ebony Frame – A beautiful portrait exerts a dangerous fascination over its owner.John Carrington’s Wedding – A wedding must go ahead. Death cannot stop it.Mass for the Dead – A man receives a musical premonition of death.Uncle Abraham’s Romance – A past love from beyond the grave.The Mystery of the Semi-Detached – Behind a suburban facade lies a macabre warning of the future.From the Dead – Love calls from the grave.Hurst of Hurstcote – An old friend abandons the occult, but ultimately it never leaves him.The Letter in Brown Ink – A letter written in strange ink leads to a brief adventure, and love.The House of Silence – In a house ruled by silence, an intruder discovers more than treasure.The Head – A reclusive sculptor obsessively pursues an old enemy.In the Dark – An old rival back from the dead? Or the imaginings of madness?The Haunted House – A chance visit to a supposed haunted house leads to a dramatic ending.Room No. 17 – Some rooms remember, and refuse to release what happened within their walls, and tall tales have their uses!

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