Other books that might interest you

• 

  A Lickpenny Lover - From their...

  O Henry

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him. 
  He first attended at a school run by his aunt before enrolling at the Lindsey Street High School and then worked at his uncle’s drugstore and gained a pharmacists’ license in 1881.  
  A persistent cough took him to Texas in the hope that a change of climate would help his symptoms. He took on various types of work, initially from ranch hand and cook and then as varied as pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began to write, though for now, purely as a hobby. 
  He was a member of several singing and dramatic groups when he met 17 year old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Austin family. Despite her mother’s objection owing to Athol’s tuberculosis, they began courting and in July 1887, they eloped and soon married. 
  Athol, impressed by his writing, encouraged him to get them published. A job as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office paid a healthy $100 dollars per month and life was good. 
  But then life turned cruel. His son died a few hours after birth although a daughter, Margaret, came the following year.  His job had to be vacated but another was found at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank operated informally and Porter was careless in keeping the books. He lost that job but began writing for the humourous weekly The Rolling Stone and the Houston Post. Some time later the federal Bank auditors went through his former accounts and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement. 
  Porter fled the day before his trial to Honduras. Holed up for several months he began to write.  Athol had become too ill to travel to meet him and learning that her health was deteriorating he surrendered to the court in February 1897.  Bail was obtained so that he could stay with Athol during her final days.  
  Porter was sentenced to five years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. His pharmacy qualifications got him the job of night druggist.  His sentence also gave him time to write and publish fourteen short stories. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry.  
  He was released two years early in July 1901, and reunited with Margaret, now 11, in Pittsburgh.  He now began his most prolific period of writing; a short story per week for the New York World, while also publishing works in other magazines.  Eventually over 600 of his short stories were published. 
  Porter was a heavy drinker and in 1908 his health, which had deteriorated for several years, took a dramatic turn for the worse, as did his writing.  
  O Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver complicated by diabetes and an enlarged heart on 5th June 1910.

  Show book

• 

  Frankenstein

  Mary Shelley

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving along the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, 17 kilometres (11 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, about a century earlier, Johann Konrad Dippel, an alchemist, had engaged in experiments. She then journeyed to the region of Geneva, Switzerland, where much of the story takes place. Galvanism and occult ideas were topics of conversation for her companions, particularly for her lover and future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.

  Show book

• 

  Cousin Mary - From their pens to...

  Mary Russell Mitford

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Mary Russell Mitford.

  Show book

• 

  The Last Laugh

  D H Lawrence

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  ‘The Last Laugh’ is another of Lawrence's supernatural stories, set in a dreamlike snowy London. The question left open is who the three people in the story saw on the snowy evening. Perhaps Pan, returned to destroy the Christian God, as the church is destroyed in the story and to bring love to the frigid young woman in the form of a policeman who is prevented from leaving the house. But why the other quite harmless, and Platonic lover, had to die is a mystery. Perhaps  because he had made love to a Jewess?

  Show book

• 

  The Picture of Dorian Gray

  Oscar Wilde

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" immerses readers in a world where the pursuit of beauty and pleasure supersedes morality. The young, handsome Dorian Gray remains eternally youthful, while a portrait of him reflects his soul's decay, bearing the consequences of his hedonistic actions. As Dorian navigates high society with a sinister invulnerability, his external allure contrasts starkly with his internal corruption. A haunting and philosophical tale of vanity, obsession, and the dark depths of human nature.

  Show book

• 

  Adventures of Chanticleer and...

  Brothers Grimm

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A rooster and hen go to eat nuts. They make a carriage of nutshells to come back in; the hen rides and the rooster draws it. The duck attacks them for eating nuts, but the rooster defeats him, and he lets himself be harnessed to the carriage instead. A pin and needle join them. They offer an innkeeper the hen's egg and the duck to let them stay, but in the morning, they eat the hen's egg, stick the needle in the innkeeper's chair and the pin in his towel. The duck also goes off. The innkeeper is pricked by both the needle and pin and the eggshell from the hen flies at his eyes. He resolves to never have such ragamuffins in his inn again.

  Show book