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  The Purloined Letter

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  In one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most brilliant detective tales, C. Auguste Dupin faces a crime that is as much about intellect as it is about cunning. When a highly sensitive letter is stolen from the royal apartments by a shrewd and unscrupulous minister, the police search tirelessly—yet fail to find it. Called upon for help, Dupin applies his unparalleled powers of observation and deduction, proving that the best hiding place may be in plain sight. 
  The Purloined Letter is a masterclass in psychological intrigue and logical reasoning, a classic that continues to inspire the detective fiction genre.

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  Virginibus Puerisque II...

  Robert Louis Stevenson

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  Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of English literature. He was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov.
  VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE II: Hope, they say, deserts us at no period of our existence. From first to last, and in the face of smarting disillusions, we continue to expect good fortune, better health, and better conduct; and that so confidently, that we judge it needless to deserve them.

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  A Lickpenny Lover - From their...

  O Henry

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  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.

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  These Old Shades

  Georgette Heyer

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  The Georgian romance that launched the career of the New York Times–bestselling author is “the sort of tale which leaves us breathless with delight.” —Boston Evening Transcript   When the Duke of Avon encounters a mistreated young boy on the streets of Paris, he employs the lad as his page. As the duke’s closest friends ponder his actions, the precocious Léon soon becomes the talk of the aristocracy.   Léon cannot believe his good fortune after being saved from a brutal beating by his older brother. He follows the duke around like a loyal puppy, a constant source of amusement for the duke, who is seen by himself—and by society—as a devious scoundrel, well deserving of his nickname, Satanas.   But when Avon uncovers Léon’s biggest secret—that the boy is in fact a girl named Léonie—he acts honorably, taking her to his sister in London to learn the ways of the fairer sex, before he can adopt her. For Avon can’t believe his luck. A trump card has fallen into his hands. If Léonie is who the duke suspects she is, she’ll be the perfect weapon to use against his greatest nemesis. He embarks on his quest for revenge, never foreseeing just how Léonie’s transformation will change the game . . .   “Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic.” —Katie Fforde   “A world of high romance, of adventure, of passions that shimmer just beneath the surface.” —Stephanie Laurens, #1 New York Times–bestselling author   “You’re in for a treat.” —Nora Roberts, #1 New York Times–bestselling authorThe Georgian romance that launched the career of the New York Times–bestselling author is “the sort of tale which leaves us breathless with delight.” —Boston Evening Transcript   When the Duke of Avon encounters a mistreated young boy on the streets of Paris, he employs the lad as his page. As the duke’s closest friends ponder his actions, the precocious Léon soon becomes the talk of the aristocracy.   Léon cannot believe his good fortune after being saved from a brutal beating by his older brother. He follows the duke around like a loyal puppy, a constant source of amusement for the duke, who is seen by himself—and by society—as a devious scoundrel, well deserving of his nickname, Satanas.   But when Avon uncovers Léon’s biggest secret—that the boy is in fact a girl named Léonie—he acts honorably, taking her to his sister in London to learn the ways of the fairer sex, before he can adopt her. For Avon can’t believe his luck. A trump card has fallen into his hands. If Léonie is who the duke suspects she is, she’ll be the perfect weapon to use against his greatest nemesis. He embarks on his quest for revenge, never foreseeing just how Léonie’s transformation will change the game . . .   “Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic.” —Katie Fforde   “A world of high romance, of adventure, of passions that shimmer just beneath the surface.” —Stephanie Laurens, #1 New York Times–bestselling author   “You’re in for a treat.” —Nora Roberts, #1 New York Times–bestselling author

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  Shy Neighbourhoods (Unabridged)

  Charles Dickens

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  Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
  SHY NEIGHBOURHOODS: So much of my travelling is done on foot, that if I cherished betting propensities, I should probably be found registered in sporting newspapers under some such title as the Elastic Novice, challenging all eleven stone mankind to competition in walking.

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  The General's Will - An emotive...

  Vera Jelihovsky

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  The Ukrainian writer Vera Jelihovsky was born on the 29th April 1835.  At that time Ukraine, or Little Russia as it was also called, was part of the Russian Empire.   
   
  Vera was also the sister of Helena Blavatsky, herself a noted writer and a co-founder of the Theosophical Society. 
   
  As a writer Vera’s works rests mainly on her children’s stories and little of any of her work is known in the West.   
   
  ‘The General’s Will’ is a fascinating story of a dying man who tries, with the writing of a new Will, to right the wrongs his second marriage has caused to the children of his first.   
   
  His scheming second wife attempts to change that.  But will her selfish plan succeed? 
   
  Vera Jelihovsky died on the 17th May 1896.  She was 61.

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