Publisher: Erica Collins
Included: - A Window in Thrums - A tillyloss Scandal - Auld Licht Idylls - Better Dead - Peter And Wendy - Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens - The Little Minister - The Little White Bird - Tommy and Grizel - When a Man's Single - Sentimental Tommy
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on the 30th November 1835 and is far better known by his pen name of Mark Twain. An American writer and humorist of the first order he is perhaps best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and its sequel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ which are often described with that mythic line The Great American Novel. Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri which would later provide the backdrop to these great novels. Apprenticed to a printer he also became a typesetter and then a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi. Later, heading west with his brother Orion to make his fortune, he failed at gold mining and instead turned to journalism and thence his true calling as a writer of humorous stories where his wit and humor sparkled from every paragraph, his craft evident with every page and punctured target. A staunch supporter of copyright protections this helped him keep much of the wealth his writing created, though much money was also lost on investments that he pursued in his love for science and technology as well as investing in his own inventions. Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well. He died the day after its subsequent return on 21st April 1910, at his house, Stormfield, located in Redding, Connecticut. Once again Twain finds a new way to reveal more about humanity. This time from the baby Eve and her diary As the first woman she has a very unique perspective and, of course, the author’s way with words.Show book
The third book of a three volume anthology of international short stories, we now turn to French stories. Authors include Honoré de Balzac, Voltaire, Guy de Maupassant, Victor Hugo and more. Compiled and translated by Francis J. Reynolds. - Summary by Lynne ThompsonShow book
A classic collection of haunting stories by Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and more. A vengeful phantom lurks in a country graveyard. A whaling crew becomes trapped on a haunted ship. A human skull is kept locked in a cupboard—but sometimes at night, it screams . . . This collection of tales transports the reader to a time when staircases creaked in old manor houses, and a candle could be blown out by a gust of wind—or by a passing ghost. Penned by some of the greatest Victorian novelists and masters of the ghost story genre, each is illustrated with exquisitely eerie artwork.Show book
Dr. Heidegger invites four elderly friends to his macabre study. He claims to his friends to have found liquid from the fountain of youth! The friends are skeptical, but choose to drink the liquid anyway...Show book
When first published in 1899, "The Awakening" shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.Show book
William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres.Born into a wealthy Quaker family in Yorkshire, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, and took a degree in medicine at Leeds. Ill health dogged him, however, and he devoted much of his recuperation to writing short stories. "The Clock" is an atmospheric tale of the supernatural where a young woman finds herself alone in an empty house, searching for a missing clock. When she finds it she realises that something is wrong.... terribly wrong... and that there must be someone or something else in the house... but what?Show book
