Other books that might interest you

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  The Undying Man

  D H Lawrence

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  'The Undying Man' is a slight unfinished piece, drawing its inspiration from Shelley's 'Frankenstein' about the creation of life and the fear of death. It is interesting to speculate where Lawrence would have gone with the story but the sound of broken glass is the most likely ending.

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  Heidi

  Johanna Spyri

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  The moving story of a little Swiss girl's devotion to her simple mountain home in the Alps. When Heidi moves to Frankfurt, to become the companion f Clara, the children become great friends. But Heidi misses her mountain home and longs to return to her family.

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  Angèle au Couvent - A young...

  Mary Butts

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  Mary Frances Butts was born on 13th December 1890 in Poole, Dorset. 
   
  Her early years were spent at Salterns, an 18th-century house overlooking Poole Harbour.  Sadly in 1905 her father died, and she was sent for boarding at St Leonard's school for girls in St Andrews. 
   
  Her mother remarried and, from 1909, Mary studied at Westfield College in London, and here, first became aware of her bisexual feelings.  She was sent down for organising a trip to Epsom races and only completed her degree in 1914 when she graduated from the London School of Economics.  By then Mary had become an admirer of the occultist Aleister Crowley and she was given a co-authorship credit on his ‘Magick (Book 4)’. 
   
  In 1916, she began the diary which would now detail her future life and be a constant reference point for her observations and her absorbing experiences. 
   
  During World War I, she was doing social work for the London County Council in Hackney Wick, and involved in a lesbian relationship.  Life changed after meeting the modernist poet, John Rodker and they married in 1918. 
   
  In 1921 she spent 3 months at Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Sicily; she found the practices dreadful and also acquired a drug habit.  Mary now spent time writing in Dorset, including her celebrated book of short stories ‘Speed the Plough’ which saw fully develop her unique Modernist prose style. 
   
  Europe now beckoned and several years were spent in Paris befriending many artists and writing further extraordinary stories.   
   
  She was continually sought after by literary magazines and also published several short story collections as books. Although a Modernist writer she worked in other genres but is essentially only known for her short stories.  Mary was deeply committed to nature conservation and wrote several pamphlets attacking the growing pollution of the countryside. 
   
  In 1927, she divorced and the following year her novel ‘Armed with Madness’ was published.  A further marriage followed in 1930 and time was spent attempting to settle in London and Newcastle before setting up home on the western tip of Cornwall.  By 1934 the marriage had failed. 
   
  Mary Butts died on 5th March 1937, at the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, after an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. She was 46. 
   
  In ‘Angèle Au Couvent’ Butts takes up the story of a young school girl desperate for friendships but wrestling with her fluid interpretation of religion.

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  Tom Sawyer Detective

  Mark Twain

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  The fourth title in the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn series. 
   
  Based on true events from an old Swedish crime case, Tom Sawyer sets out to solve a mysterious murder in this satirical detective novel.

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  The Lord of the Dynamos

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction.'The Lord of the Dynamos' is the story of an immigrant worker who becomes captivated by the huge electric dynamo in the shed where he works. He begins to see it as a great deity...a god who demands human sacrifices.

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  Ambrose Bierce - A Short Story...

  Ambrose Bierce

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  Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on 24th June 1842 at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio. His parents were poor but they introduced him to literature at an early age, instilling in him a deep appreciation of books, the written word and the elegance of language.  
   
  Growing up in Koscuisko County, Indiana poverty and religion were defining features of his childhood, and he would later describe his parents as “unwashed savages” and fanatically religious, showing him little affection but always quick to punish. He came to resent religion, and his introduction to literature appears to be their only positive effect. 
   
  At age 15 Bierce left home to become a printer’s devil, mixing ink and fetching type at The Northern Indian, a small Ohio paper. Falsely accused of theft he returned to his farm and spent time sending out work in the hopes of being published. 
   
  His Uncle Lucius advised he be sent to the Kentucky Military Institute. A year later he was commissioned as an Officer.  As the Civil War started Bierce enlisted in the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment.  
   
  In April 1862 Bierce fought at the Battle of Shiloh, an experience which, though terrifying, became the source of several short stories. Two years later he sustained a serious head wound and was off duty for several months. He was discharged in early 1865.  
   
  A later expedition to inspect military outposts across the Great Plains took him all the way to San Francisco. He remained there to become involved with publishing and editing and to marry, Mary Ellen on Christmas Day 1871.  They had a child, Day, the following year.  
   
  In 1872 the family moved to England for 3 years where he wrote for Fun magazine. His son, Leigh, was born, and first book, ‘The Fiend’s Delight’, was published. 
  They returned to San Francisco and to work for a number of papers where he gained admiration for his crime reporting. In 1887 he began a column at the William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner.  
   
  Bierce’s marriage fell apart when he discovered compromising letters to his wife from a secret admirer. The following year, 1889 his son Day committed suicide, depressed by romantic rejection. 
   
  In 1891 Bierce wrote and published the collection of 26 short stories which included ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’.  Success and further works including poetry followed.  
   
  Bierce with Hearst’s resources helped uncover a financial plot by a railroad to turn 130 million dollars of loans into a handout. Confronted by the railroad and asked to name his price Bierce answered “my price is $130 million dollars. If, when you are ready to pay, I happen to be out of town, you may hand it over to my friend, the Treasurer of the United States”.  
   
  He now began his first foray as a fabulist, publishing ‘Fantastic Fables’ in 1899.  But tragedy again struck two years later when his second son Leigh died of pneumonia relating to his alcoholism. 
   
  He continued to write short stories and poetry and also published ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’.  
   
  At the age of 71, in 1913 Bierce departed from Washington, D.C., for a tour of the battlefields where he had fought during the civil war. At the city of Chihuahua he wrote his last known communication, a letter to a friend. It’s closing words were “as to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination,” Ambrose Bierce then vanished without trace. 
  1 - Ambrose Bierce - An Introduction 
  2 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 
  3 - The Eyes of the Panther by Ambrose Bierce 
  4 - Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce 
  5 - A Man With Two Lives by Ambrose Bierce 
  6 - A Diagnosis of Death by Ambrose Bierce 
  7 - The Coup de Grace by Ambrose Bierce 
  8 - A Psychological Shipwreck by Ambrose Bierce&

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