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  Frankenstein - The Modern...

  Mary Shelley

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  The classic horror novel brought to life. 
  Victor Frankenstein has an idea. An idea that can change the world, and the path of humanity as we know it. And one night, in a secluded upper story laboratory, he executes the idea, and brings life into that which was previously inanimate. Little does he know the cost that this one act of altruism will cost him, his family, and his love.

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  The Story of B24 - 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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  Man Overboard - A horror tale...

  F. Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’.  
   
  Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome.  
   
  In 1879 he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881 he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University. 
   
  His family became increasingly concerned about his employment prospects.  After an attempt at a singing career as a baritone was ruled out, he was encouraged to write.  
   
  In December 1882 his first novel, ‘Mr Isaacs’, was published and was an immediate hit as was his second novel ‘Dr Claudius’ in 1883.  
   
  In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan and encouraged by his excellent start to a literary career they returned to Sant Agnello, Italy to make a permanent home, buying the Villa Renzi that then became Villa Crawford.  
   
  In the late 1890s, Crawford began work on his historical works which would later include ‘Corleone’, in 1897, the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.  
   
  Crawford is also exceedingly popular and anthologized as a short story writer of bizarre and creepy tales.   
   
  In 1908 came his classic ‘The Screaming Skull’. Without doubt its unsettling nature is heightened as the reader/listener is drawn into to the story by its narrator.  Everything is explained and plausible until, of course, it isn’t. 
   
  Francis Marion Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack.  
   
  In ‘Man Overboard’ Crawford uncovers the story of identical twins.  When one falls overboard it unravels a sequence of events that take years to complete, all with a growing sense of uneasiness that further misery awaits

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  High Wages

  Dorothy Whipple

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  In Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, a determined young woman makes her way in the world against the looming backdrop of World War I. High Wages is more than a tale of savvy entrepreneurship: Jane’s thoughts, feelings, adventures and disappointments in love and friendship are all laid bare. Jane Carter sees an advertisement for a live-in shop assistant and jumps at the chance to leave her old life behind. After Chadwick the draper takes her on, Jane learns all there is to know about fabrics and dressmaking. She proves a talented saleswoman and befriends Maggie and Lily, the other employees.The girls struggle under exploitative conditions: meagre pay; tiny portions of food; the boss cheating them out of commissions. When the young man Maggie is seeing falls in love with Jane, a bitter falling-out results in Maggie threatening to leave Chadwick’s. Armed with initiative and ideas, Jane decides to set up her very own clothing shop, but it’s not all plain sailing – far from it.High Wages is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1930, this edition includes a new preface by author Jane Brocket.

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  Tarzan of the Apes

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

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  Step into the wild with Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s thrilling adventure about a man raised by apes and destined to become a legend. After being orphaned as a baby in the African jungle, Tarzan is taken in by a tribe of great apes who raise him as their own. Growing into a powerful, agile hunter, Tarzan must confront his human identity when he encounters the beautiful Jane Porter and learns about the world beyond the jungle. 
  Tarzan of the Apes is a timeless tale of survival, love, and self-discovery that has captivated readers for generations. Burroughs’s dynamic storytelling and vivid descriptions of the jungle create an unforgettable journey through a world where danger and adventure await at every turn. 
  Brought to life with a compelling narration, this audiobook captures the raw excitement and depth of Tarzan’s journey from wild to civilized. 
  Start listening to Tarzan of the Apes today, and explore the story of a true hero forged in the heart of the jungle!

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  The King in Yellow

  Robert W. Chambers

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  There are books that haunt. The King in Yellow is one of them.
  First published in 1895, this cycle of four interlinked stories—The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, In the Court of the Dragon, and The Yellow Sign—offers a view into a world just a shade off from our own. Beneath the surface of elegant prose and civil order lies something broken, something touched by madness, art, power—and something unspeakably strange.
  A book within the book, a play that should never be read, threads through each tale, leaving behind not answers, but echoes. With quiet menace and disquieting beauty, Chambers sketches a fictional universe that lingers like a fevered dream.
  Not quite horror, not quite science fiction, not quite fantasy—The King in Yellow is a singular work. A whisper from the shadows. An invitation to look too long at the thing you cannot name. 
  Contents
  • The Repairer of Reputations
  • The Mask
  • In the Court of the Dragon
  • The Yellow Sign

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