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  The Devil and Tom Walker

  Washington Irving

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  Washington Irving (1783 – 1859) was a short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’ is a short story which first appeared in Irving’s 1824 collection Tales of a Traveller, and shows similarities to the German legend of Faust. The narrative first recounts the legend of the pirate, William Kidd, and his buried treasure. Later, Tom Walker and his wife, a greedy and miserly couple, appear. On a walk in the swamp, Tom meets the devil and strikes a deal with him, by offering Tom the pirate’s treasure in exchange for his soul …

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  The Dream Snake

  Robert E. Howard

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  Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American author famous for his weird tales and horror stories. The Dream Snake is a terrifying tale of a man who has had a recurring dream about being pursued by a sinister, unseen giant snake which gets nearer and nearer to him every night....

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  Dracula

  Bram Stoker

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  Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. The novel touches on themes such as the role of women in Victorian culture, sexual conventions, immigration, colonialism, and post-colonialism. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, he defined its modern form, and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film and television interpretations

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  British Short Story The - Volume...

  George Moore, Oscar Wilde,...

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  These British Isles, moored across from mainland Europe, are more often seen as a world unto themselves.  Restless and creative, they often warred amongst themselves until they began a global push to forge a World Empire of territory, of trade and of language. 
   
  Here our ambitions are only of the literary kind.  These shores have mustered many masters of literature. So this anthology’s boundaries includes only those authors who were born in the British Isles - which as a geographical definition is the UK mainland and the island of Ireland - and wrote in a familiar form of English. 
   
  Whilst Daniel Defoe is the normal starting point we begin a little earlier with Aphra Behn, an equally colourful character as well as an astonishing playwright and poet.  And this is how we begin to differentiate our offering; both in scope, in breadth and in depth.  These islands have raised and nurtured female authors of the highest order and rank and more often than not they have been sidelined or ignored in favour of that other gender which usually gets the plaudits and the royalties. 
   
  Way back when it was almost immoral that a woman should write.  A few pages of verse might be tolerated but anything else brought ridicule and shame.  That seems unfathomable now but centuries ago women really were chattel, with marriage being, as the Victorian author Charlotte Smith boldly stated ‘legal prostitution’.  Some of course did find a way through - Jane Austen, the Brontes and Virginia Woolf but for many others only by changing their names to that of men was it possible to get their book to publication and into a readers hands.  Here we include George Eliot and other examples. 
   
  We add further depth with many stories by authors who were famed and fawned over in their day.  Some wrote only a hidden gem or two before succumbing to poverty and death. There was no second career as a game show guest, reality TV contestant or youtuber. They remain almost forgotten outposts of talent who never prospered despite devoted hours of pen and brain. 
   
  Keeping to a chronological order helps us to highlight how authors through the ages played around with characters and narrative to achieve distinctive results across many scenarios, many styles and many genres. The short story became a sort of literary laboratory, an early disruptor, of how to present and how to appeal to a growing audience as a reflection of social and societal changes.  Was this bound to happen or did a growing population that could read begin to influence rather than just accept? 
   
  Moving through the centuries we gather a groundswell of authors as we hit the Victorian Age - an age of physical mass communication albeit only on an actual printed page.  An audience was offered a multitude of forms: novels (both whole and in serialised form) essays, short stories, poems all in weekly, monthly and quarterly form.  Many of these periodicals were founded or edited by literary behemoths from Dickens and Thackeray through to Jerome K Jerome and, even some female editors including Ethel Colburn Mayne, Alice Meynell and Ella D’Arcy. 
   
  Now authors began to offer a wider, more diverse choice from social activism and justice – and injustice to cutting stories of manners and principles.  From many forms of comedy to mental meltdowns, from science fiction to unrequited heartache.  If you can imagine it an author probably wrote it.  
   
  At the end of the 19th Century bestseller lists and then prizes, such as the Nobel and Pulitzer, helped focus an audience’s attention to a books literary merit and sales worth. Previously coffeehouses, Imperial trade, unscrupulous overseas printers ignoring copyright restrictions, publishers with their book lists as an appendix and the gossip and interchange of polite society had been the main avenues to secure sales and profits.

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  I am the Sea - An isolated...

  Matt Stanley

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  The tale of a man pushed to the brink of madness- for lovers of Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse  
  1870. Apprentice lighthouseman James Meakes joins two others at the remote offshore rock of Ripsaw Reef... as a replacement for a keeper whose death there remains unexplained. 
  Meakes’ suspicions grow as he accustoms himself to his new vertical world. He finds clues and obscure messages... is there a secret fourth occupant sharing the space, slipping unseen between staircases? 
  With winter approaching, the keepers become isolated utterly from shore. Sea and wind rage against the tower. Danger is part of the life. Death is not uncommon. And yet as the storm builds, the elements pale against a threat more wild and terrifying than any of them could have imagined. 
  ‘Unsettling and outstanding’ Kerry Hadley-Pryce‘Ingenious’ Jean Levy‘Spine tingling historical fiction’ @otterly_bookish‘Haunting’ @monsieurmarple‘Rich and vivid’ @annathebooksiread‘Creepy’ @the_book_club__‘Kept me on my toes’ @artbreaker.bookclub‘A story to read with the lights on’ @blottedinkbooks‘Eloquent with beautiful prose’ @thegirlonthego_reads‘Haunting and chilling’ @bookmarkonthewall‘As wild and unpredictable as the tide’ @gothicbookworm

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  The Princess

  D H Lawrence

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  'The Princess' of the story is a spoiled, sexless woman who is thrown in with a passionate man whom she takes into her bed and then rejects. This rejection leads to his ultimate death. Lawrence again pleads his case for the necessary domination of woman by man and shows the sterility of a life lead without sexual passion. Set against the bleak mountains of South America, it is one of Lawrence's most enduring tales.

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