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  Pickman's Model - From their...

  HP Lovecraft

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  Howard Phillips Lovecraft is among the greatest American masters of fantasy and the supernatural.  
  Born in 1890, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, his health was uncertain from childhood and he led a sheltered early life. His semi-invalidism enabled him to read omnivorously, and as a shy imaginative child he began to invent what would in his adult life become a whole macabre fantastic world of his own, peopled by creatures out of his own weird imagination.  
  As an adult he was retiring, almost a recluse. Tall, thin and pale, but with bright alert eyes, he was much given to wandering his native city in the dark hours of the night, and he became a devoted student of its antiquities.  
  Although he began to write early he had nothing published until he was in his twenties. He set many of his stories around the imaginary town of Arkham, and invented an entire mythology of his own, its core being the demoniac cult of Cthulhu, based on the lore or legend that the world was at one time inhabited by another race who, in practising black magic, lost their foothold or were expelled, yet live on outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again. 
  Since his early death in 1937 his stories have continued to attract attention and praise from an ever-growing audience.

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  Russian Short Story The - Volume...

  Maxim Gorky, Ivan Bunin,...

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  The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length.  Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature. 
   
  Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story.  These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.   
   
  The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own.  It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity. 
   
  In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire. 
   
  The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.  
   
  Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced. 
   
  01 - The Russian Short Story - Volume 5 - An Introduction 
  02 - About Love by Anton Chekhov 
  03 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov 
  04 - Hide And Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub 
  05 - In The Steppe by Maxim Gorky 
  06 - Chelkash - Part 1 by Maxim Gorky 
  07 - Chelkash - Part 2 by Maxim Gorky 
  08 - Chelkash - Part 3 by Maxim Gorky 
  09 - Twenty-Six Men and a Girl by Maxim Gorky 
  10 - One Autumn Night by Maxim Gorky 
  11 - Her Lover by Maxim Gorky 
  12 - The Servant by S T Semyonov 
  13 - Son by Ivan Bunin 
  14 - Kasimir Stanislavovitch by Ivan Bunin 
  15 - Gentle Breathing by Ivan Bunin 
  16 - The Outrage by Alexander Kuprin 
  17 - The Park of Kings by Alexander Kuprin

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  Emma - Volume Three

  Jane Austen

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  The third volume of this classic novel by Jane Austen wonderfully narrated by Penny Wyatt-Gold. Penny has the perfect voice to bring all the author's characters to life in a way that will enthrall and entertain.

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  The Magic Mountain

  Thomas Mann

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  Hans Castorp is a young man ready to start a career in shipbuilding - but before he does, he decides to visit his cousin Joachim, a patient residing at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the mountains of Switzerland. Castorp enjoys meeting and chatting with the wide array of colorful personalities living at the sanatorium, until its director delivers some bad news: Castorp, too, has symptoms of disease, and must remain at the sanatorium indefinitely. Thus begins a black comedy spanning years, in which he lives and learns in this self-contained world in the mountains.
  The Magic Mountain is a bildungsroman and an allegory of the years surrounding World War I, in which Castorp, a naive blank slate symbolizing the Weimar Republic, spends time with the motley crew in the sanatorium, who each represent the nations and ideologies of Europe vying for his attention. World War I broke out and concluded as Mann was writing the novel; at first, he was opposed to the Weimar Republic, but he later changed his mind, and this development in his personal philosophy is reflected in how Castorp and the patients interact over the years, and in Castorp's ultimate fate.
  Adding to the novel's staying power are its many layers of allegory and allusion, including Greek mythology, European fable, music, opera, and theater, literature, mysticism, numerology, medicine, and philosophy. Above these layers is Mann's overarching message of illness and death as necessary struggles to overcome before reaching a fulfilled life, a theme from his earlier novella, "Death in Venice," that he explicitly wished to revisit and expand upon.

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  Greats Abridged The: Great...

  Charles Dickens

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  The Greats Abridged: Great Expectations brings Charles Dickens' iconic coming-of-age tale to life in a concise, compelling format ideal for modern listeners. This expertly abridged version preserves the heart and drama of Pip’s journey—from humble beginnings as an orphaned blacksmith’s apprentice to the glittering illusions of gentlemanly life in London. 
  Narrated with rich depth by Richard Stibbard, this adaptation captures the emotion, mystery, and unforgettable characters that have made Great Expectations one of the greatest novels ever written. Miss Havisham’s haunting legacy, Estella’s icy charm, and the brooding secret of Pip’s benefactor are all here, streamlined without sacrificing Dickens’ masterful storytelling. 
  Perfect for first-time listeners, busy students, or fans revisiting the novel with fresh ears—this abridged edition delivers the power of Dickens in a shorter, highly engaging form.

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  The Odyssey

  Homer

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  The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crew mates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.The Odyssey was originally composed in Homeric Greek in around the 8th or 7th century BCE and, by the mid-6th century BCE, had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship of the poem was not questioned, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently and that the stories formed as part of a long oral tradition. Given widespread illiteracy, the poem was performed by an aoidos or rhapsode and was more likely to be heard than read.

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