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  Running Wolf - Set in the...

  Algernon Blackwood

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  Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator.  
   
  Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism.  In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s stories to plays and long novels is clearly seen, his writings beautifully enriched by his long and diversified life experience.  
   
  After leaving university and visiting parts of Europe, mainly Switzerland, the young writer went to Canada and the United States where he took on jobs including work as a farmer, a bartender, a secretary, a journalist, a reporter, running a hotel and teaching the violin.  He was voracious in meeting new people and absorbing new ideas.  
   
  In his late thirties, he returned to England where he published two of his supernatural stories in Pall Mall Magazine. As more of his highly entertaining stories were published so did his reputation and his bank balance.  All those years of curiosity and experiences were starting to emerge from his writing. 
   
  In 1906, ‘The Empty House & Other Ghost Stories’ was published with tremendous success.  Further volumes of short stories followed and with it a larger audience and bigger paydays. He also published children’s stories. 
   
  Blackwood also had ideas for novels and to explore on a larger canvas the paranormal world and the relationship between man and metaphysical powers including, in 1911, ‘The Centaur’.  
   
  With the outbreak of the First World War, Blackwood was assigned to British intelligence to write propaganda to support the war effort. 
   
  He was a prolific author with a quite staggering output which was also to include many plays. The exact number of his works is unknown as he would frequently write a story for a newspaper or periodical at very short notice.  
   
  In 1949, Blackwood was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his literary talents and his services during the First World War.  
   
  Algernon Blackwood died on 10th December 1951 after a series of strokes.  
   
  The mysteries of the natural world are enhanced by those of the Native American spirit world in this wonderfully descriptive short story of a man’s fishing expedition to Medicine Lake.

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  Kidnapped

  Robert Louis Stevenson

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  This classic of Robert Louis Stevenson, charts the tale of David Balfour in the Year 1751: Who upon arriving at his uncles house after his Fathers death, is then promptly kidnapped on his orders. All seems lost until a chance encounter with one Alan Breck, which leads to adventure, shipwreck, and a journey across the Highlands of Scotland, pursued by Redcoats in a land still rife with unrest in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Believed to based in parts on the real life drama of James Annesly from 1731 this story has remained a well known and regarded fiction classic across the years and centuries since it's first publication. 
  Narrated by Michael Ward

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  Top 10 Short Stories The -...

  Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce,...

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  The top 10 horror short stories of all time. 
   
  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  Fear has a home – the human mind.  Although we know the outcome will not be good, we DO open that door, we DO peek and go where others have severely warned us not to go. These ten masters of their art and craft await your presence. 
  1 - The Top 10 - The Horror Story - An Introduction 
  2 - The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe 
  3 - The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce 
  4 - The Horla by Guy de Maupassant 
  5 - August Heat by W F Harvey 
  6 - The Monkeys Paw by W W Jacobs 
  7 - Lost Hearts by M R James 
  8 - The Color Out of Space by H P Lovecraft 
  9 - The Vampyre by John William Polidori 
  10 - The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson 
  11 - The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker

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  Twelfth Night

  William Shakespeare

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  Critically acclaimed as one of Shakespeare's most complex and intriguing plays.A delightfully comic tale of mistaken identities revolves around the physical likeness between Sebastian and his twin sister Viola, each of whom, when separated after a shipwreck, believes the other to be dead. Filled with superb comedy, this entertaining masterpiece remains one of Shakespeare's most popular and performed comedies.

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  The Valley of Fear - Sherlock...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Sherlock Holmes is off on a new mission 
  “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.” - Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear 
  Sherlock Holmes and Professor Watson are warned that someone named John Douglas is in grave danger and could be murdered at any time. The unfortunate event happens before Holmes can stop it and now he has to solve yet another daunting crime. He arrives at the crime scene - an old manor with a moat and a drawbridge - but very few pieces fall into place. For example, how did the murderer get inside?

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  Titus Alone

  Mervyn Peake

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  “A startling and unusual creation by an author who had imagination to burn and burn again . . . A feat of storytelling unmatched in wit or imagination.” —SFF180 
   
  The basis for the 2000 BBC series 
   
  Now in development by Showtime 
   
  As the novel opens, Titus, lord of Castle Gormenghast, has abdicated his throne. Born and brought to the edge of manhood in the huge, rotting castle, Titus rebels against the age-old ritual of which he is both lord and prisoner and rushes headlong into the world. From that moment forward, he is thrust into a stormy land of a dark imagination, where figures and landscapes loom up with the force and vividness of a dream—or a nightmare. 
   
  This final installment in the Gormenghast Trilogy is a fantastic triumph—a conquest awash in imagination, terror, and charm. 
   
  Praise the Gormenghast Trilogy 
   
  “There is nothing in literature like Mervyn Peake’s remarkable Gormenghast novels . . . They were crafted by a master, who was also an artist, and they take us to an ancient castle as big as a city, with heroes and villains and people larger than life that are impossible to forget.” —Neil Gaiman 
   
  “[Peake’s books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience.” —C. S. Lewis 
   
  “Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It is a very, very great work.” —Robertson Davies, New York Times-bestselling author

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