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  Fanny and Annie

  D H Lawrence

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  The theme of the woman for whom the man is not 'good enough' is worked out fully in Lawrence's novel 'Sons and Lovers'. The story is beautifully observed as are the relationships in working families of the time. The suspense of 'will she, won't she marry him' is kept on the boil until the last line of the story. 'Fanny and Annie' is a small masterpiece of a short story.

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  The Million Pound Note - This...

  Mark Twain

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  Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on the 30th November 1835 and is far better known by his pen name of Mark Twain.  An American writer and humorist of the first order he is perhaps best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and its sequel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ which are often described with that mythic line The Great American Novel. 
   
  Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri which would later provide the backdrop to these great novels.  Apprenticed to a printer he also became a typesetter and then a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi.  Later, heading west with his brother Orion to make his fortune, he failed at gold mining and instead turned to journalism and thence his true calling as a writer of humorous stories where his wit and humor sparkled from every paragraph, his craft evident with every page and punctured target. 
   
  A staunch supporter of copyright protections this helped him keep much of the wealth his writing created, though much money was also lost on investments that he pursued in his love for science and technology as well as investing in his own inventions. 
    
  Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well.  He died the day after its subsequent return on 21st April 1910, at his house, Stormfield, located in Redding, Connecticut.   
   
  In this story Twain proposed that coming into possession of a million pound note should solve all of life’s problems, both big and small.  And he’s right.  For a time it does.  But…. Yes, with Twain, there is always a but.

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  A Very Short Romance - From...

  Vsevolod Garshin

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  Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was born on 14th February 1855 in what is now Dnipro in the Ukraine, but then part of the Russian Empire. 
  After attending secondary school he studied at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.  
  Wars between and on behalf of Empires were a regular feature of the decades then.  Garshin volunteered to serve in the Russian army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.  
  He began as a private in the Balkans campaign and was wounded in action.  By the end of the war, in 1878, he had been promoted to officer rank.  
  By now Garshin, having previously published some articles and reviews in newspapers, wished to devote himself to a literary career.  The decision made he resigned his army commission. 
  His time as a soldier provided rich experiences for his early stories. His first ‘Four Days’ was related as the interior monologue of a wounded soldier left for dead on the battlefield for four days, face to face with the corpse of a Turkish soldier he had killed, gained him early admiration as an author of note.  
  He wrote perhaps only 20 stories, but their influence was immense, although in these more modern times he is barely remembered and lives in the more prolific shadows of others.  His characters are superbly worked into stories that come alive in the intensity and reality of his prose.   
  Garshin’s most well-known story is ‘The Red Flower’, also known as ‘Scarlet Blossom’ and is easily amongst the first rank of stories dealing with mental health issues.  
  Despite early literary success, he himself experienced periodical bouts of mental illness.   
  In one such bout Garshin attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself down the stone stairs leading into his apartment building.  Although not immediately fatal, Vsevolod Garshin died as a result of his injuries in a St Petersburg hospital on 5th April 1888.  He was 33.

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  Federigo's Falcon - From their...

  Boccasio Giovanni

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  The bookshelves of European literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Boccasio Giovanni.

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  Two Tales From O Henry

  O. Henry

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  William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer born in Greensboro, NC, known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. O. Henry's stories are known for their naturalist observations, witty narration, and surprise endings. The following includes the short stories, "Hearts and Hands" and "A Comedy In Rubber."

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  Benediction - From their pens to...

  F Scott itzgerald

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  Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died.  Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained. 
  His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.   
  In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army.  In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre.  Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life.  For them this was The Jazz Age.  For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic. 
  He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names.  The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews.  As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.   
  Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936.  His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check.  His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents.   Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit. 
  The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers.  On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack.

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