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  The Machine Stops - Classic...

  E. M. Forster

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  The earth's surface is no longer habitable. All humanity is sequestered beneath the ground, couched in isolation and contentment. The Machine provides the needs of humanity. Mankind becomes subservient drones to the life-supporting Machine. But what happens when the Machine stops?

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  Voyage to the Country of the...

  Jonathan Swift

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  "A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms" is a novel by Jonathan Swift: Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a merchantman, as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage, he is forced to find new additions to his crew who, he believes, have turned against him. His crew then commits mutiny. After keeping him contained for some time, they resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across, and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of deformed savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards, he meets the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses.

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  The Nose

  Nikolai Gogol

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  "The Nose" is the second best known story of Gogol, after "The Overcoat." A military major discovers his nose is missing and works to recover it. He finds the nose but it pretends to have a life of its own, as a fellow human. It in fact has a higher rank than the Major himself. The Major is perplexed, goes back to his apartment, and has the nose returned to him. With great joy he recovers his nose, only to find it won't reattach to his face. After much going on, he finds the nose reattached to his face. The fun of the story are the goings on, which have made this a favorite of all readers of Russian literature.

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  The Horse Dealer's Daughter -...

  D H Lawrence

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  David Herbert Lawrence was born on the 11th September 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, a coal mining town where the reality of a harsh life was only useful as experiences for future literary works. 
   
  He was educated at Beauvale Board School and became the first local boy to receive a scholarship to attend Nottingham High School. After 3 years he became a junior clerk in Haywood’s surgical appliances factory. He was also attempting a literary career which, in the short term, led to a teacher training position in Eastwood and later a teaching qualification from University College, Nottingham.  
   
  Lawrence’s first efforts were poems, short stories and a draft of ‘The White Peacock’. Moving to London and a teaching position in Croydon his writing attracted the attention of Ford Madox Ford, editor of The English Review, and he commissioned him to write ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’.  
   
  Wanting to write full-time he now began work on what would become ‘Sons and Lovers.   
   
  In 1912 he met the older and married mother-of-three Frieda Weekley. They eloped to Germany and here Lawrence could see for himself the growing tensions with France.  So keen was his interest that he was arrested and accused of being a British spy.  
   
  In early 1914 Frieda obtained her divorce and they returned to Britain to be married just days before the outbreak of war. Owing to her German parentage, and his own public dislike of militarism and violence, the couple were treated with contempt and suspicion throughout the war years.  
   
  Despite this he continued to write but his reputation in England was so tarnished and, mirrored by his own disdain for the country, he and Frieda left England in November 1919, first for Europe and then America via Ceylon and Australia. 
   
  They bought a ranch in Taos, New Mexico and visited Mexico several times. The third visit in March 1925 caused a near fatal attack of malaria. To convalesce they moved to Florence. Here he continued work on ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ which for many years would cause controversy. A renewed interest in oil painting resulted in an exhibition in 1929 which was raided by the police and several works were confiscated.  
   
  D H Lawrence died of complications arising from a bout of tuberculosis on the 2nd of March 1930 in Vence, France.  He was 44. 
   
  In ‘The Horse Dealers daughter’ a young woman begins a relationship with a young doctor and a friend of her brothers.  What should be straight forward is intimately investigated by Lawrence’s foraging pen.

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  The Mad Veteran of Fort Ratonneau

  Ludwig Achim von Arnim

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  Ludwig Achim von Arnim (1781-1831) was a German poet and novelist from a Prussian noble family, and one of the most notable writers in German Romanticism.The Mad Veteran of Fort Ratonneau, written in 1881, is an engaging story which combines humour, sentiment, the eternal struggle between good and evil, and a rattling good storyline all in one.When the Commandant at Marseille learns that an invalid veteran is being transferred to his region, and that this brave soldier has suffered a head injury which causes him to behave like a madman...indeed his own wife believes him possessed by the devil...he decides to appoint him head of a tiny remote fort above the city. This fort is the depository for the regiment's supply of gunpowder. The Commandant also deploys the powder to create fireworks, and one of the tasks of the garrison is to manufacture rockets, roman candles, and Catherine wheels, which will be used for the display at the King's birthday. The invalid veteran turns out to have a great interest in pyrotechnics...and takes on his task with great enthusiasm. But then, one of his psychotic episodes sets in...and a madman in charge of a castle packed with gunpowder threatens the safety of the entire city.After all, what could possibly go wrong?

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  Roger Malvin's Burial

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts.  His father, a sea captain died when Nathaniel was 4 and Nathaniel always a shy child spent his early years with his Mother and two sisters.  Hit on the leg by a ball, doctors could finds nothing wrong but he went lame and was bedridden for a year. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, and graduated in 1825. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, the novel ‘Fanshawe’, in 1828. He continued to publish in various periodicals which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody eventually marrying her in 1842. 
   
  His defining work ‘The Scarlet Letter’ was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. The majority of his works centre on New England and have a Puritan inspiration and outlook with their inherent evil and sin of humanity.  A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.  This volume centres on his short stories which are beautifully crafted pieces layered with characters ill at ease with their path through life.

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