Other books that might interest you

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  The Maltese Cat - Celebrated...

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai, India on 30th December 1865.   
   
  As was the custom in those days, he and his sister were sent back to England when he was 5.  The ill-treatment and cruelty by the Portsmouth couple they boarded with Kipling said contributed to the onset of his literary life.  
   
  At 16 he returned to India to work on a local paper where he was soon contributing and writing.  It also exposed him to the issues of identity and national allegiance which pervade much of his work.  
   
  In 1886, his ‘Departmental Ditties’, collection of verse appeared in print followed by 39 short stories for his newspaper over only 8 months.  These were then published as ‘Plain Tales from the Hills’, shortly after his 22nd birthday.  
   
  He continued his prolific pace of writing before being dismissed in a dispute and, taking his pay-off and the profits from the sale of some publishing rights, decided to return to London, travelling via Rangoon, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, all the while writing articles, and arriving at Liverpool in October 1889. 
   
  Over the next two years he saw further works published as books and in magazines, as well as a nervous breakdown for which he was prescribed a sea voyage, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India.  
   
  Happier times came with marriage to Caroline Starr Balestier in January 1892.  The honeymoon began in Vermont and ended in Yokahama where they heard their bank had failed.  They returned to Vermont and settled.  Caroline was now pregnant and he was planning the ‘Jungle Books’.  
   
  A failed arbitration between the US and England resulted in an argument between Caroline’s brother and Kipling, and then his arrest.  At the hearing he was mortified by the exposure of his private life and after settling the matter they returned to England and life in Torquay.  ‘Kim’ was published in 1902, and ‘Just So Stories for Little Children’, a year later.  
   
  In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with the citation “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterise the creations of this world-famous author”.   
   
  When the Great War erupted, he scorned those who refused conscription.  His son enlisted and was killed at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at 18, an exploding shell had ripped his face apart.  This death inspired Kipling’s writing thereafter, but the tragedy broke his life and by 1930 his prolific pen had almost ceased. 
   
  Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936 from a perforated duodenal ulcer.  He was 70.  His ashes are buried at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. 
   
  In the Maltese Cat Kipling returns once more to India and the British Empire.  A polo match is being played.  The fierce competitive instincts of two social classes are fighting for dominance.  All told through the voice of the Maltese Cat, the most cunning of the horses.

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  Riders of the Purple Sage

  Zane Grey

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  This is a classic novel of the Western genre. It is the story of Lassiter, a gunslinging avenger in black, who comes to a remote Utah town just in time to save a young and beautiful rancher named Jane Withersteen from being forced to marry a Mormon elder. Lassiter is also on a mission of his own, leading him to a secret grave on Jane's grounds. Enormously popular western novel, with a mix of everything from romance to suspense to action - you name it, it's got it! Also endowed with a wonderful sense of old time chivalry: "Where I was raised a woman's word was law. I ain't quite outgrowed that yet."

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  The Dreams in the Witch House

  H. P. Lovecraft

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  The story follows Walter Gilman, who takes a room in the Witch House, an accursed house in Akham, Lovecraft's fictional New England town.  
    
   The house once harbored Keziah Mason, a witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692. Gilman discovers that over the centuries most of its occupants have died prematurely. In his dreams while at the house, Gilman travels to the city of Elder Things and communes with the evil witch and her henchmen.

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  Cymbeline (Argo Classics)

  William Shakespeare

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  William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. 
  ‘Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.’ 
  Cymbeline is believed to be one of Shakespeare's final plays and is about deceit, pursuit and seduction. 
  King Cymbeline of Britain banishes his daughter Innogen's husband, who then makes a bet on Innogen's fidelity. Innogen is accused of being unfaithful, runs away, and becomes a page for the Roman army as it invades Britain. In the end, Innogen clears her name, discovers her long-lost brothers and reunites with her husband while Cymbeline makes peace with Rome. 
  All of the Shakespeare plays within the ARGO Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts, and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations. 
  Thurston Dart, Professor of Music at London University and a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, directed the music for this production. 
  The full cast includes: Denis McCarthy; David Rowe-Beddoe; Ian Lang; Terrence Hardiman; Andrew Parkes; John Sharpe; Roger Hammond; Tony White; Peter Orr; David Coombes; Philip Strick; Tom Bussman; John Tracy-Phillips; Trevor Nunn; Tom Bussman; Michael Burrell; Gillian Webb; Margaret Drabble; Micheline Samuels. 
  This top performing theatre production, hailed as one of the best, brings to life the European essence of Shakespeare's work. The cast's delivery of the prose and verse is a testament to their dedication and talent. 
  For fans of Richard Parsons (GCSE English Shakespeare Text Guide), and Arthur Miller (Incident at Vichy).

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  The Gift of the Magi - An...

  O. Henry

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  The Gift of the Magi may be the second most widely read O’Henry story in grammar, middle, and high school. The Ransom of Red Chief rates number one. Young readers have a slightly more difficult time relating to two young married people, old after all to them, than can relate to 10 year old Red Chief, his father who makes the kidnappers pay him back in order to take Red Chief off their hands plus come in darkness so others don’t jail them, and all the antics and excitement of it all. The Gift of the Magi is not read or heard widely after one leaves high school, which is a shame because it is such a magical story about expectations being crushed by realities, and the turn of events which O’Henry was so masterful at achieving, as in The Ransom of Red Chief, the other best known O’Henry story that Simply has also recorded. The interesting twist is these two people both sacrifice for the other but that means neither gift works as planned. However, and O’Henry is full of howevers, the two are deeply in love and shrug it off and move on in their happiness. A final thought for the reader: Is there anyone similar to O’Henry in style? We can’t think of one and that is another reason to listen to these stories. As with all Simply short stories, you should enjoy the ideas put forth in the introduction and afterword. Things to think about or write about if a student. O'Henry's other two best loved stories are also recorded: The Cop and the Anthem and A Retrieved Reformation. Keywords: Ransom of Red Chief, Southwestern humor, Mark Twain, Gift of the Magi, O’Henry, New York, the Four Million, The Trimmed Lamp.

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  Letters of Travel (Unabridged)

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Letters of Travel comprises three books: From Tideway to Tideway 1892-95 contains pieces first published in the Times covering voyages across north America (USA and Canada) and in Japan; his Letters to the Family first appeared in the Morning Post, while Nash's Magazine was the first publisher of the articles (on Egypt and Sudan) in Egypt of the Magicians. Kipling's observations are cast in a wry style that permits, as his work often does, different readings. The unsympathetic reader can hear a banal repetition of the patriarchal, racist and imperialist ideas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century trotted out. (Or even in his characterisation of the Jewish power behind the pedlar in "The Face of the Desert" a suggestion of something worse.) A more nuanced reading will perceive an amused or wry smile in Kipling's remembering and the human sympathy that infuses all his writing. (US listeners should be warned that in Kipling's day "the N word" was in common use, and he therefore uses it naturally to describe people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry.)

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