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  Hop-Frog

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Hop-Frog is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849. The title character is a dwarf taken from his homeland who becomes the jester of a king particularly fond of practical jokes. Taking revenge on the king and his cabinet for striking his friend and fellow dwarf Trippetta, he dresses them as orangutans for a masquerade. In front of the king's guests, Hop-Frog murders them all by setting their costumes on fire before escaping with Trippetta. It has been suggested that Poe wrote the story as a form of literary revenge against a woman named Elizabeth F. Ellet and several others.

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  The Madman

  Kahlil Gibran

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  Kahlil Gibran (author of The Prophet) was a Lebanese-American philosophical essayist, novelist, mystical poet and artist. During the last 20 years of his life, he lived in the United States, where his works gained recognition and influence within the American popular culture. 
  This abridged audio of The Madman communicates in stories and metaphors Gibran's belief that if a sensible way of living and thinking could be found, people would have mastery over their lives.

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  Cricket On The Hearth The...

  Charles Dickens

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  The Cricket on the Hearth is a novella by Charles Dickens, written in 1845. It is the third of Dickens' five Christmas books, the others being A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1847). John Peerybingle, a carrier, lives with his young wife Dot, their baby boy and their nanny Tilly Slowboy. A cricket chirps on the hearth and acts as a guardian angel to the family. One day a mysterious elderly stranger comes to visit and takes up lodging at Peerybingle's house for a few days.

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  Mary Marston

  George MacDonald

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  A novel of one woman who transcends society’s concerns to stay true to her convictions—from the Victorian-era author of Malcolm. One of MacDonald’s lengthy and powerful, but not widely studied, novels, Mary Marston is the only book in the MacDonald corpus with a woman featured in the title role. As one of MacDonald’s many strong and memorable leading ladies, Mary exemplifies a life of dedication to Christ, self-sacrifice, and obedience to parents. We encounter here a touching portrayal of that earthly relationship so dear to MacDonald’s heart, because it so embodied man’s relationship with God—the relationship between fathers and their sons and daughters. Of the diverse range of characters found within the pages of this novel, Michael Phillips writes, “Taken together, their individual lives make fascinating reading. They are so diverse, sometimes so petty and foolish, their intertwining relationships so humorous at times . . . we observe human growth at work . . . always progressing in one direction or the other—sometimes straight, sometimes crooked. It is a complex character mix in many shades of gray . . . containing complicated character flaws without easy resolutions. I find it one of the most real array of characters in the MacDonald corpus.”

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  Robinson Crusoe

  Daniel Defoe

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  Shipwrecked and castaway, Daniel DeFoe's hard-luck character is still the standard for "growing where you're planted." Captured by pirates, he makes his break in a small boat and undergoes desperate adventures before winning his way back to civilization. But Crusoe proves willing to chance his luck a second time when, after sweating his way to prosperity as a planter in Brazil, he undertakes a voyage that isn't needful… and is marooned on a small island off South America.

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  O Henry - A Short Story...

  O Henry

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  William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him. 
   
  He first attended at a school run by his aunt before enrolling at the Lindsey Street High School and then worked at his uncle’s drugstore and gained a pharmacists’ license in 1881.  
   
  A persistent cough took him to Texas in the hope that a change of climate would help his symptoms. He took on various types of work, initially from ranch hand and cook and then as varied as pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began to write, though for now, purely as a hobby. 
   
  He was a member of several singing and dramatic groups when he met 17 year old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Austin family. Despite her mother’s objection owing to Athol’s tuberculosis, they began courting and in July 1887, they eloped and soon married. 
   
  Athol, impressed by his writing, encouraged him to get them published. A job as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office paid a healthy $100 dollars per month and life was good. 
   
  But then life turned cruel. His son died a few hours after birth although a daughter, Margaret, came the following year.  His job had to be vacated but another was found at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank operated informally and Porter was careless in keeping the books. He lost that job but began writing for the humourous weekly The Rolling Stone and the Houston Post. Some time later the federal Bank auditors went through his former accounts and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement. 
   
  Porter fled the day before his trial to Honduras. Holed up for several months he began to write.  Athol had become too ill to travel to meet him and learning that her health was deteriorating he surrendered to the court in February 1897.  Bail was obtained so that he could stay with Athol during her final days.  
   
  Porter was sentenced to five years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. His pharmacy qualifications got him the job of night druggist.  His sentence also gave him time to write and publish fourteen short stories. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry.  
   
  He was released two years early in July 1901, and reunited with Margaret, now 11, in Pittsburgh.  He now began his most prolific period of writing; a short story per week for the New York World, while also publishing works in other magazines.  Eventually over 600 of his short stories were published. 
   
  Porter was a heavy drinker and in 1908 his health, which had deteriorated for several years, took a dramatic turn for the worse, as did his writing. 
    
  O Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver complicated by diabetes and an enlarged heart on 5th June 1910. 
  1 - O Henry - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction - Volume 1 
  2 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry 
  3 - A Harlem Tragedy by O Henry 
  4 - According to Their Lights by O Henry 
  5 - After Twenty Years by O Henry 
  6 - Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen by O Henry 
  7 - Transients in Arcadia by O Henry 
  8 - The Cop and the Anthem by O Henry 
  9 - The Caballero's Way by O Henry 
  10 - The Count and the Wedding Guest by O Henry 
  11 - The Dream by O Henry 
  12 - The Furnished Room by O Henry

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