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  The Avenger - From their pens to...

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

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  Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) is a celebrated American novelist best known for the creation of the fictional character and immortal icon Tarzan as well as for the creation of the now famous hero John Carter. By and large, although Burroughs’s fictional production is often classified among ‘pulp literature’ by many a canonical critic, his numerous novels revolutionized the science-fiction novel and the adventure novel. Burroughs’s extraordinary characters rapidly found their way to other media than literature including cartoons, radio and cinema and thus made his fortune and fame. Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago in 1875 and educated in a number of different schools. It is said has it that as a teenager he had to move from one school to another because of the influenza epidemic of 1891. At a certain point of his early life, his father who was himself a civil war veteran, decided to give his son a military education and sent him to the Michigan Military Academy.  
  Burroughs almost had a life-time career in the army was it not for his health problems that disqualified him from the service. He then engaged in different jobs in which he was not very successful. These included running a stationery store in Pocatello, Idaho, as well as working in his father’s firm. He later worked in his father’s American Battery Company before he got married to his childhood’s love Emma Centennia Hulbert in 1900. 
  Burroughs was almost obsessed with running his own business. This made him feel uneasy with the many positions that he fulfilled in private companies. After moments of financial crises, he eventually established a private business selling pencil sharpeners to retailers. The tradition goes that when Burroughs was waiting for his salesmen he used to browse through magazines to check the placement of the advertisements of his own business. Many of such magazines were pulp fiction magazines that published serialized stories belonging to the romance, crime and science-fiction genres. It was thus that the idea came to him to start writing similar stories and sell them to such magazines. Once famous, Burroughs never stopped evoking this story, relating that he believed himself able to write much better stories than the ones he chanced to read. By 1911, he started writing stories to be serialized in magazines with the aim of just making money. However, his stories happened to please the famous magazine publisher Frank Munsey and the editor Thomas Metcalf who paid him generously. 
  Under the pseudonym Norman Bean, Burroughs published his first story Under the Moons of Mars whose title was chosen by the editor. The story became popular and encouraged the author to follow it up with sequels to be later referred to as the ‘Barsoom’ series. Before the publication of the last installment of Under the Moons of Mars, Burroughs’s second novel was completed and entitled The Outlaw of Torn. Though the latter was to be posthumously hailed as one of his finest achievements, Burroughs’s editor refused to serialize it. The novel was then sent to be published in five installments in the New Story Magazine in 1914. It was, however, Burroughs’s third work that brought him to immediate and unprecedented success with the creation of the immortal character of Tarzan, a good-natured savage born in the African jungle to dead English parents. He is brought up by a monkey tribe to become a man of great physical and intellectual abilities. Tarzan’s perfection was often a subject of disagreement between his creator and cinema directors who rather tend to highlight the animalistic side of the character. Burroughs often explained that Tarzan should not be portrayed as the savage from a colonialist perspective. For him, Tarzan should rather stand for all the qualities and the goodness of natural life. Indeed, after a journey into the ‘civilized’ world, Tarzan eventually decides to regain to the jungle, realizing that the latter is actually more natural, more true

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  Anna Karenina (Part 7)

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Part 7: While visiting Moscow for Kitty's confinement, Kostya quickly gets used to the city's fast-paced, expensive and frivolous society life. He accompanies Stiva to a gentleman's club, where the two meet Vronsky. Kostya and Stiva pay a visit to Anna, who is occupying her empty days by being a patroness to an orphaned English girl. Kostya is initially uneasy about the visit, but Anna easily puts him under her spell. When he admits to Kitty that he has visited Anna, she accuses him of falling in love with her. The couple are later reconciled, realizing that Moscow society life has had a negative, corrupting effect on Kostya.
  Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger.

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  A Case of Identity

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Sherlock Holmes hears the distressing tale of Miss Mary Sutherland. It seems that something unexpected and mysterious has happened to her fiancee, Hosmar Angel. Is it a simple case of cold feet? Holmes finds something far more diabolical, lurking deep beneath the surface.

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  The Island of the Fay

  Sampi Books, Edgar Allan Poe

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  In "The Island of the Fay", Edgar Allan Poe describes the narrator's contemplation on the inaudible music of nature, observing a fairy on a mystical island. The tale explores themes of isolation, natural beauty and the permeability between the seen and the hidden.

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  Better Angel

  Richard Meeker

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  ""Better Angel" is a novel by Forman Brown, initially published in 1933 under the pseudonym Richard Meeker. Later, it was republished as "Torment" in 1951. This early novel offers a portrayal of a gay lifestyle without condemnation. In fact, Christopher Carey hailed it as the ""first homosexual novel with a truly happy ending"".    The title of the novel alludes to Shakespeare's Sonnet 144, which includes the line: "the better angel is a man right fair". This poem has been interpreted as having a homosexual subtext12.    The plot follows the journey of Kurt Gray, whose experiences mirror those of the author, Forman Brown. Kurt's life unfolds from his adolescent years in central Michigan to adulthood as a musician and composer. His story encompasses solitude, religious awakening, same-sex relationships, and intellectual exploration. The love affair between Kurt and another man, Derry, forms a central theme, along with their relationship with a third man named Tony. Notably, Brown based these characters on real individuals, including himself and his long-time lover, Harry Burnett.    Despite its initial lack of critical attention, "Better Angel" remains a significant work. It resurfaced in 1987 under its original title, with an introduction by Hubert Kennedy. Brown, who had used a pseudonym to protect his writing career and family, provided an epilogue for the 1990 reprint, explaining his reasons for anonymity.    This novel stands as a testament to the courage of early LGBTQ+ literature and offers a glimpse into the complexities of identity, love, and acceptance during a time when such themes were often silenced"

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  True Stories of Wonderful Deeds

  Anonymous

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  37 short pieces perfect for newer recorders. These one page Stories of (mostly) Wonderful Deeds were written for Little Folk to teach them about famous incidents in their history. Bonnie Prince Charlie, Nelson and Hardy, Bruce and the Spider, David Livingston, Canute, Sir Philip Sydney, and Elizabeth and Raleigh are just some of the well known people and incidents covered in short stories. (Summary by phil chenevert)

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