Other books that might interest you

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  David Swan - From their pens to...

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. 
  He was a mere four years old when his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron.  
  He was sent to college at his maternal uncle’s insistence. During these years he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future U S president Franklin Pierce. These friendships were lifelong and to have a crucial impact on his writings and career.  
  At college Hawthorne had made attempts at writing short stories and essays but without opportunities to publish. It was only in 1828 that he finally published his novel ‘Franshawe’ to little success and so he began work as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge.  
  Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.   
  Finally. in 1850 came spectacular literary and commercial success with ‘The Scarlet Letter’ followed by ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ the following year.  
  In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography of presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. After Pierce’s victory he was appointed consul in Liverpool, a position that offered prestige, money and fame. At the end of this appointment he returned several times to Europe before settling in Massachusetts and resuming writing and publication. 
  During the early 1860’s his health declined and on 19th May 1864 during a trip to Plymouth, New Hampshire. He was 59 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

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  The Moonstone

  Wilkie Collins

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  Published in 1868, "The Moonstone" is often considered one of the first, if not the first, detective novels in the English language. Penned by Wilkie Collins, this engrossing tale revolves around the theft of an enormous diamond named the Moonstone. This diamond, stolen from an Indian temple and later bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday, goes missing under mysterious circumstances. The narrative is distinguished by its shifting perspectives, with multiple characters providing their viewpoints in a series of first-person accounts. Sergeant Cuff, a famed detective, is called upon to solve the mystery. The novel delves deep into themes of colonialism, British imperialism, and the cultural repercussions of stealing treasured artifacts from colonized nations.

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  Ma'ame Pelagie - From their pens...

  Kate Chopin

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  Katherine O'Flaherty was born on the 8th February 1850 in St Louis, Missouri to parents of French and Irish descent. 
  At age 5, she was sent to the Sacred Heart Academy and, apart from a 2 year period at home when her father died, remained there until graduating in 1868.  Whilst there she began writing and became an avid reader of almost anything that crossed her path.   
  Kate married Oscar Chopin in 1870 and the couple moved to New Orleans, and later to the rural setting of Cloutierville, Louisiana to raise their 6 children.  
  In 1882 her husband died leaving her in a deep trench of debt.  Despite her best efforts to turn the businesses around they were sold, and she moved the family back to St Louis and the financial help of her mother.  Sadly, her mother died within the year.  Kate, now struggling with depression, pushed herself to write and gained a local reputation as a writer of short stories that captured the local color and vibrancy of her surroundings.  
  By the early 1890’s her short stories were published nationally.  With this widespread audience also came negative reviews, controversy, and cries of immorality as themes such as interracial relationships, the rights of women and other burning issues of the day were written about. 
  Despite the criticism, which unnerved her, she continued to write though in the main her works, around 100 short stories and two novels, were not attributed with any literary worth. 
  Kate Chopin died from a brain haemorrhage in St Louis Missouri on the 22nd of August 1904.  She was 54. 
  For much of the 20th Century her work was forgotten and out of print.  It was only in early 1970’s, with the rise of feminism and the call for a more just society that she was given the status her works had long described and shone a literary light at.  She is now safely revered as one of America’s great authors.

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  Madame Bovary

  Gustave Flaubert

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  A woman longing for passion. A life that feels too small. A dream that leads her where she never meant to go.
  Emma Bovary marries a kind but ordinary doctor, hoping for romance, beauty, and excitement. Instead, she finds herself trapped in routine and aching for more. As she pursues love, luxury, and escape, her desires turn into dangerous illusions—drawing her deeper into secrets, debt, and heartbreak she cannot control.
  
  Praised as "one of the greatest novels ever written," Flaubert's masterpiece is renowned for its exquisite prose, psychological depth, and fearless portrayal of desire and disillusionment. Emma's struggle to reconcile fantasy with reality remains as gripping today as when the book first shocked the world.
  
  If you love emotionally intense storytelling, rich character exploration, and classics that linger long after the last page, this novel is essential reading.
  
  Open the book—and step into the life of a woman whose dreams burn brighter than the world around her.

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  Bal Macabre - From their pens to...

  Gustav Meyrink

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  Gustav Meyrink was born in Vienna on the 19th January, 1868. 
  As a young man he co-founded a bank in Prague, but a personal crisis and a suicide attempt turned his life away from commerce to a study of the occult and a career in literature. 
  His early short stories, supernatural, occult and weird, are full of promise, menace and the unusual. 
  In 1915 he published his landmark novel ‘Der Golem’ and followed these with others which, whilst noted, failed to achieve the extraordinary heights of the first.  Meyrink was also a prolific and gifted translator of the works of Dickens and others into German. 
  After studying Theosophy, Kabbala and other religions he made, in 1927, a late conversion to Buddhism. 
  Gustav Meyrink died in Starnberg, Germany on the 4th December 1932.  He was 64.

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  The Happy Prince and other Tales

  Oscar Wilde

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  A collection of short stories by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains the five stories: "The Happy Prince," "The Nightingale and the Rose," "The Selfish Giant," "The Devoted Friend," and "The Remarkable Rocket."  
  Narrated by Michael Ward

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