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  A Little Joke - From their pens...

  Anthony Hope

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  Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins was born on 9th February 1863 in Clapton, London.  
  He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford.  Hope trained as a lawyer and barrister and was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1887. Despite what was thought to be a promising legal career he had literary ambitions and wrote in his spare time. 
  His early works appeared in various periodicals of the day but for his first book ‘A Man of Mark’ (1890), with no publisher interested, he published with his own resources.  
  More novels and short stories followed, including the mildly successful ‘Mr Witt's Widow’ in 1892. Hope even found time to run as the Liberal candidate for Wycombe in the election that same year but was unsuccessful. 
  His first major literary success came with ‘The Dolly Dialogues’, a collection of previously published magazine pieces followed very quickly by his instant classic, ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’. He now gave up the vestiges of his legal career to pursue writing full-time. 
  Despite never again reaching the same pinnacle of success he was popular and wrote prolifically across novels, plays and of course, short stories though his writing output rapidly diminished after the war. 
  In 1918 he was knighted for his contribution to propaganda efforts during World War I.  
  His short stories are delicate, mannered and often surprising with their wit, humour and interplay of characters who say one thing and usually mean another.  He was very definitely a writer of escapist rather than serious fare but they are no less enjoyable for that. 
  Anthony Hope died of throat cancer on 8th July 1933 at his country home, Heath Farm at Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey. He was 70.

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  Hadji Murat

  Leo Tolstoy

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  In 1851 Leo Tolstoy enlisted in the Russian army and was sent to the Caucasus to help defeat the Chechens. During this war a great Avar chieftain, Hadji Murád, broke with the Chechen leader Shamil and fled to the Russians for safety. Months later, while attempting to rescue his family from Shamil's prison, Hadji Murád was pursued by those he had betrayed and, after fighting the most heroic battle of his life, was killed.
  
  Tolstoy, witness to many of the events leading to Hadji Murád's death, set down this story with painstaking accuracy to preserve for future generations the horror, nobility, and destruction inherent in war.

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  Once He Made a Beginning - A...

  P. O. Dixon

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  "Every Ending, a Promising Prelude to a Beautiful New Beginning." 
  After his failed proposal at Hunsford, Fitzwilliam Darcy suffers a devastating accident that alters the course of his future. Overwhelmed with concern, unresolved feelings, and self-blame, Elizabeth Bennet finds herself compelled to stay by his side throughout his recovery. Is this fate’s way of giving them a second chance, or are some wounds too deep to heal?

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  Pictures

  Katherine Mansfield

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  "Pictures" is a 1917 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published under the title of The Common Round in the New Age on 31 May 1917 and later as The Pictures in Art and Letters in Autumn 1919. It was then reprinted as Pictures in Bliss and Other Stories.
  Miss Moss wakes up in the morning and she is hungry because she didn't have dinner the night before, nor is she going to have breakfast: she cannot afford it. Then her landlady turns up and gives her a letter hoping that it would be the rent, but it is note from an employment agency, saying they will get back to her.

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  Moby Dick

  Herman Melville

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  "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale" is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851. The story follows Ishmael, a young sailor who joins the whaling ship Pequod, captained by the obsessive and enigmatic Ahab. Captain Ahab is bent on killing Moby Dick, a giant white sperm whale that had previously destroyed Ahab's former ship and severed his leg. The novel is renowned for its intricate narrative structure, elaborate symbolism, and exploration of themes like obsession, the sublime, and the complexities of good and evil.

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  Kashtanka

  Anton Chekhov

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  "Kashtanka" — Anton Chekov's short story about a dog with two masters — is a fable about the conundrum of the creative life.
  The dog Kashtanka belongs to a drunken carpenter who takes her out one day, but on the way home loses her in the confusion of a military parade. The story is told by an omniscient narrator who privileges Kashtanka's point of view, so we follow the dog's subsequent adventures largely from her eyes.

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