Other books that might interest you

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  The Journey to Bruges

  Katherine Mansfield

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  Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.'The Journey to Bruges' is a beautiful and perceptive description of a journey from Britain to Belgium by train and boat.A Red Door Consulting production.

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  A Catastrophe

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. "A Catastrophe" is a poignant tale of a shopkeeper whose business is on the verge of bankruptcy, when a dreadful catastrophe strikes the family, just in time to save him from total ruin.

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  The American Claimant

  Mark Twain

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  The American Claimant is enormous fun. I'm here to celebrate the mad energy of this strange novel. In it we have the pleasure of seeing Mark Twain's imagination go berserk, writes Bobbie Ann Mason in her introduction. The American Claimant is a comedy of mistaken identities and multiple role switches—fertile and familiar Mark Twain territory. Its cast of characters include an American enamored of British hereditary aristocracy and a British earl entranced by American democracy. The central character, Colonel Mulberry Sellers, is an irrepressible, buoyant mad scientist, Mason writes, "brimming with harebrained ideas. Nothing is impossible for him.... He's totally loopy." His voluble wackiness leaves the reader reeling in the wake of inventions that prefigure DNA cloning, fax machines, and photocopiers. Twain uses this over-the-top comic frame to explore some serious issues as well—such as the construction of self and identity, the role of the press in society, and the moral and social questions raised by capitalism and industrialization in the United States. A unique melange of science fiction and fantasy, romance, farce, and political satire, Twain's least-known comic novel is both thought-provoking and entertaining.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The -...

  Franz Kafka, Anton Chekhov,...

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  The Top 10 – Eastern Europe - An Introduction 
   
  From the Central plain of Europe to the Urals, many thousands of miles away, the nations of Eastern Europe have risen to become Empires and fallen underfoot to others.  Their literary tradition has always been strong and vibrant, bold and beguiling.  Within the many cultures and societies the narrative of the human condition is told in many startling and beautiful ways. 
   
  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  1 - The Top Ten - Eastern Europe - An Introduction 
  2 - A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka 
  3 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 
  4 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  5 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
  6 - The Shot by Alexander Pushkin 
  7 - A Legend of Old Egypt by Boleslaw Prus 
  8 - Hide And Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub 
  9 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev 
  10 - The Bundle of Letters by Moritz Jokai 
  11 - The Chamomile Drops by Jaroslav Hasek

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  Marsyas in Flanders

  Vernon Lee

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  "Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of Violet Paget (1856 - 1935), a British writer most famous for her supernatural short stories.  She was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement. ""Marsyas in Flanders"" is a strange tale of an ancient carving of the crucified Christ - minus its arms and cross - which once washed up in the twelfth century on a beach in Flanders. Once ownership of the relic is established, it is hung in the local church at Dunes... and before long strange miracles begin to take place, which rapidly turns the minor fishing village into a place of pilgrimage and worship. But the miracles become stranger and more threatening, demonic even, in nature... and the church authorities are forced to step in and investigate. What they find causes them to take very drastic action..."

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  The Slapping Sal

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Aboard the English gunship Lido in the Caribbean, orders are received from the Admiral of the fleet to intercept a French ship, the Gloire, and also to hunt down a pirateer, a ship which sails under the name of The Slapping Sal, captained by mutineers under the leadership of the notorious villain, Hairy Hudson. It is not many hours before Lido finds herself engaging with both of these ships, in a breathtaking and bloody sea-battle which ends in a most unusual way.

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