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  Common Sense of Warfare The...

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.
  THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE: I want to say as compactly as possible why I do not believe that conscription would increase the military efficiency of this country, and why I think it might be a disastrous step for this country to take.

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  In the Wilds of Florida

  W.H.G. Kingston

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  A turn-of-the-century book, In the Wilds of Florida is a tale of an Irish schoolboy who leaves school and his struggling family in Ireland to come to America. He experiences a Florida where fighting still erupts between Cherokee and Seminole Indians, where white people are under threat of Indian attack, and the landscape is mostly swamp or plains of dense brush.

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  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow -...

  Washington Irving

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  Washington Irving was born on 3rd April, 1783, the youngest of 11, in New York. 
    
  Irving found his real interests away from school in literature and the theatre.  An outbreak of yellow fever at 15 moved him away from Manhattan and into the surrounding countryside providing valuable settings for later works such as ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. 
   
  By 19 Irving was writing regularly to the New York Morning Chronicle, commenting on the theatrical and social scenes.  When his health began to fail, he was sent on the Grand Tour of Europe.  Bizarrely he ignored most of the great sights on offer to concentrate on developing his social and conversational powers.  His health, though, did improve.  
   
  In 1806, back in New York to study law, he scraped a pass at the bar and then founded with several others the literary magazine Salmagundi. Irving nicknamed the city ‘Gotham City’, a name still in use today.  Moderately successful, the magazine spread Irving’s reputation beyond New York. 
   
  In 1809 while mourning the death of his teenage fiancée Irving finished his first significant book, ‘A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynsasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker’.  It satirised local history, local historians and politics.  It received great critical acclaim. 
   
  Unfortunately his family’s established trading company was now facing great upheavals and Irving was dispatched to England to try to sort it out.  After two years he could see no way out but bankruptcy.  This left him in England with no real employment prospects, and so he returned to writing.  
   
  He sent some short stories back to New York to be published as ‘The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent’.  The first part included ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and was extremely successful.  The sixth part contained ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’.  
   
  Beset by literary piracy, with no copyright law at the time, he set about publishing legitimate copies in England to outwit the bootleggers.  From now on Irving published concurrently in America and England in order to render piracy obsolete.  
   
  In August 1824, he published ‘Tales of a Traveller’, which included the famed ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’.  
   
  In 1826, the American Minister to Spain, invited him to Madrid where he could examine the many historical documents that he had access to.  Irving reveled in both the size of the libraries he was granted access to and their rich quality.  Historical works flowed from his pen further enhancing his reputation and fortune.   
   
  Following the completion of ‘Tales of the Alhambra’ in 1832, Irving returned to America after 17 years abroad. He was now a figurehead of American literature and dispensed advice to Edgar Allan Poe amongst others.  Irving also became an advocate for American copyright legislation.  
   
  A later appointment as Minister to Spain in 1842 left him disheartened at the antics of the various political factions he encountered.  It also afforded him no time to write as he had hoped.  
   
  On his return home he began an ‘Author’s Revised Edition’ of his works agreeing an unprecedented deal for 12 per cent of the retail profits.  
   
  Washington Irving died of a heart attack at his ‘Sunnyside’ home on the 28th November 1859 at the age of 76, a few months after completing his five volume George Washington biography, in whose honour he had been named.  
   
  ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is a story almost everyone has encountered.  An enormous success at the time it is now an undeniable American Spooky classic.

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  The Sign of the Four

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  London, 1888.  
  A Ms. Mary Morstan arrives at 221B Baker Street with a case for Sherlock Holmes and his companion, Dr. John Watson. Some ten years prior, her father, Captain Arthur Morstan, returned to London while on leave from his post in India—only to go missing. Adding another layer to the mystery are six pearls in her possession, having received one per year since 1882. The sixth and most recently received pearl was accompanied by a letter asking for a meeting, claiming Ms. Morstan is a wronged woman.  
  Holmes and Watson's deductive skills are put to the test in a thrilling adventure involving a map of a fortress bearing four names, poison darts, and high-speed boat chases.   
  The second of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four follows Holmes and Watson's debut in A Study In Scarlet. Originally commissioned by Lippincott's Monthly, the novel was published in the magazine in 1890. In the summer of 2024, Doyle's original handwritten manuscript sold for over $900,000 at auction.

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  The Viy

  Nikolai Gogol

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  "The Viy" is a horror novella by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, first published in the first volume of his collection of tales entitled Mirgorod (1835). The title is also the name of the demonic entity central to the plot.
  Every summer, there is usually a large procession of all the students moving around the area as they travel home. However, the group is reduced to three students: the theologian Khaliava, the philosopher Khoma Brut, and the rhetorician Tibery Gorobets.
  As the night draws in, the students hope to find a village near the main road where they can find some rest and food. However, they become lost in the wilderness, eventually coming upon two small houses and a farm. An older woman there tells them she has a little room and cannot accommodate any more travelers, but she eventually agrees to let them stay.
  At night, the woman comes to Khoma. At first, he thinks she is trying to seduce him, but then she draws closer and he sees that her eyes are glowing strangely. She leaps on his back, and he reluctantly finds himself galloping with her all over the countryside with a strength he previously never knew. He eventually slows the witch by chanting exorcisms out loud, and then rides on her back and later picks up a piece of wood and beats her as punishment. The older woman later collapses, and he discovers she has turned into a beautiful girl.
  Khoma runs away to Kyiv and resumes his easy life, when a rumor reaches his dean that a rich cossack's daughter was found crawling home near death, her last wish being for Khoma the philosopher to come and read psalms over her corpse for three nights after her death.

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  The Mystery of Edwin Drood

  Charles Dickens

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  The Mystery of Edwin Drood is Charles Dickens's final and most enigmatic novel, left unfinished at the time of his death. Blending elements of mystery, psychological drama, and Gothic suspense, the book stands apart from Dickens's other works and continues to intrigue readers and scholars alike.
  
  Set in the atmospheric cathedral town of Cloisterham, the story revolves around the sudden disappearance of young Edwin Drood. Suspicion soon falls upon his uncle, John Jasper, a respected choirmaster whose outward respectability masks dark inner obsessions. As hidden desires, jealousy, and moral corruption emerge, Dickens carefully constructs a tense and unsettling portrait of a man divided against himself.
  
  Alongside the central mystery, the novel introduces a cast of vivid characters, including the independent and thoughtful Rosa Bud, the mysterious siblings Neville and Helena Landless, and the eccentric investigator Mr. Datchery. Through these figures, Dickens explores themes of identity, guilt, secrecy, and the struggle between conscience and desire.
  
  Though unfinished, The Mystery of Edwin Drood remains a compelling and powerful work. Its unresolved ending invites endless speculation, making readers active participants in solving its central puzzle. Dark in tone yet rich in character and atmosphere, the novel stands as a fascinating final chapter in Dickens's literary legacy and a timeless classic of Victorian mystery.

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