Publisher: Orpheus Editions
Written by the famous Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, this book is a group of stories-within-a-story. It contains twelve heart warming stories for children. When a winter storm forces a family to stay inside, they are delighted to hear their grandmothers stories. This book is perfect for children, and will please every lover of classic literature.
People all over the world enjoy the stories of a great American writer O. Henry. Irony and unpredictable plot captivate us from the first sentences. O. Henry's characters are ordinary American people, always described with humor. Here is a short story from the Rolling Stones (1912). Young and ambitious lawyer attempted to ask a lady from the honorable family for a marriage. She refuses because he is poor. But he promises that after 15 years he'll return and marry her. Meanwhile another man tries to win her heart. Though money is the only thing that matters for this lady, that's why she easily changes her mind when it comes to choosing the future husband.A SmartTouch Media production.Show book
In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. This volume is dedicated to one such recognised master of the short story, namely, Katherine Mansfield whose innovative stream of consciousness and symbolic narrative style profoundly influenced Virginia Woolf. She was born on 14th October, 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand, the middle child of five. A gifted celloist, who at one point considered taking it up professionally her first attempts at writing were published in school magazines. At 19 Katherine left for Great Britain and, on arriving, quickly joined the social circles of modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence who became a close friend. She travelled to Europe before returning to New Zealand in 1906. Katherine then began to write the short stories that she would later become famous for. Her stories often focus on moments of disruption and frequently open rather abruptly dispensing with description and the introduction of characters. By 1908 she had returned to London and to a rather more bohemian lifestyle. A passionate affair resulted in her becoming pregnant but instead of her lover she married an older man who she left the same evening with the marriage unconsummated. She was then to miscarry and be cut out of her mothers’ will (allegedly because of her lesbianism). In 1911 she began a relationship with John Middleton Murry, a magazine editor, and although it was volatile it enabled her to write some of her best stories. Mansfield's creative years were burdened with loneliness, illness, jealousy, and alienation which was reflected in her work with the bitter depiction of marital and family relationships of her middle-class characters. Her defining themes of New Zealand, childhood, adulthood, social class, class conflict, innocence, and experience often focused on trivial events and subtle changes in human behaviour. During the First World War Mansfield contracted extra-pulmonary tuberculosis, which rendered any return or visit to New Zealand impossible and led to her death at the tender age of 34 on 9th January, 1923 in Fontainebleau, France. Her stories provide a legacy far beyond her years but leave us wondering what she could have been capable of had she lived longer. This volume comes to you from Miniature Masterpieces, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single authors, themes, and many compilations.Show book
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on 11th November, 1821 to distinguished multi-ethnic parents from a Lithuanian background. His childhood years were at the family home in hospital grounds which also contained an orphanage, an insane asylum and a cemetery for criminals. The young Fyodor often disobeyed his father by talking to the ill in the hospital gardens. His health was compromised at age 9 when he experienced his first epileptic fit. By the time he was a teenager both parents had died and he was now enrolled in a military academy where he graduated and eventually became a Lieutenant in 1842. He left military service the next year. In 1846 he published his first novel ‘Poor Cow’ to great literary acclaim. His next was unable to emulate that success but his short stories helped provide an income. Life as an author was definitely difficult. As he began his next work he was arrested and incarcerated for treason and participation in the political and literary Petrashevsky Circle. Although the case was weak and unjustified he was sentenced to 4 years of hard labour followed by 5 years of military service in a Siberian regiment. Despite the undoubted hardships and setbacks in his life, and whether they helped or hindered his writing, his talents produced many exceptional works of literature including ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. Dostoevsky’s ability to get under the skin of his characters and show the inner workings of their mind was hugely influential and ahead of its time. Interwoven with this was the influence of the broader social, spiritual and political forces at work in a person's psyche. Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled financially and remained in poor health for much of his adult life. He died from a lung haemorrhage on 9th February, 1881. In the Crocodile a man is swallowed whole and through this Gogol explores themes and ideas that no other author would attempt. Absurdist genius.Show book
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. The North-East region of the United States has a long and excellent history of literary works from its talented sons and daughters. Although some travelled the continent, and even further afield, their roots are unfailingly of this American landscape, its people and their shared experiences. 1 - The Top 10 - US Authors of the North-East - An Introduction 2 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne 3 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 1 by Herman Melville 4 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 2 by Herman Melville 5 - The Rats in the Walls by H P Lovecraft 6 - The Yellow Wall Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 7 - The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte 8 - The Fullness of Life by Edith Wharton 9 - The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving 10 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 11 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane 12 - The Most Dangerous Game by Richard ConnellShow book
Martin was on holiday in Cairo, Egypt, where he checked in to a cheap and dingy 3-star hotel room. He walked around in the city looking inspirations for his new Sci-Fi book when he stumbled across an Egyptian old market/bazaar. He bought a shimmering and glowing blue crystal, which turned out to be an ancient gem that led to a portal to another dimension. A few days later he woke up in the hospital, supposedly after experiencing a rare form of food poisoning that caused vivid hallucinations. But the question remains, what really happened in the pyramid? Join Martin in this exciting and exhilarating 30mins short audiobook that takes place in present time, almost a millennium before the events described in The Divine Dissimulation and The Divine Sedition which takes place in the 28th and 29th century.Show book
"Beyond the Wall" is a ghost story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce.Show book
