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  Esme - From their pens to your...

  Saki Saki

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  Hector Hugh Munro, more familiarly known by his pen-name ‘Saki’ was born in what was then Akyab in British Burma on 18th December 1870. His father was an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police, and his mother the daughter of a Rear Admiral. 
  When he was 2 his mother died and he and his siblings were sent back to England to be raised by their grandmother and paternal maiden aunts in a strict, puritanical household near Barnstaple, Devon. Educated by governesses Saki used many of these women as character models for his later writing. 
  At 17 his father retried and returned to England and then embarked on a series of European travels with Saki and his siblings. 
  After a short stint working in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police Saki decided to move to London to make a living as a writer. Initially he wrote as a journalist for a number of newspapers and magazines before attempting an historical study, ‘The Rise of the Russian Empire’, whose real value lay in directing him to writing short stories instead, the first of which, ‘Dogged’, he published in 1899. 
  From here it was a short stab of the pen to writing political satire before in 1902 he became the foreign correspondent for The Morning Post, first in the Balkans, then Russia, Paris and back to London in 1908, where 'the agreeable life of a man of letters with a brilliant reputation awaited him.'  
  Collections of his short stories full of witty, mischievous and often macabre stories that satirized Edwardian society and two novels now appeared in the years up to the Great War.  At its’ outbreak he was 43 but managed to join as an ordinary trooper. More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially too sick or injured.  
  On 14th November 1916 Hector Hugh Munro was sheltering in crater during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was shot and killed by a German sniper. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that bloody cigarette out!"

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  Russian Short Story The - Volume...

  Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev,...

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  The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length.  Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature. 
   
  Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story.  These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.   
   
  The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own.  It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity. 
   
  In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire. 
   
  The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.  
   
  Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced. 
   
  01 - The Russian Short Story - Volume 2 - An Introduction 
  02 - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol 
  03 - Taman by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov 
  04 - The Jew by Ivan Turgenev 
  05 - The Rendezvous by Ivan Turgenev 
  06 - A Strange Story by Ivan Turgenev 
  07 - Mumu by Ivan Turgenev 
  08 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
  09 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  10 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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  Alexander's Den

  Dawn Blair

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  Thomis doesn’t want to be here.Alexander’s Den: a place very few people know about and even fewer actually venture into willingly. Everyone here has a story; some want to tell it, and some don’t.Alexander won’t give Thomis a warm homecoming, even though he has something Alexander might want. Will a special egg be enough to get his foot back in the door? Will Alexander want too much from him in this storyteller’s final days?Enter the lair of Alexander’s Den in this fantasy short story.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Charles Dickens

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  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. 
   
  In this Century Men still control almost all of ‘who’ and ‘what’ gets published.  It is an unfair world but these male authors are also very gifted and none could argue with their status here.  Their stories throw light onto the ills and dark corners of societies flaws and the damning rules that oppress the many. 
   
  01 - The Top 10 - The 19th Century - The Men - An Introduction 
  2 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 
  3 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 1 by Herman Melville 
  4 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 2 by Herman Melville 
  5 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  6 - The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant 
  7 - About Love by Anton Chekhov 
  8 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 
  9 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
  10 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  11 - A Passion in the Desert by Honoré de Balzac 
  12 - Lost Hearts by M R James

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  Dark Tales of Mystery & Suspense...

  Alan Nelson, Charles Hilan...

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  A collection of those intriguing thrillers that keep us on the edge of our seats. 
  Contents: 
  "Man in a Hurry" by Alan Nelson 
  The pudgy little man was always hurrying. 
  "Bitter Gold" by B. C. Bridges 
  A brief, grim tale of Siberia. 
  "The Gray Rider" by Charles Hilan Craig 
  The strange tale of a famous racing driver. 
  "What Is It?" by Charles M. Morris 
  Retribution, swift and terrible. 
  "The Sixth Tree" by E. L. Stewart 
  The weirdest game that ever was played. 
  "His Brother's Keeper" by George Fielding Eliot 
  A not-so-typical case of jealousy. 
  "Country House" by Ewen Whyte 
  A strange rendezvous with the beauty of the country. 
  "Murder Man" by Ewen Whyte 
  This perfect killing. 
  "They've Got a Killer View" by Ian Gordon 
  A woman adds her name to a strange waiting list. 
  "Croatan" by Malcolm Ferguson 
  Creatures summoned from outer eons. 
  "Stranger at Dusk" by Malcolm Kenneth Murchie 
  The plight of a boy visited by a mysterious stranger. 
  "The Three Marked Pennies" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman 
  A strange destiny awaited the holders of the pennies. 
  "Piecemeal" by Oscar Cook 
  He slipped in a pool of blood... 
  "The Oval Portrait" by Edgar Allan Poe 
  An odd portrait in a chateau. 
  "The Oblong Box" by Edgar Allan Poe 
  A sea voyage and a peculiar, pine box.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Arthur Conan Doyle, Charlotte...

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  As the Century draws to a close it shows no sign of its literary talents diminishing.  Authors stride into stories with a confidence and knowledge that now speak of a gilded age.  We are challenged on many levels but always, always the story delivers a literary triumph. 
   
  1 - The Top Ten - The 1890's 
   
  2 - B24 by Arthur Conan Doyle 
   
  3 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 
   
  4 - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
   
  5 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane 
   
  6 - Désirée's Baby by Kate Chopin 
   
  7 - A New England Nun by Mary E Wilkins Freeman 
   
  8 - The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker 
   
  9 - The Inconsiderate Waiter by J M Barrie 
   
  10 - Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov 
   
  11 - The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W Chambers

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