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  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  H. Rider Haggard, Richard Le...

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  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

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  We She

  Rosalind Stopps, Jennifer...

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  In Collaboration with Liars League. A celebration of the centenary of women in the UK getting the vote. Stories about women by women, which have been performed at one of Liars' League's events in London, Hong Kong, New York or Portland, Everything from fantasy and historical through magic realism to SF and humour.

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  The Short Stories of Herman...

  Herman Melville

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  Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819.   
   
  At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension" and his opportunities for success seemed limited. 
   
  His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. 2 years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion.  These experiences helped provide the novels ‘Typee’, ‘Omoo’, and ‘White-Jacket’. 
   
  By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece, ‘Moby Dick’, was ready to be published.  It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville’s earnings on his masterpiece was a mere $556.37. 
   
  In succeeding years his reputation waned, life was increasingly difficult.  His family was growing and a stable income was essential. Melville took the advice of friends to try public lecturing, as others had, to increase his revenues. He embarked on three successful lecture tours, speaking on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome.  
   
  In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem ‘Clarel’. It was to no avail.  The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably. 
   
  It was only in late 1885 that Melville was at last able to retire after his wife inherited several legacies, enough to provide them with a reasonable income. 
   
  Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on 28th September 1891 from cardiovascular disease. 
  01 - Herman Melville - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville 
  03 - The Lightning Rod Man by Herman Melville 
  04 - The Fiddler by Herman Melville

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  Mary Postgate

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.Mary Postgate is a horrifying story, and like much of Kipling's work it can be interpreted in different ways. It was written as propaganda in 1915 during World War I against the background of German atrocities and massacres in France, and just after German aircraft had engaged in bombing raids on English towns.Mary Postgate was intended to inspire English readers with just such cold-blooded courage and ruthlessness as Mary herself displays. It is also, however, a portrait of a woman who finds release from societal, psychological, and sexual pressures in the context of war: the deaths of Wynn and little Edna Gerrit are not so much reasons as excuses for the behavior Mary indulges in.Kipling provides us with detailed motivation of Mary's actions, so we understand why she behaves as she does: the story is full of ominous warning signs which prepare us for the dreadful climax. And the climax becomes more terrifying, more ghastly, the more carefully we listen to it.

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  Nyarlathotep

  H.P. Lovecraft

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  Howard Lovecraft is an American writer, who became famous for his works of horror fiction. Nowadays he is considered as one of the best 20th-century authors in his genre.   "Nyarlathotep" is a story published in November 1920 in The United Amateur. It is written in first person. The story opens with the describing of a strange feeling of anticipation of a big evil. The narrator experienced the end of the world and now describes how it was. "Nyarlathotep" came from Egypt, he looked like a Pharaoh. Wherever he came, the people there started to have nightmares. He organized a demonstration, when he came to the narrator’s city. The observers split into 3 columns: the first group disappeared around the corner, from which was heard a moaning then; the second went into the subway station with the sound of laugh; the third group with the narrator travelled from the city to the country. The narrator lagged behind the group a bit and then saw “graveyard of the Universe”.  Lovecraft’s childhood night dream underlay the story.A SmartTouch Media production.

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  The Flying Fish

  D H Lawrence

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  'The Flying Fish' is unfinished but tells the story of an Englishman, Gethin Day, returning home after years in South America. There is a hint of the home-sickness Lawrence may have felt during his long exile. The bulk of the story is the time spent on the ship which is taking Day back to England. It is a ship of fools, a 'plague ship' and the only positive note is the joy Day sees in the play of the flying fish and porpoises around the ship. It is tantalising to speculate how Day would have adapted to English life again, confined to an old house in an old country.

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