Publisher: anamsaleem
The humorist takes on the controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays in this 1909 essay, one of the last published in his lifetime. Twain argues that the man from Stratford could not have written the plays, because he lacked the education and was not famous in his home town, as Twain was in Hannibal, Missouri.
B. M. Croker (1848-1920) was an Irish-born novelist and a notable writer of ghost stories.'Number Ninety' is one of Croker's best-known ghost tales and was first published in the Christmas Number of Chapman's Magazine of Fiction in 1895.At a rowdy dinner party, the discussion turns to ghosts, and John Hollyoak, the most outspoken and derisive of the nonbelievers, declares that he would like to spend the night in a haunted house. So, the host of the party arranges for him to do just that.Show book
The Bride Comes to Yellow SkyThis is the third of the best Stephen Crane short stories, with The Open Boat and The Blue Hotel being the other two. The story starts in an interesting way as the older sheriff has gone to another town to marry a not so young and not so beautiful woman who he is obviously devoted to. They have a kind of grown up love not common in American fiction. They are on the train ride back to their new home, the Sheriff's house. The Sheriff is concerned he didn't let the locals know. But he has a far bigger problem in front of him.Scratchy Wilson, an OK man when sober, but riled up and dangerous when drunk which he is when the Sheriff and his new bride arrive in town. Alcohol here, as in The Blue Hotel, drives people to dangerous spots. The moment occurs when the Sheriff and the bride come upon Scratch who is pointing his gun at the Sheriff. In traditional westerns, and as in The Blue Hotel, the scene is set for the Sheriff to die and the bride abandoned. Instead, the Sheriff points out he has no gun, Scratchy considers this through his alcoholic haze, and decides this isn't fair and walks away. Not what one expects. Yet, the danger, immediacy of death at any moment, and the fear remain after Scratchy walks away. A stunning reversal of expectation. As with The Blue Hotel, Scratch walking away has all the importance of a key moment in people's lives that Sherwood Anderson describes in Winesburg, Ohio and Edgar Lee Masters in Spoon River, all written within a few years of each other.Keywords: Stephen Crane, The Open Boat, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Winesburg, Ohio, Spoon River, Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters.Show book
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 IDEAL CITIZEN: Our conceptions of what a good citizen should be are all at sixes and sevens. No two people will be found to agree in every particular of such an ideal, and the extreme divergences upon what is necessary, what is permissible, what is unforgivable in him, will span nearly the whole range of human possibility and conduct.Show book
The fifth story of Oz and the fourth detailing the magical travels of Dorothy, Baum takes the young Kansas girl and her dog Toto on a circuitous journey to Oz for Princess Ozma's birthday. She begins the adventure in an attempt to help a stranger, the Shaggy Man, find the road he seeks, and they are joined on their way by a perpetually lost boy named Button Bright and a fairy called Polychrome, daughter of a Rainbow. Through a series of encounters with foxes, donkeys, and other characters, both new and familiar, the group braves the Deadly Desert to reach the Emerald City for the royal birthday celebration. Baum continues his tradition of charming Oz stories in a tale that ultimately takes its characters where they wish to go, but not always simply by the 'right' road.Show book
Arthur Cecil Gask was born on 10th July 1869 in Marylebone, London. He began his career as an author late in life. It was only in 1920 when he and his second wife and family emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia to set up a dental practice that writing took its hold. Gask paid for the publication of his first work, ‘The Secret of the Sandhills’, which was an immediate success, both commercially and critically. Over the next 3 decades Gask wrote over thirty books, usually featuring his detective invention Gilbert Larose, as well as short stories. Many of his works were translated, serialised and even broadcast on the radio. HG Wells and Bertrand Russell were avid fans. In the last years of his life he was still writing, usually two novels a year. Arthur Gask died on 25th June 1951, in Adelaide, Australia. He was 81 In this story we meet his most popular character, Detective Gilbert Larose, who, whilst on holiday, is drawn into a case of dogs being poisoned. But why would anyone do that?Show book
The Swiss Family Robinson is an adventure novel co-authored by Johann David Wyss and Johann Rudolf Wyss. It has a plot that exemplifies family ideals and the use of the natural world to achieve self-reliance. The story begins with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, riding out a huge storm. The passengers abandon ship without them, and William and Elizabeth Robinson and their four children (Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Francis) are left to survive on their own. How will they cope?Show book
