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  Clotilde Graves - A Short Story...

  Clotilde Graves

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  Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves was born on the 3rd June 1863 at Buttevant Castle, Co. Cork, to parents with military backgrounds. 
   
  At age nine, the family moved to Southsea in England for yet another military posting.  Her father’s postings gave her valuable experiences that would be put to good use in later years in some of her literary works. 
   
  She was educated at a Catholic convent in Lourdes before returning to London in 1884 to study art in Bloomsbury.  She worked part-time at the British Museum and the Royal Female School of Art and generated further income by drawing little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers.  
   
  A few years later a chance meeting found her writing extra lyrics for a pantomime version of Puss in Boots.  She followed up with several financially successful plays, both in London and New York, and gained a measure of notoriety in one with the comparison of marriage and prostitution.   
   
  Despite her dramatic success she published her first novel in 1911 under the pseudonym of Richard Dehan which she continued to use for later works.  As well as novels and plays she published collections of short stories which glow with talent and invention. 
   
  She was an unusual figure in London society, wearing her hair short, taking on a masculine manner and cut of clothing, and smoking cigarettes in public when such traits were considered eccentric at best.  Add to this her admired collection of Chinese and Japanese trophies, her enthusiasm for fly-fishing and her riding of a tricycle and you have a perfect image of this fascinating writer. 
   
  Clotilde Graves died at the convent of Our Lady of Lourdes at Hatch End in Middlesex, on the 3rd December 1932.  She was 69. 
   
  1 - Clotilde Graves - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - Under The Electrics by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan 
  3 - The Lost Room by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan 
  4 - A Spirit Elopement by Clotilde Graves 
  5 - In The Fourth Dimension by Clotilde Graves writing as Richard Dehan 
  6 - A Nocturne by Clotilde Graves writing as by Richard Dehan

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  Dead at 40

  Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka,...

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  Science, better diet, advanced medicines are all part of a process that in the modern age keep most of us going to a ripe old age. 
   
  In previous times some diseases could only be slowed and not defeated. There toil of relentless attack on our physical forms brought misery and decay.   
   
  Add to this that within our number some will self-destruct, demons will pursue their inner thoughts and life will be too painful to bear. Some may shuffle off the mortal coil for no discernible reason, but life will end early, they will not take up their three-score year and ten. 
   
  In this collection of short stories some of our most popular and well-known authors are grouped together with an unfortunate tag: dead at 40. 
   
  These authors are not run-of-the-mill or ten a penny; many are literary leviathans who left enduring works of literature and sadly may have left us many more had they lived. We will never know. 
   
  Death for these authors was usually due to many health issues but primarily:— 
  Edgar Allan Poe — Several causes have been given but, in truth, it remains a mystery. 
  Franz Kafka — Tuberculosis 
  Jack London — Dysentery, late-stage alcoholism, and uremia 
  Mary Dods (writing as David Lyndsey) — Liver disease  
  William Hope Hodgson — Killed at the Fourth Battle of Ypres in World War 1 
   
  01 - Dead at 40 - An Introduction 
  02 - The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe 
  03 - In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka 
  04 - To Build a Fire by Jack London 
  05 - The Prediction by Mary Diana Dods writing as David Lyndsey 
  06 - Carnacki, The Ghost Finder - No1 - The Gateway of the Monster by William Hope Hodgson

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  Barry Pain - A Short Story...

  Barry Pain

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  Barry Eric Odell Pain was born at 3 Sydney Street in Cambridge on 28th September 1864. He was one of 4 children. 
   
  He was educated at Sedbergh School and then Corpus Christi College, Cambridge where he read classics and contributed to and edited Granta. 
   
  Four years of service as an Army coach followed before he moved to London. In 1889, Cornhill Magazine published his short story ‘The Hundred Gates’.  This opened the way for Pain to advance his literary career on several fronts. He became a contributor to Punch and The Speaker, as well as joining the staff of both the Daily Chronicle and Black and White.  
   
  In 1897 he succeeded Jerome K Jerome as editor of To-Day but still contributed regularly, until 1928, to the Windsor Magazine. 
   
  It is often said that Pain was discovered by Robert Louis Stevenson, who compared his work to that of Guy de Maupassant.  It’s an apt comparison. Pain was also a master of disturbing prose but able to inject parody and light comedy into many of his works.  A simple premise could in his hands suddenly expand into a world very real but somehow emotionally fraught and on the very edge of darkness as many of these short stories demonstrate.   
   
  Despite applying his talents to several genres and forms today Pain is more readily thought of, especially during the first decade of the 20th Century, as perhaps the leading British humorist of his day.  These stories reveal a darker side and beg to differ. 
   
  Barry Pain died on 5th May 1928 in Bushey, Hertfordshire. 
  1 - Barry Pain - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - The Diary of a God by Barry Pain 
  3 - The Act of Heroism by Barry Pain 
  4 - The Green Light by Barry Pain 
  5 - A Complete Recovery by Barry Pain 
  6 - The Magnet by Barry Pain 
  7 - The End of a Show by Barry Pain 
  8 - The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit by Barry Pain 
  9 - Murder, from The Memoirs of Constantine Dix by Barry Pain 
  10 - Post Mortem by Barry Pain

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  The Missing QC's

  John Oxenham

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  Two leading London barristers--Queen's Counsels--disappear during a murder trial, one for the prosecution and one for the defense. Junior defense barrister Charles Dallas searches for his two colleagues, but they are about to undergo the most bizarre of trials themselves. 
   
  English novelist and poet John Oxenham (November 12, 1852 - January 28, 1941) was born William Arthur Dunkerley in Manchester, England, in 1852. His entry into the literary world was not as a writer but as a publisher; with several partners he started the publication "The Idler", and later on the weekly "To-Day". He traveled extensively in Europe, Canada and the US as part of his publishing duties, but eventually decided he wanted to be a writer more than he did a publisher, and in 1913 he finished "Bees in Amber". However, his publisher would not spend a penny promoting it, and even asked that he limit the book to no more than 200 copies, as they knew they could not sell that many. He eventually printed the book at his own expense; it wound up selling almost 300,000 copies. During World War I he self-published several volumes of poetry, and together they sold over a million copies. He also wrote a song called "Hymn for the Men at the Front" that eventually sold more than 8,000,000 copies. Altogether he has published more than 40 novels, poetry books and essays.

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  Wake Not the Dead - One of the...

  Ernst Raupach

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  Ernst Benjamin Salomo Raupach was born on 21st May 1784 at Straupitz in Silesia, a son of the village pastor.  
   
  After attending the gymnasium at Liegnitz, he studied theology at the university of Halle.  This led to a tutorship in St Petersburg in 1804 and occasionally some preaching in the German Lutheran church.  He was also hard at work writing his first dramatic tragedies and in 1817 he gained a professorship in German literature and history. 
   
  In 1822, after anti-German outbreaks in Russia, he left for Italy and thence to Berlin, where he would remain for the rest of his life.  In his career he wrote some 80 plays and other works which greatly influenced life and Culture in the Prussian capital across tragedies, comedies and historical dramas.  
   
  His seminal early prose vampire story ‘Wake Not the Dead’ was originally published in 1823 in Minerva Magazine.  When translated into English it was for many decades wrongly attributed to Johann Ludwig Tieck. 
   
  Ernst Raupach died in Berlin on 18th March 1852.   He was 67.

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  The Death Factory - A Penn Cage...

  Greg Iles

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  Death is the end, and if a man doesn't speak before it silences him, then his deepest secrets go with him. 
  From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes an e-original novella featuring former prosecutor Penn Cage, a story of family secrets and justice denied, plus an excerpt from his new novel,Natchez Burning. 
  When a heart attack sends Penn's father, Tom Cage, to the ER, Tom begs that his son be brought to his side to hear a dying declaration. But when Penn arrives, Tom denies ever making the request—keeping his secrets for another day. 
  The emergency hurls Penn back to a chilling case in Houston, where he worked in a DA's office known as the "death factory," which sent more killers to death row than any other in America. While Penn cares for his ailing wife, a tormented forensic technician brings him evidence of a crime lab in chaos, throwing past convictions into doubt and begging Penn to prevent an imminent travesty of justice. With the desperation of a man fighting death in his own home, Penn must find a way to bring the machinery of the death factory to a halt. 
  Included here is an extended sneak preview of Natchez Burning, the first installment in an epic trilogy featuring Penn Cage.

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