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  In a German Pension

  Katherine Mansfield

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  The first collected volume of short stories of the New Zealand modernist. Inspired by her own travels, Mansfield begins to refine her craft with a series of tales which depict German life at the brink of the first world war. (Introduction by S. Kovalchik)

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  For the Blood is the Life - A...

  F Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford was born on August 2nd, 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. An only son and a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’.  
   
  His education began at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, then to Cambridge University; University of Heidelberg; and the University of Rome.  
   
  In 1879 Crawford went to India, to study Sanskrit and then edited The Indian Herald. In 1881 he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University. 
   
  At this time in Boston he lived at his Aunt Julia house and in the company of his Uncle, Sam Ward. His family was concerned about his employment prospects.  After a singing career as a baritone was ruled out, he was encouraged to write.  
   
  In December 1882 his first novel, ‘Mr Isaacs’, was an immediate hit which was amplified by ‘Dr Claudius’ in 1883.  
   
  In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan. They went on to have two sons and two daughters. 
   
  Encouraged by his excellent start to a literary career he returned to Italy with Elizabeth to make a permanent home, principally in Sant' Agnello, where he bought the Villa Renzi that then became Villa Crawford.  
   
  In the late 1890s, he began to write his historical works: ‘Ave Roma Immortalis’ (1898), ‘Rulers of the South’ (1900) and ‘Gleanings from Venetian History’ (1905). The Saracinesca series is perhaps his best work. ‘Saracinesca’ was followed by ‘Sant’ Ilario’ in 1889, ‘Don Orsino’ in 1892 and ‘Corleone’ in 1897, that being the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.  
   
  Francis Marion Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack.  
   
  Set in Italy, ‘For Blood is the Life’ draws us into a world usually beyond our senses.  With Crawford’s pen the uneasy, horrific world of vampires is now upon us.

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  Catalina Ghost Stories

  Jim Musgrave

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  What would Natalie Wood do if she were a ghost returning to the scene of her death? Can a person be guilty of murder if he kills while walking in his sleep? Is the ghost of Cubs' legendary hero, Hack Wilson, haunting the club house on Catalina? You'll find out in this collection of haunting tales from the author and publisher of Horror on the Installment Plan. 
  Natalie Wood's death has just been re-opened by the Los Angeles Police Department. What does Natalie's ghost have to say? You'll find out by reading Natasha and the Captain, a story that uses information gathered at the scene by eye-witnesses. 
  Pearl Zane Grey tells the story of how the famous writer of Westerns became trapped in the afterlife on Catalina, pursued by his nemesis and cowboy actor, Tom Mix. How these two have to compete will give you a new vision of the afterlife. 
  Lewis Hack Wilson was a victim of the new "dead ball" in 1931. Did this cause him to haunt the club house on Catalina where the Cubbies held Spring Training for many years? Find out in The Dead Ball. 
  In The Somnambulist, the real-life murder of 41-year-old Marie Weinfurtner is given a strange twist. What if her 25-year-old boyfriend were really innocent? This story shows what could happen if someone were able to kill in one's sleep. 
  Finally, the story Kafka and the Chewing Gum Man is a surrealist exploration into bad karma and how ghosts can redeem themselves in the absurdity of our world.

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  Two Tales from Stephen Crane -...

  Stephen Crane

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  Stephen Crane was an American novelist, poet and journalist. Crane is noted for his early employment of naturalism, a literary style in which characters face realistically portrayed and often bleak circumstances, but Crane added impressionistic imagery and biblical symbolism to the austere realism. Here are two of his most famous stories, The Open Boat and An Episode of War.

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  Cumberland Sheep Shearers

  Elizabeth Gaskell

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  Three or four years ago we spent part of a summer in one of the dales in the neighbourhood of Keswick. We lodged at the house of a small Statesman, who added to his occupation of a sheep-farmer that of a woollen manufacturer. His own flock was not large, but he bought up other people's fleeces, either on commission, or for his own purposes; and his life seemed to unite many pleasant and various modes of employment, and the great jolly burly man throve upon all, both in body and mind.

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  Eve's Diary (version 2)

  Mark Twain

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  Eve's Diary is a comic short story by Mark Twain. It was first published in the 1905 Christmas issue of the magazine Harper's Bazaar, and in book format in June 1906 by Harper and Brothers publishing house. It is written in the style of a diary kept by the first woman in the Judeao-Christian creation myth, Eve, and is claimed to be "translated from the original MS." The "plot" of this novel is the first-person account of Eve from her creation up to her burial by, her mate, Adam, including meeting and getting to know Adam, and exploring the world around her, Eden. The story then jumps 40 years into the future after the Fall and expulsion from Eden. It is one of a series of books Twain wrote concerning the story of Adam and Eve, including 'Extracts from Adam's Diary,' 'That Day In Eden,' 'Eve Speaks,' 'Adam's Soliloquy,' and the 'Autobiography of Eve.' Eve's Diary has a lighter tone than the others in the series, as Eve has a strong appreciation for beauty and love. The book may have been written as a posthumous love-letter to Mark Twain's wife Olivia Langdon Clemens, or Livy, who died in June 1904, just before the story was written. Mark Twain is quoted as saying, "Eve's Diary is finished - I've been waiting for her to speak, but she doesn't say anything more." The story ends with Adam's speaking at Eve's grave, "Wherever she was, there was Eden." (Introduction by Wikipedia)

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