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  Fyodor Dostovesky - A Short...

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on 11th November, 1821 to distinguished multi-ethnic parents from a Lithuanian background.   
   
  His childhood years were at the family home in hospital grounds which also contained an orphanage, an insane asylum and a cemetery for criminals.  The young Fyodor often disobeyed his father by talking to the ill in the hospital gardens.   
   
  His health was compromised at age 9 when he experienced his first epileptic fit. By the time he was a teenager both parents had died and he was now enrolled in a military academy where he graduated and eventually became a Lieutenant in 1842.  He left military service the next year. 
   
  In 1846 he published his first novel ‘Poor Cow’ to great literary acclaim.  His next was unable to emulate that success but his short stories helped provide an income.  Life as an author was definitely difficult. As he began his next work he was arrested and incarcerated for treason and participation in the political and literary Petrashevsky Circle. Although the case was weak and unjustified he was sentenced to 4 years of hard labour followed by 5 years of military service in a Siberian regiment.  
   
  Despite the undoubted hardships and setbacks in his life, and whether they helped or hindered his writing, his talents produced many exceptional works of literature including ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’.   
   
  Dostoevsky’s ability to get under the skin of his characters and show the inner workings of their mind was hugely influential and ahead of its time.  Interwoven with this was the influence of the broader social, spiritual and political forces at work in a person's psyche.   
   
  Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled financially and remained in poor health for much of his adult life.  He died from a lung haemorrhage on 9th February, 1881. 
   
  1 - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostovesky 
  3 - An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyveskey 
  4 - Bobok by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  5 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  6 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 1 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  7 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 2 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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  Lancashire Dialogues

  John Byrom

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  A scion of the Byroms of Byrom Hall in Lowton, Lancashire, John Byrom was born and lived in Manchester and Salford for much of his life. Educated at Cambridge, Byrom become a member of the Royal Society and a leading poet of his day. In addition to his poetical works, he invented a system of shorthand, composed the Christmas carol "Christians awake! Salute the happy morn", and coined the phrase "Tweedledum and Tweedledee". Byrom's work included three early poems in the Lancashire dialect, for which he was well remembered by the Lancashire dialect writers of the 19th century, in the form of satirical dialogues on topics of current political interest. - Summary by Phil Benson

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  Russian Short Story The - Volume...

  Alexander Puskin, Nikolai Gogol

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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 1 - An Introduction 
  02 - The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin 
  03 - The Stationmaster by Alexander Pushkin 
  04 - The Blizzard by Alexander Pushkin 
  05 - The Coffin Maker by Alexander Pushkin 
  06 - The Shot by Alexander Pushkin 
  07 - St Johns Eve by Nikolai Gogol 
  08 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  09 - Old Fashioned Landowners by Nikolai Gogol 
  10 - The Nose by Nikolai Gogol

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  The War of the Worlds

  H. G. Wells

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  What would happen if Martians landed on Earth—and none of our weapons could stop them? H.G. Wells's timeless masterpiece—which spawned many a movie adaptation—imagines this frightening scenario. The horrifying bug-like extraterrestrials, which can wipe out entire crowds with a single heat-ray and poisonous gas, first appear in the English countryside … and then wreak havoc. Narrated by an unnamed protagonist who flees home to seek out safe ground, this terrifying tale creates a shockingly realistic vision of what might happen if fearsome, technologically superior aliens attacked us. Beautifully illustrated by acclaimed artist Scott McKowen, this Unabridged Classic will rivet kids and adults alike.

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  Loteria

  Cynthia Pelayo

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  Award-winning author Cynthia "Cina" Pelayo's acclaimed short story collection Lotería, now with added illustrations and new bonus stories...as well as an exclusive preview for her upcoming sequel to CHILDREN OF CHICAGO, THE SHOEMAKER'S MAGICIAN (out this Spring). 
   
  The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance—similar to bingo. However, in Lotería instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images. 
  There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief—with a slant towards the paranormal and horrific. In this deck of cards you will find murderers, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires, werewolves and more. 
  Many of these legends existed long before their European counterparts—passed throughout the Americas via word of mouth, collected just like the tales the Brothers Grimm. These are indeed fairy tales—Latin American fairy tales—but with a horrifying slant.

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  The Smile of La Gioconda

  Morley Roberts

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  Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an adventurer who worked on railways, cattle, and sheep ranches all over Africa and the Americas and still found time to write a large number of very varied novels and stories with a zest that only real-life experience can give.In "The Smile of La Gioconda" he is concerned with the subtle psychological aspects of the love triangle and the perils of repressed emotions.

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