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  John Bull - From their pens to...

  Washington Irving

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  Washington Irving was born on 3rd April, 1783, the youngest of 11, in New York.  
  Irving found his real interests away from school in literature and the theatre.  An outbreak of yellow fever at 15 moved him away from Manhattan and into the surrounding countryside providing valuable settings for later works such as ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. 
  By 19 Irving was writing regularly to the New York Morning Chronicle, commenting on the theatrical and social scenes.  When his health began to fail, he was sent on the Grand Tour of Europe.  Bizarrely he ignored most of the great sights on offer to concentrate on developing his social and conversational powers.  His health, though, did improve.  
  In 1806, back in New York to study law, he scraped a pass at the bar and then founded with several others the literary magazine Salmagundi. Irving nicknamed the city ‘Gotham City’, a name still in use today.  Moderately successful, the magazine spread Irving’s reputation beyond New York. 
  In 1809 while mourning the death of his teenage fiancée Irving finished his first significant book, ‘A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynsasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker’.  It satirised local history, local historians and politics.  It received great critical acclaim. 
  Unfortunately his family’s established trading company was now facing great upheavals and Irving was dispatched to England to try to sort it out.  After two years he could see no way out but bankruptcy.  This left him in England with no real employment prospects, and so he returned to writing.  
  He sent some short stories back to New York to be published as ‘The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent’.  The first part included ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and was extremely successful.  The sixth part contained ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’.  
  Beset by literary piracy, with no copyright law at the time, he set about publishing legitimate copies in England to outwit the bootleggers.  From now on Irving published concurrently in America and England in order to render piracy obsolete.  
  In August 1824, he published ‘Tales of a Traveller’, which included the famed ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’.  
  In 1826, the American Minister to Spain, invited him to Madrid where he could examine the many historical documents that he had access to.  Irving reveled in both the size of the libraries he was granted access to and their rich quality.  Historical works flowed from his pen further enhancing his reputation and fortune.   
  Following the completion of ‘Tales of the Alhambra’ in 1832, Irving returned to America after 17 years abroad. He was now a figurehead of American literature and dispensed advice to Edgar Allan Poe amongst others.  Irving also became an advocate for American copyright legislation.  
  A later appointment as Minister to Spain in 1842 left him disheartened at the antics of the various political factions he encountered.  It also afforded him no time to write as he had hoped.  
  On his return home he began an ‘Author’s Revised Edition’ of his works agreeing an unprecedented deal for 12 per cent of the retail profits.  
  Washington Irving died of a heart attack at his ‘Sunnyside’ home on the 28th November 1859 at the age of 76, a few months after completing his five volume George Washington biography, in whose honour he had been named.

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  On The Gull's Road

  Willa Cather

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  "On the Gulls' Road" is a touching short story by Willa Cather, first published in McClure's in December 1908. A fellow painter visits the narrator, and is mesmerised by his painting of Alexandra Ebbling, a married woman, whom the narrator met on a ship from Genoa to New York City. On the ship, he and Mrs. Ebbling enjoyed many conversations about life, love, and personal experiences. The courtship goes on for the entire trip and grows stronger each day. The man is smitten by Mrs. Ebbling and cannot wait until the next time they meet. The man paints a picture of Mrs. Ebbling while they talk and enjoy the sunshine and the sea so he can always remember the woman. They tell each other things about their hopes and dreams. All the while Mrs. Ebbling knows that nothing can come of the affair. She is married and close to death. The man has high hopes for her to run away with him but she has to tell him that it can never happen. Mrs. Ebbling gives the man a gift that he is not to open until she tells him to. In the following winter, he is informed that she had died. Inside the gift she had given him, there is a letter from her thanking him for all the memories he gave her of a love that almost happened, along with a lock of her golden hair, a withered magnolia flower, and two pink sea shells. In the end, theirs was a love that stood the test of time, separation, and even death.

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  The Cold - From their pens to...

  Ryunosuke Akutagawa

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  Ryūnosuke Niihara was born in Kyōbashi, Tokyo in Japan on the 1st March 1892.  Sadly, his mother suffered severe mental illness after his birth and so, at only eight months old, he was sent to be raised by his maternal uncle and aunt, from whom he received the Akutagawa family name.  
  He was fascinated by classical Chinese literature from his early years and began writing after entering what was then the Tokyo Imperial University in 1913 to study English Literature.   
  The following year Akutagawa and his friends revived the literary journal ‘New Currents of Thought’ which published their own works and translations of such icons as W B Yeats and Anatole France. 
  Akutagawa published "Rashōmon" in 1915 and whilst it was disliked by his friends everyone else knew better.  As other short stories followed so did his growing literary reputation as the father of the Japanese short story. 
  Much of his work reinterpreted former classical works and incidents and this, melded with his strong dislike of naturalism, produced a writer of rare and genuine quality.  His character palette featured strong and domineering women, mainly based on his mother and the aunt who helped raise him. 
  In 1921, he spent four months in China as a reporter.  Whilst there his health was compromised by several illnesses and both his physical and mental health spiralled downwards.  He began to suffer from hallucinations and dreaded that he might have inherited his mother’s mental disorders.  
  Although he survived one suicide attempt Ryūnosuke Akutagawa died on the 24th July 1927 in Tokyo from an overdose of Veronal, a barbiturate.  He was 35.

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  Merciless Charity - A Charity...

  Wayne Stinnett

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  What can be done to stop madness from sweeping the world when political indecision is the norm? When the nation's leaders lack the backbone to stand up to them, what can stop an enemy that knows no rules? Charity. 
  Charity Styles is a former Olympian and US Army helicopter pilot. Captured and tortured by terrorists in Afghanistan after the opening blows of the War on Terror, she has a score to settle. Now working for the Department of Homeland Security, she is offered the opportunity to make a real difference. 
  Critical memories of her ordeal are buried deep in Charity's subconscious. When the director of Homeland Security's vaunted Caribbean Counterterrorism Command discovers the key to unlocking Charity's past, he unleashes a tempest, the fury of which no enemy can prepare for. 
  Already a martial arts instructor and pilot, Director Stockwell guides her training in marksmanship and spycraft, making Charity the most dangerous asset in America's covert arsenal. Charity then sets her sails, crossing the sea in an antique sloop. A single-minded, all-encompassing determination stays her course...to confront the enemy and play by their rules.

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  Spectres Spooks & Spirits - A...

  Algernon Blackwood, Lewis...

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  Spectres, Spooks & Spirits brings together more than 5 hours of the greatest ghost stories ever told. This collection, written by a selection of the best writers of the 19th and Early 20th Century, contains tales that are genuinely scary and unsettling alongside comedic and romantic narratives, some of which have perfectly plausible explanations, while others can only be ascribed to supernatural causes. This anthology includes "The Occupant of the Room" by Algernon Blackwood, "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens, "The Ebony Frame" by E. Nesbit, "The Phantom Hag" by W. Bob Holland, "The Haunted Dolls' House" by M.R. James, "The Ghost and the Dominos" by Elizabeth Semple, "The Mystery of the Semi-Detached" by E. Nesbit, "Phantasmagoria" by Lewis Carroll, "A Phantom Toe" by W. Bob Holland, "The Secret of Goresthorpe Grange" by Arthur Conan Doyle, "Mrs Veal's Ghost" by Leonora Lang (Leonora Blanche Alleyne), "A Neighbour's Landmark" by M.R. James, "The Mass for the Dead" by E. Nesbit, and "An Evening's Entertainment" by M.R. James.

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  Mouth - Stories

  Puloma Ghosh

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  BESTIARY MEETS THE DANGERS OF SMOKING IN BED IN THIS COLLECTION OF ELEVEN EERIE, UNCANNY, AND SURREAL SHORT STORIESMouth stretches reality to reach for truth. 
   
   
   
  "Desiccation" follows a teen figure skater with necrophiliac fantasies who is convinced the other Indian girl at the rink is a vampire. When a woman returns to Kolkata in "The Fig Tree," she can't tell if she is haunted by her dead mother or a shakchunni—or both. "Nip" bottles up the consuming and addictive nature of infatuation, while "Natalya" is a hair-raising autopsy of an ex-lover. In "Persimmons," a girl comes to terms with her own community sacrifice. 
   
   
   
  Full of fangs and talons, Mouth lays bare the otherwise awkward and unmentionable with a singular sharpness. Through surreal and captivating prose, Puloma Ghosh delves into otherworldly spaces to reimagine ordinary struggles of isolation, longing, and the aching desires of our flesh. 
   
   
   
  Contains mature themes.

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