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  Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Six...

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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  Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. 
   
  Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. 
   
  In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. 
   
  These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master.

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  A Nocturne - From their pens to...

  Clothilde 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.

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  The Napoleon of Notting Hill

  G. K. Chesterson

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  When dystopian futures don’t feel so future at all…   Four decades before George Orwell wrote 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill defined the dystopian genre. One of the first dystopian comedies, instead of a dark vision of jackboots and surveillance states, G.K. Chesterton explores the question of what a society would look like if no one could take a joke.   In this future England, each new king is decided by lottery. When Auberon Quin, a man who cares only for a good joke, is chosen to be the next king, he resolves to spend his reign teaching his fellow governors how big a joke can really be.   While most district leaders are content to put up with Auberon’s schemes even when he insists upon elaborate costumes and heraldry, one provost takes his games much too seriously. When Adam Wayne, the Provost of Notting Hill, takes a military stand against his fellow leaders and seeks to defend his tiny fiefdom by any means necessary, Auberon’s joke has gone too far.   At a time when the dystopian genre is defined by hopelessness, Chesterton’s dry wit and tongue-in-cheek humor are a welcome respite. Follow Auberon and Wayne as they ponder the meaning of humor and virtue in a world where the swords are all too real and the defense of one’s pride may well result in blood in the streets.   Foreword by Dale Ahlquist, president of the Society of G.K. Chesterton.

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  Happy Prince and Other Tales The...

  Oscar Wilde

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  The Happy Prince and Other Tales (or Stories) is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".

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  A Fly in the Ointment

  D H Lawrence

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  ‘A Fly in the Ointment’ was written by D H Lawrence in 1908. It was the fourth of his sixty-seven short stories, all of which will be published individually in audio book format by the Blackthorn Press. The story is set in lodgings in Croydon and the incident may be autobiographical but the story is full of yearning for the life and loves he left behind in Nottinghamshire.

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  Twice Told Tales - The Lost...

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first was published in the spring of 1837, and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name. 
   
  Hawthorne was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821 and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel Fanshawe; he later tried to suppress it, feeling it was not equal to the standard of his later work.[He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, and was survived by his wife and their three children.

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