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  The Field Bazaar

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Field Bazaar is a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on November 20, 1896 in a special "Bazaar Number" of The Student, a publication of the students' representative council at Edinburgh University. It is a Sherlock Holmes story, published under Conan Doyle's byline and featuring both Holmes and his partner, Dr. John Watson. It is, however, treated by most experts as a parody or pastiche not suitable for inclusion in the traditional 60-story canon of Sherlock Holmes, though there are dissenters.Watson narrates "The Field Bazaar"—which mirrors the reality of Conan Doyle's gift of the story to The Student—from a first-person perspective.The story opens with Holmes and Watson at breakfast in the sitting-room of their residence at 221B Baker Street. Holmes infers from a handful of clues that an envelope Watson is holding contains an invitation to "help in the Edinburgh University Bazaar." He then concludes, to Watson's astonishment, "that the particular help which you have been asked to give was that you should write in their album, and that you have already made up your mind that the present incident will be the subject of your article." Holmes then returns to reading his morning newspaper.

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  Caesar and Cleopatra

  George Bernard Shaw

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  Caesar and Cleopatra, a play written by George Bernard Shaw.Shaw wants to prove that it was not love but politics that drew Cleopatra to Julius Caesar. Caesar understands the importance of good government, and values these things above art and love.

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  Devil in the Belfry - Another...

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Edgar Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts on 19th January 1809. His father abandoned his family the following year and within a year his mother had died leaving him an orphan.   
  He was taken in by the Allan family but never formally adopted although he now referred to himself as Edgar Allan Poe.  His father alternatively spoiled or chastised him and tension was frequent over gambling debts and monies for his education.  His university years to study ancient and modern languages was cut short by lack of money and he enlisted as a private in the army claiming he was 22, it is more probable he was 18. After 2 years he obtained a discharge in order to take up an appointment at the military academy, West Point, where he failed to become an officer. 
  Poe had released his 1st poetry volume in 1827 and after his 3rd turned to prose and placing short stories in several magazines and journals.  At age 26 he obtained a licence to marry his cousin.  She was a mere 13 but they stayed together until her death from tuberculosis 11 years after. 
  In January 1845 ‘The Raven’ was published and became an instant classic.  Thereafter followed the prose works for which he is now so rightly famed as a master of the mysterious and the macabre. 
  Edgar Allan Poe died at the tragically early age of 40 on 7th October 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as ‘congestion of the brain’ or ‘cerebral inflammation’, common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism but the actual cause of death remains a mystery.

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  César Birotteau

  Honoré de Balzac

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  César Birotteau is one of Honoré de Balzac's most powerful and psychologically intricate novels, offering a profound exploration of ambition, pride, financial speculation, and moral redemption in post-Napoleonic France. As part of Balzac's monumental series La Comédie Humaine, this novel stands as a vivid portrait of Parisian society and the fragile nature of success in a rapidly modernizing world.
  
  The story follows César Birotteau, a modest and honest perfume merchant in Paris who has risen from humble beginnings to respectable prosperity. A devoted husband, loyal royalist, and proud shopkeeper, Birotteau embodies middle-class virtue and unwavering belief in hard work and social advancement. His business thrives, his reputation is solid, and he dreams of securing an even grander future for himself and his family. But beneath his optimism lies a dangerous naiveté.
  
  Encouraged by flattery and seduced by the promise of rapid wealth, Birotteau embarks on ambitious financial ventures — including risky real estate speculation and lavish social events meant to elevate his social standing. In a society driven by appearances, ambition, and fierce competition, he becomes entangled in schemes far beyond his understanding. Manipulated by more cunning and calculating figures, Birotteau's fortunes begin to unravel with devastating speed.
  
  Balzac masterfully captures the mechanics of financial speculation, the ruthless nature of Parisian commerce, and the intricate web of social hierarchies that define the era. The novel provides an almost forensic look at bankruptcy — not just as a financial event, but as a moral and social catastrophe. As Birotteau's empire collapses, he faces humiliation, betrayal, and public disgrace. Yet, even in ruin, he clings to his principles of honor and integrity.
  
  At its heart, César Birotteau is not merely a story of financial downfall but a deeply human tale about dignity, perseverance, and redemption. Unlike many of Balzac's more cynical portrayals of society, this novel offers a moving study of a fundamentally decent man crushed by forces he scarcely comprehends. Birotteau's determination to repay his debts and restore his honor becomes a testament to moral resilience in a world increasingly ruled by greed and speculation.
  
  Balzac's richly detailed narrative brings 19th-century Paris to life — from bustling shops and glittering salons to legal offices and shadowy backrooms where fortunes are made and destroyed. Through sharp social observation and psychological depth, the author exposes both the aspirations and the vulnerabilities of the rising bourgeois class.
  
  Poignant, ironic, and deeply realistic, César Birotteau remains strikingly relevant today. It speaks to the timeless dangers of overreaching ambition, the volatility of financial markets, and the enduring value of personal integrity. Balzac transforms the fall of one small businessman into a universal meditation on success, failure, and the true cost of dreams.
  
  For readers interested in classic literature, economic drama, or penetrating social commentary, César Birotteau offers an unforgettable journey into the heart of human ambition and the fragile architecture of fortune.

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  Passing

  Nella Larsen

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  Nella Larsen's novella follows friends Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, two Black women who can pass as white. Their anxieties about passing culminate in tragedy, revealing the powerful repercussions of hiding one’s identity, including the risks associated with it, and its implications for intimacy in romantic and familial relationships. Larsen uses the act of passing to refer to elements of subterfuge outside of the implied racial context, invoking the kinds of masquerade involved in assuming a class, ethnicity, or sexuality different than one’s own. Nearly a century later, Larsen's novella remains as urgent and relevant as ever. 
   
  Cover illustrated by: Laylie Frazier 
  Laylie is a digital illustrator from Houston, Texas. She combines texture, color, and pattern to create warm and expressive portraits. She often pulls inspiration from nature, utilizing abstract plant, mountain, and sun motifs in her backgrounds. She is currently illustrating middle grade and YA covers for publishing as well as working in advertising.

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  When I Was a Witch - From their...

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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  Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on 3rd July 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, to an unaffectionate mother and a father who abandoned her and her older brother to a life of poverty. 
  Inevitably her schooling was limited and by 15 she had attended seven different schools but received only four years education.  However Charlotte was resourceful and did spend time with her father’s aunts – the suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker and the ‘Uncle Tom Cabin’s’ author, Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as many hours at the public library studying ancient civilisations. 
  In 1878, she enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design where she met Martha Luther and they developed a close relationship until Luther married in 1881. Charlotte was devastated and detested romance and love until she met and married the artist Charles Walter Stetson.  
  Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born in 1885 but left Charlotte with post-natal depression, then often dismissed as a case of hysteria or nerves.  Unsuited to domestic life she ruptured her life and moved to California with Katherine.  She divorced in 1894 and then sent Katharine east to live with her father and his second wife confirming that his paternal rights be acknowledged and that Katherine establish a relationship with her father. 
  After her mother died in 1893, Charlotte moved back east and became involved with her first cousin, Wall Street attorney, Houghton Gilman who she married in 1900. After his death she moved back to California, where Katherine now lived.   
  Her most popular story is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which touched on her own post-partum depression and underlined the need for women to be responsible for their mental and physical well-being, as the narrator is ordered by her husband/doctor to take compete rest in her room where she is isolated and becomes obsessed with the revolting yellow wallpaper.   
  She wrote other notable short stories the best of which we also include.   
  Charlotte lectured widely for social reform, wrote important non-fiction works that questioned our patriarchal system and left a legacy as a leading and positive spokesperson for feminism.  
  She was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932 and, as she wrote in her suicide note and autobiography, she ‘chose chloroform over cancer’    
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman took her own life on 17th August 1935, aged 75, in Pasadena, California.

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