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  Red

  John Logan

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  The artist Mark Rothko has just hired Ken, an aspiring artist, to be his assistant – and errand boy. Ken discovers that Rothko’s temper can run hot; but as he gets to know his boss better, he finds that Rothko has opened him up to more than just painting.A 2010 Tony Award winner for Best Play.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring:Alfred Molina as Mark RothkoJonathan Groff as KenDirected by Bart DeLorenzo. Recorded by L.A. Theatre Works before a live audience.

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  The Murder of the Mandarin

  Arnold Bennett

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  A young wife in a quiet Midlands town, a new dress, a dance, an unimaginative husband. How could a mandarin's sudden death in far-away China have any connection with this homely situation?

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  The Tarn

  Hugh Walpole

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  Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day.The Tarn is one of the most grisly horror stories ever conceived. Giles Foster goes to visit his old acquaintance, Fenweick, in his remote cottage in the Lake District. He has heard that Fenwick bears him some grudge, and he is keen to put things right between them.But Fenwick is in no mood to make peace with Foster. His secret fantasies are all about slowly squeezing Foster's scrawny neck...and now here is Foster in person. What will he do?

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  Great Expectations (Illustrated)

  Charles Dickens

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  Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (the book is a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story).

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  The Prince

  Niccolo Machiavelli

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  The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From his correspondence, a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (Of Principalities). However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was carried out with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of The Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".Although The Prince was written as if it were a traditional work in the mirrors for princes style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative. This is partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice that had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature.The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the "effectual" truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It is also notable for being in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time, particularly those concerning politics and ethics.Although it is relatively short, the treatise is the most remembered of Machiavelli's works and the one most responsible for bringing the word "Machiavellian" into usage as a pejorative. It even contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words "politics" and "politician" in western countries. In terms of subject matter it overlaps with the much longer Discourses on Livy, which was written a few years later. In its use of near-contemporary Italians as examples of people who perpetrated criminal deeds for politics, another lesser-known work by Machiavelli which The Prince has been compared to is the Life of Castruccio Castracani.

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  Female Short Story The - A...

  Georgia F Stewart, Willa Cather,...

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  A wise man once said ‘The safest place for a child is in the arms of his mother’s voice’.  This is a perfect place to start our anthology of female short stories. 
   
  Some of our earliest memories are of our mothers telling us bedtime stories. This is not to demote the value of fathers but more to promote the often-overshadowed talents of the gentler sex. 
   
  Perhaps ‘gentler’ is a word that we should re-evaluate. In the course of literary history it is men who dominated by opportunity and with their stranglehold on the resources, both financial and technological, who brought their words to a wider audience.  Men often placed women on a pedestal from where their talented words would not threaten their own.   
   
  In these stories we begin with the original disrupter and renegade author Aphra Behn.  A peek at her c.v. shows an astounding capacity and leaves us wondering at just how she did all that. 
   
  In those less modern days to be a woman, even ennobled, was to be seen as second class.  You literally were chattel and had almost no rights in marriage.  As Charlotte Smith famously said your role as wife was little more than ‘legal prostitute’.  From such a despicable place these authors have used their talents and ideas and helped redress that situation.   
   
  Slowly at first.  Privately printed, often anonymously or under the cloak of a male pseudonym their words spread.  Their stories admired and, usually, their role still obscured from rightful acknowledgement. 
   
  Aided by more advanced technology, the 1700’s began to see a steady stream of female writers until by the 1900’s mass market publishing saw short stories by female authors from all the strata of society being avidly read by everyone.  Their names are a rollcall of talent and ‘can do’ spirit and society is richer for their works.   
   
  In literature at least women are now acknowledged as equals, true behind the scenes little has changed but if (and to mis-quote Jane Austen) there is one universal truth, it is that ideas change society.  These women’s most certainly did and will continue to do so as they easily write across genres, from horror and ghost stories to tender tales of love and making your way in society’s often grueling rut.  They will not be silenced, their ideas and passion move emotions, thoughts and perhaps more importantly our ingrained view of what every individual human being is capable of.    
   
  It is because of their desire to speak out, their desire to add their talents to the bias around them that we perhaps live in more enlightened, almost equal, times.   
   
  Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. 
   
  01 - The Female Short Story. A Chronological History - An Introduction - Volume 8 
  02 - When Spirits Steal by Philippa Forest 
  03 - The Strange Looking Man by Fanny Kemble Johnson 
  04 - The Readjustment by Mary Austin 
  05 - Passed by Charlotte Mew 
  06 - The Woman Who Sat Still by Parry Truscott 
  07 - Sylvia by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor.wav 
  08 - The Preacher at Hill Station by Katherine Davis Chapman Tillman 
  09 - The Spirit of the Range by B M Bower 
  10 - The Wooing of Pastor Cummings by Georgia F Stewart 
  11 - Hodge by Elinor Mordaunt 
  12 - Fear by Catherine Wells 
  13 - The Difference by Ellen Glasgow 
  14 - Paul's Case by Willa Cathe

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