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  The Man in the Scented Coat

  Sarah Grand

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  Sarah Grand (1854-1943) was a well-known Victorian writer and suffragette.'The Man in the Scented Coat' is a story about an adventurous lady, Josepha, who gets lost in a pea-soup fog in London one evening. As she cannot see anything, she follows a scent of flowers, which turns out to emanate from a distinguished gentleman in disguise who is on a secret mission. First they are caught up with a gang of ruffians, one of whom recognises the gentleman as being a member of the royal family (most likely the character is modelled on the then Prince of Wales).Josepha follows the mystery gentleman and his companion to a secret apartment hidden in an upstairs flat behind a revolving bookcase, where she discovers the Prince's shameful secret. Josepha, a thoroughly modern woman, stops to dine, talk and smoke with the Prince...and then, with the threat of imminent discovery, the party must take an unusual escape route.

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  The Collected Short Fiction of...

  Bruce Jay Friedman

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  An “irresistible” collection of short fiction by an author who “has been likened to everyone from J. D. Salinger to Woody Allen” (The New York Times Book Review).   Hailed by Newsweek as “a bona fide literary event,” The Collected Short Fiction of Bruce Jay Friedman brings together dozens of the New York Times–bestselling author’s greatest stories, which originally appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, and other magazines.   “Readers who feel short stories are too high-flown—too literary, arcane, and serious—will find counterbalance in Friedman, whose stories have uncomplicated structures, obvious gists, intelligible metaphors, and unambiguous endings and come wrapped in humor. This compilation of his output in the short story form between 1953 and 1995 has a thematic arrangement, with categories such as ‘Mother,’ ‘Crazed Youth,’ and ‘Sex.’ Some of the more outstanding pieces are ‘The Subversive,’ about the narrator’s air force buddy whom the narrator believed to be the most all-American guy he ever met until his friend commits a crazed act; ‘The Gent,’ concerning a man who succumbs to a seduction by his best friend’s daughter; and ‘The Night Boxing Ended,’ in which ringside heckling goes way out of bounds.” —Booklist   “From poignant bildungsroman to sly satire, from wicked comedy to surrealistic farce, this virtuosic collection covers more than four decades’ worth of short stories . . . Friedman explores themes such as loneliness, aging, fear, parenthood and ethnicity, spinning tales in an expertly modulated voice.” —Publishers Weekly   “Friedman [is] more interesting than most of Malamud, Roth, and Bellow . . . What makes him more important is that he writes out of the viscera instead of the cerebrum.”  —Nelson Algren, The Nation   “Pure delight.” —Newsday

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  A Little Dinner At Timmin's

  William Makepeace Thackeray

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  William Makepeace Thackeray, the great author of Vanity Fair and The Luck of Barry Lyndon was born in India in 1811. At age 5 his father died and his mother sent him back to England.  His education was of the best but he himself seemed unable to apply his talents to a rigorous work ethic. After a few years of marriage his wife began to suffer from depression and over the years became detached from reality.  
   
  He himself suffered from ill health later in his life and the one pursuit that kept him moving forward was that of writing and in his life time he was placed second only to Dickens.  High praise indeed.

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  Crooked House - B2

  Agatha Christie

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  Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.
  Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English.The Leonides family live together in a large and crooked house in a wealthy London suburb. When the elderly millionaire Aristide Leonides is murdered with a fatal injection, the family reluctantly suspect his glamorous, young second wife. Charles Hayward, who is engaged to the late millionaire’s granddaughter, observes the family closely and makes a terrible and shocking discovery…
  ©2012 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

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  The Descent of Man and Other...

  Edith Wharton

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  This collection of ten stories, first published in 1904, shows Edith Wharton dissecting some of the customs, habits and vagaries of courtship and marriage, particularly as practiced in the upper reaches of New York society at the turn of the twentieth century (two stories, however, are set in Italy). Fidelity is only one problem; others may arise from the machinations and emotions of the protagonists or outsiders. Wharton handles the questions with her usual gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) irony and curiosity about human behavior. (Summary by Nicholas Clifford)

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  Ghost Stories

  E.F. Benson

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  E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is probably best known today for his sparkling, comic “Lucia”novels. In his own day it was his ghost stories which were his most popular works. This collection of ten stories exemplifies Benson's fine literary style and his ability to create the most frightening of ghostly and macabre tales. They are:"Mrs. Amworth""Naboth's Vineyard""At the Farmhouse""Negotium Perambulans""The Wishing Well""The Terror by Night""The Thing in the Hall""The Cat""The Sanctuary"Public Domain (P)2016 Spiders' House Audio/Roy Macready

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