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  Before the Supreme Court - From...

  Lafcadio Hearn

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  Lafcadio Hearn was born on the 27th June 1850 on the Ionian isle of Levkás in Greece to a British Army officer and a Greek Mother. 
  His father, fearing for his career prospects at being married to a Greek Orthodox wife, sent them to Dublin whilst he continued to advance his career with further postings.  Life there was difficult for mother and son.  His father returned, wounded and traumatised, when Lafcadio was three.  He annulled the marriage and she remarried but had to give up care of Lafcadio to her sister-in law.   
  After brief periods for Catholic education in England and France he emigrated to Ohio in the United States when he was 19, taking on a series of casual jobs before embarking on a career as a journalist, publishing poems and essays in Cincinnati.  It was whilst here that he began a side-line in translating, starting with Gautier and Flaubert.  He married in 1874 to a 20 year old African-American woman in violation of Ohio's anti-miscegenation law.  The marriage soon failed. 
  In 1877 he relocated to New Orleans to write on a variety of themes before picking up a two year assignment from Harper’s to write in the West Indies, where he also wrote his first novel. 
  In 1890 Harper’s sent him to Japan.  Here he left journalism and took the remarkable decision to become a schoolteacher in the north of Japan.   Enraptured by the culture he was driven to explain it in various Western publications to those who had little, if any, knowledge of its culture.  Within the year he had fallen in love with, and married, a high-born Japanese lady, together they would have four children.   
  In 1895 he became a Japanese national and took the name Koizumi Yakumo, Koizumi being his wife’s family name. 
  The following few years, whilst a professor of Literature at the Imperial University of Japan, were his most creative and admired period.   
  Lafcadio Hearn died of heart failure on the 26th of September 1904, in Tokyo, Japan shortly before leaving to deliver a series of lectures at Cornell University in New York State.  He was 54.

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  Pride and Prejudice

  Jane Austen

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  Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.
  
  ©2020 Pandora's Box (P)2020 Pandora's Box

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  The Most Dangerous Game

  Richard Connell

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  "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell is a gripping adventure thriller that explores the fine line between hunter and hunted. The story follows Sanger Rainsford, a seasoned big-game hunter who, after falling overboard from a yacht, washes up on a mysterious island. There, he encounters General Zaroff, an aristocratic hunter with a sinister passion—hunting humans for sport. As Rainsford becomes the next target in Zaroff’s deadly game, he must rely on his wits, survival skills, and sheer determination to outmaneuver his ruthless pursuer. This timeless tale of suspense, morality, and survival will keep listeners on the edge of their seats until the very last moment. 
  Cover photo by Ntsikelelo Radebe: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-silhouette-of-a-wine-in-a-glass-and-bottle-11357544/

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  Not Without Laughter

  Langston Hughes

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  Not Without Laughter is drawn in part from the author's own recollections of youth and early manhood. This stirring coming-of-age tale unfolds in 1930s rural Kansas. A poignant portrait of African-American family life in the early twentieth century, it follows the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a man. We meet Sandy's mother, Annjee, who works as a housekeeper for a wealthy white family; his strong-willed grandmother, Hager; Jimboy, Sandy's father, who travels the country looking for work; Aunt Tempy, the social climber; and Aunt Harriet, the blues singer who has turned away from her faith. 
   
   
   
  A fascinating chronicle of a family's joys and hardships, Not Without Laughter is a vivid exploration of growing up and growing strong in a racially divided society. A rich and important work, it masterfully echoes the black American experience.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Arthur Conan Doyle, Charlotte...

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  As the Century draws to a close it shows no sign of its literary talents diminishing.  Authors stride into stories with a confidence and knowledge that now speak of a gilded age.  We are challenged on many levels but always, always the story delivers a literary triumph. 
   
  1 - The Top Ten - The 1890's 
   
  2 - B24 by Arthur Conan Doyle 
   
  3 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 
   
  4 - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
   
  5 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane 
   
  6 - Désirée's Baby by Kate Chopin 
   
  7 - A New England Nun by Mary E Wilkins Freeman 
   
  8 - The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker 
   
  9 - The Inconsiderate Waiter by J M Barrie 
   
  10 - Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov 
   
  11 - The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W Chambers

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  A Haunted House - From their...

  Virginia Woolf

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  Adeline Virginia Woolf was born on the 25th January 1882 in South Kensington in London. 
  Although lauded as a founder of modernist writing with such classics as ‘Orlando’, ‘Mrs Dalloway’ and ‘To the Lighthouse’ and, of course, many classic short stories, her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become such a revered writer.   Her mother died when she was 13, her half-sister Stella two years later and with it her first of several nervous breakdowns.  Appallingly it was later found that three of her half-brothers had sexually abused her so darkness must have seemed ever present.   
  She began writing professionally at age 20 but her father’s death two years later brought a complete mental collapse and she was briefly institutionalised.  Somehow she found within herself a literary career and with it great innovations in writing; she was a pioneer of “stream of consciousness”.    
  Her tight circle of friends were the founders of the Bloomsbury Group, a movement whose legacy still influences across the arts and society in many way to this day.   
  Whilst the dark periods continued to interrupt her emotional state her rate of work never ceased.  Until, on 28th March 1941, Woolf put on her overcoat, filled up its pockets with stones, and walked into the River Ouse, in Lewes, East Sussex and drowned herself.  Her body was not recovered until the 18th April.  She was 59. 
  She left behind a note which read in part “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again.  I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times.  And I shan't recover this time.  I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate.  So I am doing what seems the best thing to do”.

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