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  The Tragedy Of Macbeth - The...

  William Shakespeare

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  "What’s done cannot be undone." 
   
  The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. 
   
  A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. 
   
  Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. 
   
  In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish Play". The play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

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  Carmilla

  Sheridan Le Fanu

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  A Gothic Horror of the Vampire, predating Dracula by some 26 years. Carmilla is a tale of creeping horror, narrated by a young girl, who finds herself beset by a mysterious illness, that her newfound and mysterious friend, Carmilla surely can't have anything to do with... Considered one of the founding works within the Vampire genre, its influence can be found throughout popular horror fiction and other media. 
  Written by Sheridan Le Fanu and narrated by Michael Ward.

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  The Verge

  Susan Glaspell

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  Susan Keating Glaspell (1876 - 1948) was a novelist, playwright, journalist and actress. The Verge reflects Glaspell's observation of the way in which Victorian society left some women feeling trapped in roles for which they were unsuited.  
  The story is about Claire, a woman who lives her life on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Trying to create a new type of plant, Claire spends most of her time in the greenhouse.  
  One winter, with a house full of guests, she diverts the heat to the greenhouse. She tries to leave her family and friends outside, in the cold, and their attempts to bring her back to the real world drive her over the edge into utter insanity. The language of The Verge is unusual. The characters sometimes speak in poetic fragments rather than everyday speech.  
  What’s more, symbolism features heavily in the play. Of course, it all ends in death and destruction, with Claire humming "Nearer My God, to Thee” and with a smoking gun in her hand and a dead man at her feet.

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  Purloined Letter

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  The Paris police prefect approaches amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin with a puzzle: a cabinet minister has stolen a letter from a woman of royalty whom he is now blackmailing. Despite a painstaking search of the minister’s rooms, the police find nothing. When the prefect returns a month later and mentions a large reward for the letter, Dupin casually produces the document. Dupin later explains to his assistant, the story’s narrator, that by analyzing the personality and behavior of the minister, he correctly had concluded that the letter would be hidden in plain sight.

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  How Santa Claus Came to...

  Bret Harte

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  Originally published in Harte's 1875 short-story collection The Tales of the Argonauts, How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar is set in California in the early 1860s and, like the rest of the tales in that collection, features the gold-seeking Argonauts. In this tale, like many of Harte's others, the folly and grit of human existence balance any good intentions, good cheer, or hope, resulting in a more complicated and somewhat bleak ending than is commonly found in most Christmas tales. This recording of How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

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  In Kent With Charles Dickens -...

  Thomas Frost

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  By his own admission, Thomas Frost found it hard to make a living from his writing, and no doubt he used the name of Dickens in the title of this book to boost sales. Frost tells a good tale, and the book is not only of interest to enthusiasts of Dickens and the county of Kent. He includes some of Dickens' own descriptions of locations, as well as regaling us with anecdotes about towns and villages which he visits, including an account of the last armed rising on British soil - the Battle of Bossenden Wood. As well as accounts of his travels through the highways and byways of Kent in the footsteps of Dickens and his characters, he also wanders into the lanes of myth and legend, sometimes making up his own stories along the way. 
   
  Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

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