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  Chivalry - From their pens to...

  Ricardo Fernandez Garcia

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  The bookshelves of World literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From their countries and continents their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Ricardo Fernandez Garcia.

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  The Devil in the Belfry - From...

  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. 
  Poe is also one of a number of authors credited with inventing the detective genre with his Parisian sleuth C. Auguste Dupin.  He featured in three stories including the legendary ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and by sheer deduction, logic and a touch of Gallic arrogance revealed what was hidden to the rest of us.

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  Moby Dick

  Herman Melville

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  A masterpiece of storytelling, this epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding and fantastical sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him. In telling the tale of Ahab's passion for revenge and the fateful voyage that ensued, Melville produced far more than the narrative of a hair-raising journey; Moby-Dick is a tale for the ages that sounds the deepest depths of the human soul.
  Interspersed with graphic sketches of life aboard a whaling vessel, and a wealth of information on whales and 19th-century whaling, Melville's greatest work presents an imaginative and thrilling picture of life at sea, as well as a portrait of heroic determination. The author's keen powers of observation and firsthand knowledge of shipboard life (he served aboard a whaler himself) were key ingredients in crafting a maritime story that dramatically examines the conflict between man and nature.
  “A valuable addition to the literature of the day,” said American journalist Horace Greeley on the publication of Moby-Dick in 1851 — a classic piece of understatement about a literary classic now considered by many as “the great American novel.” Read and pondered by generations, the novel remains an unsurpassed account of the ultimate human struggle against the indifference of nature and the awful power of fate.

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  At the Bay

  Katherine Mansfield

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  At the Bay is a 1922 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the London Mercury in January 1922 in twelve sections, and later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922) with a short descriptive coda which is now the thirteenth section. The story represents Mansfield’s best mature work, a luminous example of her literary impressionism. While writing it at the Chalet des Sapins, she was coming to terms with her relationship with Murry and with her own origins and identity.

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  Publicity Campaign

  Arthur C. Clarke

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  Publicity Campaign" is a short science fiction story by Arthur C. Clarke, originally published in 1953 in the London Evening News. It explores the themes of communication and xenophobia, focusing on an alien expedition attempting to interact with Earthlings. The story depicts an alien race facing difficulties understanding and interacting with humans due to their xenophobia, ultimately leading to a drastic, though seemingly necessary, solution.

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  Sense and Sensibility

  Jane Austen

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  In a timeless tale of misguided romance and heartbreak, Jane Austen's first novel of love and marriage is seen through the eyes of two very different heroines, the Dashwood sisters—cautious, level-headed Elinor and impulsive lively Marianne—one representing sense and the other sensibility. In order to achieve the love and happiness they seek, the teenage women must overcome the pitfalls of Georgian England's high society. Austen's genius for portraying the social norms of her time—along with vivid characters and her trademark ironic wit—make this novel a classic to be treasured.

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