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  Crocker's Hole - From their pens...

  R D Blackmore

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  Richard Doddridge Blackmore was born on 7th June, 1825 at Longworth in Berkshire (now part of Oxfordshire), where his father, John Blackmore, was Curate-in-charge of the parish. His mother died a few months after his birth the victim of an outbreak of typhus. With this loss the family moved to Bushey, Hertfordshire, then on to their native Devon.  His elder brother Richard (by a year), however, was taken by his aunt to live near Oxford. His father married again in 1831, whereupon Richard returned to live with them.  With much of his childhood spent in the lush and pastoral "Doone Country" of Exmoor, and along the Badgworthy Water, Blackmore came to love the very countryside he immortalised in Lorna Doone.  In November 1853 he married his wife Lucy.  And the following year, 1854, his literary career began with a collection of Poems and for the next 15 years he would write in the winters and garden in the summers.  In 1860 with inherited money he built a house in Teddington just outside of London and established a market garden for the cultivation of fruit.  He loved horticulture but having little business experience could never really exploit it.  However with the publication of Lorna Doone in 1869 he was catapulted to fame.  And although he continued to write extensively nothing caught the public imagination quite like Lorna Doone.  RD Blackmore died at Teddington on 20th January, 1900 after a long and painful illness, and was buried next to his wife in Teddington cemetery.

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  The Overtone

  D H Lawrence

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  'The Overtone' looks at a sterile marriage with no children and no spontaneous sexual feeling between the couple. Lawrence seems to lose interest in the story, although he introduces a younger woman, who walks away baffled at the end. His purpose seems to be to analyse the relationship between men and women in religious terms - Christianity for the women and the old Pan religion for the men. Lawrence produces some fine writing but the argument at the end of the story seems contrived.

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  Before Insulin - From their pens...

  J Connington

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  The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is J J Connington.

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  Anathema - From their pens to...

  Alexander Kuprin

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  Alexander Kuprin was born in Narovchat, Penza in Russia on 7th September 1870. 
  At 3 his Father died and he and mother moved to Moscow. By 10 he was enrolled at the Second Moscow Military High School and there his interest in literature began. The Alexander Military Academy followed and two years later he was a sub-lieutenant and posted to an Infantry Regiment for a further four years. 
  Despite his duties he was a now a keen writer and published his first short story at this time. His military duties also garnered him experiences for his breakthrough work ‘The Duel’.  Leaving the military he left for Kiev to work for local newspapers.  He continued to publish both stories and novels and by 1901 he was in St Petersburg becoming part of a group that included Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreyev.  
  In the years that followed further controversial works and acclaim followed.  His comments on the regime meant he was also put under secret police surveillance.   
  As World War I erupted, Kuprin opened a military hospital but was then given command of an infantry company in Finland. He was soon discharged on grounds of ill health.  
  The October Revolution saw him praise Lenin, but he warned that the Bolsheviks threatened Russian culture and might cause further widespread suffering to the peasants.  As Civil War raged he took his family to Helsinki and then on to Paris. 
  Exile saw his talents decline further and his succumbing to alcoholism. He became lonely and withdrawn. The family's poverty increased his malaise.   
  In May 1937, the Kuprin’s returned to Moscow.  He now saw his work published but wrote almost nothing new.  In 1938 his health rapidly deteriorated.  Already suffering from a kidney problems and sclerosis, he had now developed cancer of the oesophagus.  
  Alexander Kuprin died on 25th August 1938.

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  The Prince and the Pauper

  Mark Twain

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  This treasured historical satire, played out in two very different socioeconomic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, the two realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange clothes and roles--a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters.
  
  The Prince, dressed in rags, wanders about the city's boisterous neighborhoods among the lower classes and endures a series of hardships; meanwhile, poor Tom, now living with the royals, is constantly filled with the dread of being discovered for who and what he really is.

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  Getting on in the World...

  Booker T. Washington

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  Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 - November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community and of the contemporary black elite. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  GETTING ON IN THE WORLD: It is natural and praiseworthy for a person to be looking for a higher and better position than the one he occupies. So long as a man does his whole duty in what he is engaged in, he is not to be condemned for looking for something better to do. Now the question arises:-How are you going to put yourself in a condition to be in demand for these higher and more important positions?

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