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  The Horla

  Guy de Maupassant

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  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France.  
   
  Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. 
   
  After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.   
   
  Maupassant’s education was such that he rebelled against religion and other societal norms but a developing friendship with Gustave Flaubert began to turn his mind towards creativity and writing. 
   
  After graduation he volunteered for the Franco-Prussian war. With its end he moved to Paris to work as a clerk in the Navy Department.  Gustave Flaubert now took him under his wing.  Acting as a literary guardian to him, he guided the eager Maupassant to debuts in journalism and literature.  For Maupassant these were exciting times and the awakening of his creative talents and ambitions. 
   
  In 1880 he published what is considered his first great work, ‘Boule de Suif’, (translated as as ‘Dumpling’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Ball of Fat’, or ‘Ball of Lard’) which met with a success that was both instant and overwhelming.  Flaubert at once acknowledged that it was ‘a masterpiece that will endure.’ Maupassant had used his talents and experiences in the war to create something unique.  
   
  This decade from 1880 to 1891 was to be the most pivotal of his career.  With an audience now made available by the success of ‘Boule de Suif’ Maupassant organised himself to work methodically and relentlessly to produce between two and four volumes of work a year.  The melding of his talents and business sense and the continual hunger of sources for his works made him wealthy. 
   
  In his later years he developed a desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death as well as a paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth.  
   
  On January 2nd, 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat.  Unsuccessful he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris.  It was here on July 6th, 1893 that  
  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 42.

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  The Poison Belt - Unabridged

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Poison Belt is a science fiction novella by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about Professor Challenger. Challenger sends telegrams asking his three companions from The Lost World—Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee—to join him at his home outside London, and instructs each of them to 'bring oxygen'. On arrival they are ushered into a sealed room, along with Challenger and his wife. In the course of his researches into various phenomena, Challenger has predicted that the Earth is moving into a belt of poisonous ether which, based on its effect on the people of Sumatra earlier in the day, he expects to stifle humanity. Challenger seals them in the room with cylinders of oxygen, which he (correctly) believes will counter the effect of the ether. The five wait out the Earth's passage through the poison belt as they watch the world outside die and machines run amok…

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  The Raven

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Edgar Allan Poe's ""The Raven,"" delves into the hidden horrors of the human psyche.  One bleak December midnight a raven shows up at his door—with only one thing to say, “Nevermore!” The raven’s repetitious “Nevermore” slowly drives the narrator to madness. Yanai Pery brings to life the narrator and the raven in a truly unique way. The perfect book to revisit this classic poem and delve into its mysteries in a new and intriguing way.

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  A Christmas Carol

  Charles Dickens

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  A Christmas Carol has never been out of print since it was first published in 1843, and no wonder! This ghostly little book creates the feeling of Christmas that we still enjoy today.Marley was dead...and so too was Christmas to Scrooge. Haunted by three spirits on Christmas eve the old miser is taken on a journey to his past, his present and his future. With such memorable characters as Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit it will warm your heart with favourite memories, and remind you how the true Christmas spirit comes from giving with love.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Sheridan Le Fanu, James Joyce,...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  The Irish Short Story tradition is packed with literary leviathans who take the raw ingredients of the land, it’s people and their own talents to create quite dazzling narratives in these perfectly pitched short stories.  Genius has many names. 
   
  01 - The Top 10 - The Irish - An Introduction 
  02 - The Dead by James Joyce 
  03 - The Knitted Collar by Mary Anne Hoare 
  04 - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter by Sheridan Le Fanu 
  05 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell 
  06 - An Irish Problem by Somerville and Ross 
  07 - All Souls Eve by Dora Sigerson Shorter 
  13 - The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker 
  09 - A Rich Woman by Katharine Tynan 
  10 - The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde 
  11 - Dhoya by W B Yeats

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  Father Sergius (Unabridged)

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Prince Stepan Kasatsky experiences a disappointment with his fiancé and decides to become a monk! There is a story line, but beneath it, Father Sergius struggles to find peace and, if not happiness, then at least contentment. But he is always disillusioned and ultimately unsatisfied. Only in the end does he find his way by letting go of what he struggled to attain all his life, i.e. to be better than everyone else in whatever he did, and settle for the mundane.

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