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Summary

A wise man once said ‘The safest place for a child is in the arms of his mother’s voice’.  This is a perfect place to start our anthology of female short stories. 
 
Some of our earliest memories are of our mothers telling us bedtime stories. This is not to demote the value of fathers but more to promote the often-overshadowed talents of the gentler sex. 
 
Perhaps ‘gentler’ is a word that we should re-evaluate. In the course of literary history it is men who dominated by opportunity and with their stranglehold on the resources, both financial and technological, who brought their words to a wider audience.  Men often placed women on a pedestal from where their talented words would not threaten their own.   
 
In these stories we begin with the original disrupter and renegade author Aphra Behn.  A peek at her c.v. shows an astounding capacity and leaves us wondering at just how she did all that. 
 
In those less modern days to be a woman, even ennobled, was to be seen as second class.  You literally were chattel and had almost no rights in marriage.  As Charlotte Smith famously said your role as wife was little more than ‘legal prostitute’.  From such a despicable place these authors have used their talents and ideas and helped redress that situation.   
 
Slowly at first.  Privately printed, often anonymously or under the cloak of a male pseudonym their words spread.  Their stories admired and, usually, their role still obscured from rightful acknowledgement. 
 
Aided by more advanced technology, the 1700’s began to see a steady stream of female writers until by the 1900’s mass market publishing saw short stories by female authors from all the strata of society being avidly read by everyone.  Their names are a rollcall of talent and ‘can do’ spirit and society is richer for their works.   
 
In literature at least women are now acknowledged as equals, true behind the scenes little has changed but if (and to mis-quote Jane Austen) there is one universal truth, it is that ideas change society.  These women’s most certainly did and will continue to do so as they easily write across genres, from horror and ghost stories to tender tales of love and making your way in society’s often grueling rut.  They will not be silenced, their ideas and passion move emotions, thoughts and perhaps more importantly our ingrained view of what every individual human being is capable of.    
 
It is because of their desire to speak out, their desire to add their talents to the bias around them that we perhaps live in more enlightened, almost equal, times.   
 
Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. 
 
01 - The Female Short Story. A Chronological History - An Introduction - Volume 8 
02 - When Spirits Steal by Philippa Forest 
03 - The Strange Looking Man by Fanny Kemble Johnson 
04 - The Readjustment by Mary Austin 
05 - Passed by Charlotte Mew 
06 - The Woman Who Sat Still by Parry Truscott 
07 - Sylvia by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor.wav 
08 - The Preacher at Hill Station by Katherine Davis Chapman Tillman 
09 - The Spirit of the Range by B M Bower 
10 - The Wooing of Pastor Cummings by Georgia F Stewart 
11 - Hodge by Elinor Mordaunt 
12 - Fear by Catherine Wells 
13 - The Difference by Ellen Glasgow 
14 - Paul's Case by Willa Cathe

Duration: about 9 hours (08:31:47)
Publishing date: 2021-05-11; Unabridged; Copyright Year: — Copyright Statment: —

• Short Stories
• Classics
• Contemporary Fiction
• Essay