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  The Atonement and Other Stories

  Louis Auchincloss

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  Gaze into the lives of the twentieth century’s wealthy and declining WASP establishment in these twelve stories by the author of The Education of Oscar Fairfax. 
   
  No one else writes about the moral life of America’s moneyed class with anything approaching Louis Auchincloss’s understanding, sympathy, irony, and humor. In this, his first book of short fiction since the acclaimed Collected Stories, he again brings us news that no other writer can deliver, news about how America’s great families and fortunes are run and the axes and crises on which they turn. Here is how the privileged view their privilege—some with smugness, some with style, some with a crushing sense of civic and personal responsibility. Here is how the rich marry, how they divorce, and, more important, why. Here, definitively and indelibly, is the eastern seaboard’s Wasp establishment—sometimes in its glory, more often in its decline, and always with its values, assumptions, and increasingly fragile sense of self held up for our scrutiny by a master, the most subtle critic of American manners since Edith Wharton. 
   
  Praise for The Atonement and Other Stories 
   
  “The 12 stories collected in “The Atonement” reveal a writer at, or very near, the top of his form.” —Los Angeles Times 
   
  “In this PC world, Auchincloss’ crisp, confident tales of the WASP elite almost qualify as guilty pleasures. These 12 stories . . . will satisfy longtime fans and initiates alike with their portraits of investment bankers, lawyers, and socialites testing the limits of silver-plated social niches . . . . As usual, Auchincloss etches out the moral dilemmas of the blue-chip social stratum with reassuring clarity. A” —Entertainment Weekly 
   
  “Fragile, often smug, and sometimes silly characters populate this noteworthy collection . . . . these glimpses of the Eastern elite’s manners and moral quandaries will provide an accessible first taste for the Auchincloss novice and an enjoyable read for longtime fans.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

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  Moral Tales

  Elisabeth Charlotte Pauline Guizot

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  Short stories written by the first wife of French statesman Francois Guizot for young readers. - Summary by Cate Barratt

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  The Queen of Spades - The...

  Alexander Puskin

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  Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born on 26th May 1799 in Moscow into a family of Russian nobility. 
   
  Raised by nursemaids and French tutors in French he learnt Russian only via the household staff. 
   
  He graduated from the prestigious Imperial Lyceum, near St Petersburg and plunged into the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of what was then the capital of the Russian Empire.  
   
  In 1820, he published his first long poem, ‘Ruslan and Ludmila’, with much controversy about both subject and style.  Pushkin was heavily influenced by the French Enlightenment and gravitated, with other literary radicals, towards social reform angering the Government. 
   
  His early literary work and reputation was poetic and written as he travelled around the Empire or engaged himself in various rebellions against the Ottoman Empire.  A clash with his own government after his poem, ‘Ode to Liberty’, was found among the belongings of the Decembrist Uprising rebels meant two years of internal exile at his mother's rural estate.  His friends and family continually petitioned for his release, sending letters and meeting with Tsar Alexander I and then Tsar Nicholas I.   
   
  In 1825, whilst at his Mother’s estate, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama ‘Boris Godunov’.  
   
  Upon meeting with Tsar Nicholas I, Pushkin obtained his release and began work as the Tsar's Titular Counsel of the National Archives.  However, because of the earlier problems the tsar retained control of everything Pushkin published, and he was banned from travelling at will. 
   
  Around 1828, Pushkin met the 16-year-old Natalia Goncharova, one of the most talked-about beauties of Moscow.  After much hesitation, Natalia accepted his marriage proposal after she received assurances that the government had no intentions to persecute the libertarian poet.  When the Tsar gave Pushkin the lowest court title, Gentleman of the Chamber, he became enraged, feeling that the Tsar intended to humiliate him. 
   
  In the year 1831, during Pushkin's growing literary influence, he met Nikolai Gogol.  Recognising his gifts Pushkin supported him and published his short stories in his own magazine ‘The Contemporary’. 
   
  By the autumn of 1836, Pushkin was falling into greater and greater debt and facing scandalous rumours that his wife was having an affair.  
   
  In January 1837, Pushkin sent a ‘highly insulting letter’ to his wife’s pursuer, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès.  The only answer could be a challenge to a duel. 
   
  It took place on 27th January.  D'Anthès fired first, critically wounding Pushkin; the bullet entered at his hip and penetrated his abdomen.  Two days later Alexander Pushkin died of peritonitis.  He was 37. 
   
  One of Pushkin’s most lauded stories ‘The Queen of Spades’ takes on gambling and the need for just a tiny piece of information that will turn the game in his favour and take life to a level that is sure to be both deserved and his by right.

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  Stories and Rhymes

  Beatrix Potter, Hans Christian...

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  An entertaining selection of short stories and rhymes, perfect for bedtime.

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  The Short Stories of W W Jacobs...

  W Jacobs

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  William Wymark Jacobs was born on 8th September 1863 in Wapping, East London.  
   
  He was educated at a private school and then Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, now part of the University of London. 
   
  In 1879, Jacobs began work as a clerk in the civil service, in the Post Office Savings Bank.  In 1885 his first short story was published but it was not until almost the turn of the century that he would abandon his post office career to that as a full-time writer. By then he was a very popular author, his collections selling extremely well and with an excellent income. 
   
  His best-known work is the macabre ‘The Monkey's Paw’ and he is also highly regarded for his ghost stories although much of his remaining short story output is streaked with humour.  His characters are immediately identifiable and we all know that life will take chunks out of them in no time at all.  
   
  Jacobs married the noted suffragette Agnes Eleanor Williams in 1900 at West Ham, Essex. They went on to have two daughters and three sons as they settled down to life.  
   
  By the outbreak of the First World War his literary output had declined and he now mainly spent his time rewriting his earlier stories for the stage.  In all he wrote 18 plays. 
   
  W W Jacobs died on 1st September 1943 at Hornsey Lane, Islington in London. He was 79. 
  01 - W W Jacobs - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - The Monkey's Paw by W W Jacobs 
  03 - Jerry Bundler by W W Jacobs 
  04 - Three Sisters by W W Jacobs 
  05 - Captain Rogers by W W Jacobs 
  06 - The Money Box by W W Jacobs

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  Five Children and It

  Edith Nesbit

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  The five children find a cantankerous sand fairy, a psammead, in a gravel pit. Every day 'It' will grant each of them a wish that lasts until sunset, often with disastrous consequences. 
  Never out of print since 1902. The Introduction to this edition examines Nesbit's life and her reading, showing the change in childrens' literature from Victorian times.

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