Other books that might interest you

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  Torrents of Spring

  Ivan Turgenev

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  When young Russian aristocrat Dimitri Sanin, on his way home from Italy, enters a patisserie in Frankfurt, he little dreams it will alter the course of his entire life. Faced with Gemma, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, he is blown away by the spring torrents of love. But fate has a challenge in store for Sanin, one he must successfully overcome or lose his chance of future happiness. This tale of struggle against the force of natural passion speaks to the hearts of all who have experienced the fragile beauty of first love and the dark power of desire.

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  The Murders in the Rue Morgue

  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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  The Trial for Murder

  Charles Dickens

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  An eerie and evocative ghost story by one of English literature's greatest writers. On looking out of his window, the narrator sees two men going down Piccadilly. The second man looks strangely unwell and waxen. When he is later called to jury service, the accused turns out to be the first man he had seen in Piccadilly...and the second his murder victim. Stranger still, the ghost of the murdered man is actively participating in the trial to ensure his murderer is brought to justice.

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  Sense and Sensibility

  Jane Austen

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  Abeloved classic, Austen's first published novel explores the question of what drives your life: your heart or your head? The Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, are as different as sisters can be. Serious Elinor lives by reason and thoughtfulness while her younger sister, Marianne, only follows her passions. But in questions of love, they learn neither the heart nor head alone will lead them to happiness. Filled with romance, Austen's brilliant wit, and rich characterization, this is a celebration of sisterly love and the need for family--no matter how different they might be from us.

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  The Rainbow Trail

  Zane Grey

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  John Shefford rode into Utah's valley in search of a new life, and when he met Fay Larkin, he knew he had found it. Even when she was charged with murder, he did not care. He had to have her. She was worth life itself.Breaking her out of jail was the easy part. After that he had posses to worry about, violent bands of Indians to outrun, a murderous trek across a trackless waste, and a brutal passage through white water hell.Hell, yes. Busting her out of jail had been a cinch. After that it really got tough.

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  The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood

  Charles Perrault

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  The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood by Charles Perrault is a classic French fairytale involving a beautiful princess, a sleeping enchantment, and a handsome prince. "There were formerly a king and a queen, who were so sorry that they had no children; so sorry that it cannot be expressed. They went to all the waters in the world; vows, pilgrimages, all ways were tried, and all to no purpose. At last, however, the Queen had a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (they found seven), that every one of them might give her a gift, as was the custom of fairies in those days. By this means, the Princess had all the perfections imaginable. After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company returned to the King's palace, where was prepared a great feast for the fairies. There was placed before every one of them a magnificent cover with a case of massive gold, wherein were a spoon, knife, and fork, all of pure gold set with diamonds and rubies. But as they were all sitting down at table they saw come into the hall a very old fairy, whom they had not invited, because it was above fifty years since she had been out of a certain tower, and she was believed to be either dead or enchanted. The King ordered her a cover, but could not furnish her with a case of gold as the others, because they had only seven made for the seven fairies. The old Fairy fancied she was slighted, and muttered some threats between her teeth. One of the young fairies who sat by her overheard how she grumbled; and, judging that she might give the little Princess some unlucky gift, went, as soon as they rose from table, and hid herself behind the hangings, that she might speak last, and repair, as much as she could, the evil which the old Fairy might intend."

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