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In this volume we examine some of the short stories of William Makepeace Thackeray. The great author of Vanity Fair and The Luck of Barry Lyndon was born in India in 1811. At age five his father died, and his mother sent him back to England. His education was of the best, but he himself seemed unable to apply his talents to a rigorous work ethic. After a few years of marriage his wife began to suffer from depression and over the years became detached from reality.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and was to become a founder of modernist writing. Her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become a revered writer. Her mother died when she was 13, her half sister Stella two years later and with that came her first of several nervous breakdowns.

Set against the background of Dublin at the turn of the century, Joyce's celebrated collection of short stories recount a series of unremarkable incidents in the lives of ordinary men and women. Stylistically straightforward, it is Joyce's eye for detail, matched only by his interest in the habits and patterns of daily life and celebration of the unique wit and landscape of the Irish, that makes these stories so enchanting.

Many consider it to be Dennis Wheatley's finest work, which is praise indeed for this world beating novelist. It was a best seller in the 1930s when it first came out, full of 1930s atmosphere, skilfully written and well researched, too - although Wheatley never practiced magic himself, he met with many of the most famous occultists of his day to make the book as authentic as possible. In The Devil Rides Out, the Duke de Richleau and a friend find that one of their number is missing from a reunion, and it turns out that he has fallen under the influence of a black magic sect.

It is World War II, and Britain faces increasing pressure and burden as the Nazis swarm across Europe. When the Duke de Richleau is asked to look into how Nazi U-boats know exactly where and when supply convoys in the Atlantic will be, he discovers that evil occult forces are at work. The duke discovers that a voodoo adept from Haiti is travelling on the astral plane to gain information regarding the convoys.

It is human nature to create and compete. Both of these are brought together in sport. Many games began in distant eons and gradually adapted and became codified to those we know today. In this volume we celebrate, through the verse of so many well-known poets, sports of all kinds. Sports for the rich, sports for the poor and all manner in between. As Henry Newbolt would say, ‘Play up, play up, and play the game'.

The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayham is a beautiful work of art much admired from generation to generation. Written in the 11th century, it is here brought to this audiobook by the great and accomplished actor of stage and screen Alfred Drake. Together with the beautiful Sohrab And Rustum by Matthew Arnold, it too has its roots in Persian culture.

When the Bates Motel looms up out of the storm, Mary Crane thinks it is her salvation. The rooms are musty but clean. The manager, Norman Bates, seems like a nice enough fellow, if a little strange. Then Mary decides to take a shower, and the nightmare begins....

In this carefully selected audiobook of verse with works by Keats, Kipling, Southey, Yeats and others, such Hollyood legends as Helen Hayes and Raymond Massey provide unique readings and interpretations of these classics.

Oscar Wilde is a giant and legend as a writer and as a wit. But there is a softer, gentler side in some of his short stories for children. Admired and beloved through the generations, in this collection the wonderful British actor Basil Rathbone brings these superb stories to your hearts and ears.

Born in 1797, her mother died when she was only 11 days old. Mary was then raised by her father, who remarried when she was four, with a liberal but informal upbringing. At 17 she began a relationship with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which was the bedrock of her life, although society viewed the unmarrieds somewhat differently. It was in this relationship that she nurtured and edited Shelley’s verse and wrote, at 21, her signature work, Frankenstein, for which she is so well known.

The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try, and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Jules Verne.

The British, it is often said, have a stiff upper lip and a dry sense of humour. It's true, we usually do, and in the case of this perfect compendium of short stories we absolutely do. Listen to our Scottish raconteur J. M. Barrie and English wits Jerome K. Jerome and Edward Lear for perfect proof of that. But humour is many things and from many places, so we also feature Mark Twain, our very talented American friend, to complete this rather witty and clever volume of short stories.

Bored by her new life with her husband in exotic Thailand, 19-year-old Emmanuelle decides to taste for herself the erotic fruits that the orient has to offer. The lovely young bride, a tantalising combination of innocent and temptress, has learned much about the secrets of love. Yet prior to her arrival in the tropics she never experienced the pleasure of unfettered eroticism. Guided and instructed on an odyssey of desire by the elderly Mario, Emmanuelle embarks upon a series of daring and uninhibited sexual encounters.

The intrigues of peaceful Barchester are of tremendous importance to its inhabitants, and Anthony Trollope enjoys observing how differently they impinge on the separate worlds of men and women. Men have to make a place for themselves in society; for them ambition is necessary and justified. Women, on the other hand, have to make marriage their career, and it is up to them to make as good a match as possible. For Trollope, however, genuine love is of the utmost importance to everyone and the only real basis for marriage.

Women, so often referred to as the gentler sex - in this volume at least, this is an unfounded and unlikely description. From their minds and pens comes a series of macabre, twisted tales that are anything but gentle. But as they weave their magic, usually black, and mesh you into their narrative you just know 'sugar and spice and all things nice' are not likely to be what little girls really are made of and certainly not these femme fatales....

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society. In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity's time people couldn't read and texts couldn't be published in any great number.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.

Stephen P H Butler Leacock FRSC was born on 30th December 1869 in Swanmore, near Southampton, England, the third of eleven children. The family emigrated to Canada in 1876, settling on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario. Although he had already published several humorous pieces it was only in 1910 that these works were collected and published and turned him into a commercially successful writer. Volume after volume now appeared almost annually and it was often said that more people had heard of him than of Canada. Stephen Leacock died on 28th March 1944 of throat cancer in Toronto, Canada.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three's a crowd may be too many, except when it's a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.