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ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIMEIconic author Ira Levin's Edgar Award–winning debut novel set a new standard in the art of psychological suspense. A modern classic published to rave reviews, and twice adapted for the screen, A Kiss Before Dying is a darkly thrilling, twisting tale of criminal psychopathy. Known for his looks and charm, a young man obsessed with wealth and status will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He sets his sights on a beautiful and innocent college student named Dorothy, intent on marrying her for her family's money. But when Dorothy becomes pregnant, his careful plans start to unravel, and he begins to take cold, calculating, and drastic measures to protect his future. A Kiss Before Dying, told from multiple points of view, has thrilled millions of readers with its perfectly constructed plotting and is an acknowledged masterpiece of crime fiction.This edition includes a brand new foreword by Anthony Horowitz.

Excerpt:'Mr. H. G. WELLS brought out some time ago an Outline of History, the object of which was to deny the Christian religion. I examined this production for the benefit of my co-religionists in the columns of certain Catholic papers. I did full justice to Mr. Wells's talents as a writer, but I exposed his ill acquaintance with modern work on Biology, with early Christian writing and tradition, with Christian doctrine itself: and, in general, his incompetence. Stung by this exposure, Mr. Wells has just brought out against me a small pamphlet, under the title of Mr. Belloc Objects to the “Outline of History.” It is an excited, popular, crude attack, full of personal insult and brawling, and ample proof that he is hit. But it is singularly weak in argument, confused in reply, and, as I shall show in a moment, shirks nine-tenths of the very damaging criticism which I directed against his book. That book denies a creative God. There is no God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The Incarnation is a myth; the Resurrection a falsehood; the Eucharist a mummery.'

Jacques Heath Futrelle was born on the 9th April 1875 in Pike County, Georgia.His early career was as a journalist. Initially he worked for the Atlanta Journal where he began their sports section. This was followed by work for the New York Herald, the Boston Post and the Boston American. At the latter, in 1905, he published the serialized version of his short story ‘The Problem of Cell 13'who's main character was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, commonly known as ‘The Thinking Machine', a detective, who used logic to solve crimes.In 1895 he married Lily May Peel with whom he had two children.In 1906 buoyed by the success of his short stories he left the paper to write novels. Such was his success that he had a house, ‘Stepping Stones', designed and built with a harbor view at Scituate, Massachusetts, where the family would spend most of their time together.On April 15th, 1912 he was returning from Europe as a first-class passenger aboard the Titanic when it stuck an iceberg. He refused to board a lifeboat but insisted that Lily did. She acquiesced and remembered the last she saw of him he was smoking a cigarette on deck with John Jacob Astor IV. His body was never recovered.

Jacques Heath Futrelle was born on the 9th April 1875 in Pike County, Georgia.His early career was as a journalist. Initially he worked for the Atlanta Journal where he began their sports section. This was followed by work for the New York Herald, the Boston Post and the Boston American. At the latter, in 1905, he published the serialized version of his short story ‘The Problem of Cell 13'who's main character was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, commonly known as ‘The Thinking Machine', a detective, who used logic to solve crimes.In 1895 he married Lily May Peel with whom he had two children.In 1906 buoyed by the success of his short stories he left the paper to write novels. Such was his success that he had a house, ‘Stepping Stones', designed and built with a harbor view at Scituate, Massachusetts, where the family would spend most of their time together.On April 15th, 1912 he was returning from Europe as a first-class passenger aboard the Titanic when it stuck an iceberg. He refused to board a lifeboat but insisted that Lily did. She acquiesced and remembered the last she saw of him he was smoking a cigarette on deck with John Jacob Astor IV. His body was never recovered.

Jacques Heath Futrelle was born on the 9th April 1875 in Pike County, Georgia.His early career was as a journalist. Initially he worked for the Atlanta Journal where he began their sports section. This was followed by work for the New York Herald, the Boston Post and the Boston American. At the latter, in 1905, he published the serialized version of his short story ‘The Problem of Cell 13'who's main character was Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, commonly known as ‘The Thinking Machine', a detective, who used logic to solve crimes.In 1895 he married Lily May Peel with whom he had two children.In 1906 buoyed by the success of his short stories he left the paper to write novels. Such was his success that he had a house, ‘Stepping Stones', designed and built with a harbor view at Scituate, Massachusetts, where the family would spend most of their time together.On April 15th, 1912 he was returning from Europe as a first-class passenger aboard the Titanic when it stuck an iceberg. He refused to board a lifeboat but insisted that Lily did. She acquiesced and remembered the last she saw of him he was smoking a cigarette on deck with John Jacob Astor IV. His body was never recovered.

Literature is a world of words and wonder, able to take us on almost unimaginable journeys from the wild and fantastic to the grind and minutiae of life.An author's ideas are his building blocks, his architecture of the mind, building a structure on which all else will rest; the narrative, the characters, the words - those few words that begin the adventure.In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.Story. Poems. Story. Within these boundaries come all manner of invention and cast of characters. And, of course, each author has their own way of revealing their own chapter and verse.

Literature is a world of words and wonder, able to take us on almost unimaginable journeys from the wild and fantastic to the grind and minutiae of life.An author's ideas are his building blocks, his architecture of the mind, building a structure on which all else will rest; the narrative, the characters, the words - those few words that begin the adventure.In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.Story. Poems. Story. Within these boundaries come all manner of invention and cast of characters. And, of course, each author has their own way of revealing their own chapter and verse.

Excerpt:'The Owl shows its blue and gilt cover on the bookstalls every Saturday morning. Thursday nights are therefore nights of turmoil in the offices in Fleet Street. They are always wearing nights; more so, of course, in hot weather than in cold. They are nights of discomfort for the office-boy and of something worse for the editor. Spencer Hastings edited The Owl, and owned a third of it; and the little paper's success showed him to possess both brains and capacity for hard work. For a man of thirty-three he had achieved much; but that capacity for work was hard tested—especially on Thursday nights. As to the brains, there was really no doubt of their quality. Take, for instance, The Owl “specials.” After he had thought of them and given birth to the first, The Owl, really a weekly review, was enabled to reap harvests in the way of “scoops” without in any way degenerating into a mere purveyor of news.'

A Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of Virginia Woolf's fantastical novel about an Elizabethan nobleman who lives for three centuries and transitions into a woman. With a new introduction by Jeanette Winterson.Woolf's most lighthearted novel is a playful and exuberant romp through history. As a teenage nobleman, Orlando spends his days in revelry at the colorful Tudor court of Queen Elizabeth and his nights in writing earnest poetry. A favorite of the elderly queen, he falls in love with and is jilted by a wayward Russian princess. Two kings later, having reached his thirties, Orlando is sent to serve as ambassador to Constantinople, where he awakens one day to find himself in the body of a woman. The Lady Orlando takes this circumstance in stride and returns to England, where she engages in love affairs with both men and women, consorts with the famous poets of each age, finds happiness with an unconventional husband, and at last achieves publication of her own epic poem in the year 1928, the same year that Woolf published her novel. With its blend of fantastical adventure and satirical wit, Orlando was an immediate popular and critical success, one whose status as a classic has only grown with time. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

This is a compendium of eight short stories written by Freeman before 1909 and compiled into his first collection of short stories. He must have been very popular by then because it was actually the second'Thorndyke'book published.

In'The Red Thumbmark'by R Austin Freeman, published in 1907, a single fingerprint is found at the scene of a crime. When the police are able to identify that fingerprint, the case seems closed.

These stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, which were originally published, each one separately, between the years of 1891 and 1892, in the British newspaper The Strand Magazine and later compiled under the title of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, constitute the largest theme of his work and represent the cornerstone of detective stories. In The Best Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this detective and his assistant, Dr. John H. Watson, will face each other and try to solve cases that are apparently difficult to solve, but the London police trust the good deductive judgment of Detective Holmes to be able to clarify them, and that is the argument of which the narrations of the solved crimes of Holmes are composed. This selection of stories invites you to discover the best cases of the greatest detective of all time.

Max Reddick, a novelist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter, has spent his career struggling against the riptide of race in America. Now terminally ill, he has nothing left to lose. An expat for many years, Max returns to Europe one last time to settle an old debt with his estranged Dutch wife, Margrit, and to attend the Paris funeral of his friend, rival, and mentor Harry Ames. Among Harry's papers, Max uncovers explosive secret government documents outlining'King Alfred', a plan to be implemented in the event of widespread racial unrest and aiming'to terminate, once and for all, the Minority threat to the whole of the American society'. Realizing that Harry has been assassinated, Max must risk everything to get the documents to the one man who can help. Greeted as a masterpiece when it was published in 1967, The Man Who Cried I Am stakes out a range of experience rarely seen in American fiction: from the life of a Black GI to the ferment of postcolonial Africa to an insider's view of Washington politics in the era of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement. John A. Williams and his lost classic are overdue for rediscovery.

Edith Nesbit was born on the 15th August 1858 in Kennington, then part of Surrey. Due to the health issues and tuberculosis of her sister Mary, Nesbit's early life was one of constant changes of house both in England and on the continent.At age 17, Nesbit met Hubert Bland and they married three years later―whilst she was 7 months pregnant. Bland also kept his affair with another woman going throughout their marriage and the two children of that relationship were raised by Nesbit as well as her own three with Bland.Together they were founder members of the Fabian Society in 1884 naming their son Fabian in its honour. They also edited the Society's journal; ‘Today'. Nesbit was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism during those years but gradually her work for them dwindled as her career as a children's writer grew. Her most famous success was ‘The Railway Children'but she was also very prolific and greatly accomplished in poetry, short stories―especially her macabre ghost and supernatural stories―and novels for adults. In February 1917, some three years after the death of Bland she married Thomas ‘the Skipper'Tucker in Woolwich, where he was a ship's engineer on the Woolwich Ferry.Edith Nesbit died from lung cancer on the 4th May 1924 at her house ‘The Long Boat'at Jesson, St Mary's Bay, New Romney in Kent. She was 65.

Excerpt:'My name is Martin—James Briggs Martin—but almost everybody calls me Tallow, because once when I was younger I saw old Uncle Ike Bond rubbing tallow on his boots to shine them, and then hurried home and fixed mine up with the stub of a candle and went to school. I guess it couldn't have smelled very good, for everybody seemed to notice it, even teacher, and she asked me what in the world I'd been getting into. After that all the boys called me Tallow, and always will, I guess. I tell you about me first only because I'm writing this account of what happened. Mark Tidd is really the fellow I'm writing about, and Mark's father and mother, and the engine Mr. Tidd was inventing out in his barn, and some other folks who will be told about in their places. I helped some; so did Plunk Smalley and Binney Jenks, but Mark Tidd did most of it. Mark Tidd sounds like a short name, doesn't it? But it isn't short at all, for it's merely what's left of Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, which was what he was christened, mostly out of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a big book that Mr. Tidd was so fond of reading that he never read much of anything else except the papers.'

Excerpt:'Tubal gave the key another quarter turn in the quoins and tested the security of the type in the form with the heel of his grimy hand. After which he shut his eyes very tight and ran his tongue carefully over his upper teeth and clucked. Then, in the voice of one who pronounces a new and wonderful thought he spoke: “Simmy,” he said, “I dunno. Mebby so—mebby not. There's p'ints in favor and p'ints against.” “I,” said Simmy with the cocksureness of his seventeen years, “am goin'to git through. Don't ketch me workin'for no woman.” “She's one of them college wimmin we've been readin'about.” “Makes it wuss. Wimmin,” said Simmy, who had given deep thought to such matters and reached profound conclusions, “hain't got no business gittin'all eddicated up. What they ought to study is cook books. That's what I say.” “Calc'late she'll be gifted with big words.” “She'll wear them kind of glasses,” said Simmy, “that'll make you think you're lookin'into the show[2] winders of the Busy Big Store if you come onto her face to face.” “Simmy, I'll tell you suthin'.... I'll be fifty year old, come September, and I hain't never married one of'em yit.” “I hain't never goin'to marry, neither.” “Shake,” said Tubal.'

Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number.Such is its popularity that

Excerpt:'The three essays composing this small book were written several years ago for publication in the'Times Literary Supplement,'to the editor of which I owe the encouragement to write them, and now the permission to reprint them. Inadequate as periodical criticism, they need still more justification in a book. Some apology, therefore, is required. My intention had been to write a series of papers on the poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: beginning with Chapman and Donne, and ending with Johnson. This forbidden fruit of impossible leisure might have filled two volumes. At best, it would not have pretended to completeness; the subjects would have been restricted by my own ignorance and caprice, but the series would have included Aurelian Townshend and Bishop King, and the authors of'Cooper's Hill'and'The Vanity of Human Wishes,'as well as Swift and Pope. That which dissipation interrupts, the infirmities of age come to terminate. One learns to conduct one's life with greater economy: I have abandoned this design in the pursuit of other policies. I have long felt that the poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, even much of that of inferior inspiration, possesses an elegance and a dignity absent from the popular and pretentious verse of the Romantic Poets and their successors. To have urged this claim persuasively would have led me indirectly into considerations of politics, education, and theology which I no longer care to approach in this way. I hope that these three papers may in spite of and partly because of their defects preserve in cryptogram certain notions which, if expressed directly, would be destined to immediate obloquy, followed by perpetual oblivion.'

Excerpt:'Primarily, there were the conditions under which she was brought to fifteen years of age: the crowded, scummy tenements; the narrow green-painted halls with their dim gas-jets, making the entrance look more like that of a morgue than a dwelling-place; the dirty halls and rooms with their green or blue or brown walls painted to save the cost of paper; the bare wooden floors, long since saturated with every type of grease and filth from oleomargarine and suet leaked from cheap fats or meats, to beer and whiskey and tobacco-juice. A little occasional scrubbing by some would-be hygienic tenant was presumed to keep or make clean some of the chambers and halls. And then the streets outside—any of the streets by which she had ever been surrounded—block upon block of other red, bare, commonplace tenements crowded to the doors with human life, the space before them sped over by noisy, gassy trucks and vehicles of all kinds. And stifling in summer, dusty and icy in winter; decorated on occasion by stray cats and dogs, pawing in ashcans, watched over by lordly policemen, and always running with people, people, people—who made their living heaven only knows how, existing in such a manner as their surroundings suggested.'

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935) was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story,'The Yellow Wallpaper', which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis. Here we publish some of her other short stories. There is no doubt that she is a very talented writer who can build and capture a world that most other writers cannot.

This is a Tale about a tail—a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin. He had a brother called Twinkleberry, and a great many cousins: they lived in a wood at the edge of a lake.

First English translation of an amazing debut novella by a major and incredibly prolific Japanese author Tsugami, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper in war-scarred Osaka, agrees to sponsor a bullfight. For months this great gamble consumes him, makes him as wary and combative as if he was in a ring himself. And, as he becomes ever more distant, his lover Sakiko is unsure if she would like to see him succeed or be destroyed. Yasushi Inoue's novella won him the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and established him as one of Japan's most acclaimed authors. From the planning of a bullfight-through Tsugami's struggle, his focus and his aloneness-he crafts something intensely memorable, a compelling existential tale. Born in 1907, Yasushi Inoue worked as a journalist and literary editor for many years, only beginning his prolific career as an author in 1949 with Bullfight. He went on to publish 50 novels and 150 short stories, both historical and contemporary, his work making him one of Japan's major literary figures. In 1976 Inoue was presented with the Order of Culture, the highest honour granted for artistic merit in Japan. He died in 1991.

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were — Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. Mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother Mrs. Rabbit who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile tea.

Tsugami, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper in war-scarred Osaka, agrees to sponsor a bullfight. For months this great gamble consumes him, makes him as wary and combative as if he was in a ring himself. And, as he becomes ever more distant, his lover Sakiko is unsure if she would like to see him succeed or be destroyed.Yasushi Inoue's novella won him the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and established him as one of Japan's most acclaimed authors. From the planning of a bullfight-through Tsugami's struggle, his focus and his aloneness-he crafts something intensely memorable, a compelling existential tale.

'The Book of Nature Myths'by Florence Holbrook is a captivating journey into the world of myths and legends inspired by the wonders of nature. In this beautifully illustrated collection, readers of all ages are introduced to a diverse array of tales that connect ancient storytelling with the natural world. Florence Holbrook weaves enchanting narratives that draw on the rich tapestry of cultures and civilizations, offering readers a glimpse into the folklore and beliefs of different societies. From stories of celestial bodies like the sun and moon to tales of plants, animals, and natural phenomena, this book explores the myths and legends that have shaped human understanding of the world around us.

Dorothy Edwards, an only child, was born on the 18th August 1902 at Ogmore Vale in Glamorgan.Her father was a headmaster and an early activist in the Independent Labour Party. At age 9 Dorothy, dressed in red, welcomed Keir Hardy on to the stage at Tonypandy during the national coal strike of 1912. She was taught that revolution was at hand, that class barriers would be a thing of the past. Dorothy won a scholarship and boarded at Howell's School for Girls in Llandaff before moving to University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire where she read Greek and philosophy.Her early hopes to be an opera singer were set to one side after graduating and the death of her father. Instead she took on part-time work to supplement her mother's pension with whom she now lived.Dorothy managed to write a number of short stories which appeared in the literary journals of the day. She spent several months with her mother in Vienna, all the time revising or writing before embarking on ‘Winter Sonata', a short novel published in 1928.Introductions to several members of the Bloomsbury Group meant a move to London and a division of her time between child-care for the family of Bloomsbury author David Garnett and the promise of an advance payment for her work on a new volume of stories.However, Dorothy's life was starting to spiral out of control; she was attracted to the Welsh nationalist movement but felt that her Welsh provincialism made her, in London at least, feel socially inferior. Leaving her mother dependent on a hired companion consumed her with guilt as did the end of an affair with a married musician.On the 5th January 1934, having spent the morning burning her papers, Dorothy Edwards threw herself in front of a train near Caerphilly railway station. Her suicide note read:'I am killing myself because I have never sincerely loved any human being all my life. I have accepted kindness and friendship and even love without gratitude, and given nothing in return.'Index of ContentsA Country House, A Garland of Earth, Mutiny, Rhapsody, The Problem of Life

Excerpt:'“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”—Proverbs xviii, 22. “Have those urgent dispatches come in from Berlin, Deedes?” “Captain Hammerton has not yet arrived,” I answered. “Eleven o'clock! Tut, tut! Every moment's delay means greater risk,” and the Earl of Warnham, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, strode up and down his private room, with his hat still on, impatiently snapping his bony fingers in agitation quite unusual to him. “Hammerton wired from Berlin yesterday, when on the point of leaving,” I observed, taking a telegram from the table before me. “In cipher?” “Yes.” “No accident is reported in the papers, I suppose?” “Nothing in the Times,” I replied. “Strange, very strange, that he should be so long overdue,” the Earl said, at last casting himself into his padded chair, and lounging back, his hands thrust deep into his pockets as he stared thoughtfully into space.'

Ethel Lina White was born on the 2nd April 1876 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in Wales.Her family were wealthy due to her father's invention of a waterproofing material used, initially, for the London Underground.Ethel started writing when she was only a child and published essays and poems in children's papers. She was also a talented artist.As an adult she began to write short stories and, some years later, she started writing novels. At the time she was working for the Ministry of Pensions in London but resigned in order to accept an advance of ten pounds and begin a career as a novelist. It was this determination that helped her become one of the best-known crime writers in the English-speaking world during the 1930's and 40's.Perhaps her best-known books are the ‘The Lady Vanishes'and ‘The Spiral Staircase'both of which were originally entitled differently but were republished with new names after being filmed. Whilst today she lacks attention, in her day she was as popular and as highly regarded as Agatha Christie.Ethel Lina White died in London on the 13th of August 1944 of ovarian cancer. She was 68.In her will she made a bizarre condition in order for her sister to receive her estate of £5737. It read:'I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death.'In life she had a fear of being buried alive.

Excerpt:'Wilford Heaton is not my real name, for why should I publish it to the world? The reason I do not give it is, first, because I have no desire to be made the object of idle curiosity or speculation, and secondly, although the explanation herein given will clear the honour of one of the most powerful of the Imperial Houses in Europe, I have no wish that my true name should be associated with it. I have, however, a reason for writing this narrative—a very strong reason. The story is an enthralling one; the adventures stranger, perhaps, than ever happened to any other living person. I have resolved to relate the plain unvarnished facts in their sequence, just as they occurred, without seeking to suppress or embellish, but to recount the strange adventures just as they are registered in the small leather portfolio, or secret dossier, which still, at this moment, reposes in the archives of a certain Ministry in one of the European capitals. There have recently been stories afloat—strange stories. At first I laughed at all the absurd rumours, but very quickly I saw how seriously distorted the real facts had become, for ingenious paragraphs of certain so-called Society papers, grasping the story eagerly, worked it up into a narrative which reflected very seriously upon the honour of one who is dearest in all the world to me. Well, my tale—or exposure—is written here. In order that those who read may clearly follow the curious chain of circumstances, it is necessary for me to go back some eight years or so—not a long period as far as time goes, but to me a veritable century. I was young, just turned twenty five. I was decently well-off, having come into an income of nearly a couple of thousand a year left me by my father, a sum which put me beyond the necessity of entering business, pursuing the daily grind, or troubling about the morrow. My career at Oxford had, I fear, been marked by a good many shortcomings and many youthful escapades, but I ended it by taking my degree of Bachelor of Medicine, shortly afterwards pursuing the fashionable habit of “going abroad.” Within two years, however, I returned to London world-weary—like so many other young men who, being left comfortably off, commence to taste the enjoyment of life too early—and settled down in a suite of smoke-begrimed rooms in Essex Street, Strand.'

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY PICK FOR 2023 A'witty, magical, romantic and altogether brilliant'(Lev Grossman) reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, told from the perspective of the troublesome and—according to her—much-maligned youngest Bennet sister, Lydia. In this exuberant retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves, Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs. But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat; Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would one expect from a demon? And if Mr. Darcy is uptight about etiquette, that's nothing compared to his feelings about magic. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that for a witch, promises have power... Full of enchantment, intrigue, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice—while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.

Presented for the first time in English, the recently discovered early manuscripts of the twentieth century's most towering literary figure offer uncanny glimpses of his emerging genius and the creation of his masterpiece.One of the most significant literary events of the century, the discovery of manuscript pages containing early drafts of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time put an end to a decades-long search for the Proustian grail. The Paris publisher Bernard de Fallois claimed to have viewed the folios, but doubts about their existence emerged when none appeared in the Proust manuscripts bequeathed to the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1962. The texts had in fact been hidden among Fallois's private papers, where they were found upon his death in 2018. The Seventy-Five Folios and Other Unpublished Manuscripts presents these folios here for the first time in English, along with seventeen other brief unpublished texts. Extensive commentary and notes by the Proust scholar Nathalie Mauriac Dyer offer insightful critical analysis.Characterized by Fallois as the “precious guide” to understanding Proust's masterpiece, the folios contain early versions of six episodes included in the novel. Readers glimpse what Proust's biographer Jean-Yves Tadié describes as the “sacred moment” when the great work burst forth for the first time. The folios reveal the autobiographical extent of Proust's writing, with traces of his family life scattered throughout. Before the existence of Charles Swann, for example, we find a narrator named Marcel, a testament to what one scholar has called “the gradual transformation of lived experience into (auto)fiction in Proust's elaboration of the novel.”Like a painter's sketches and a composer's holographs, Proust's folios tell a story of artistic evolution. A “dream of a book, a book of a dream,” Fallois called them. Here is a literary magnum opus finding its final form.

A Victorian lawyer's view of a fictional case from the The Pickwick Papers shows how Dickens'wit, combined with a detailed knowledge of the law, produced one of the funniest court cases in fiction When Samuel Pickwick uttered soothing words to Mrs. Bardell in her time of need, he never dreamed that he would find himself in a court of law, in a breach of promise suit. As a parade of his friends did their best as witnesses to help him out of a hole, not always successfully, the other side produced evidence that was manipulated by skillful lawyers to make a cast iron case for Pickwick's guilt. In this lawyerly but witty book, Fitzgerald treats Bardell v. Pickwick as if it were a real case, analyzes the tactics of the various lawyers, and scrutinizes the points of law Dickens made his fictional lawyers present.

A mysterious murder near Esher, a gruesome delivery of two human ears packed in coarse salt, the disappearance of secret submarine plans, the sudden descent into madness of two brothers – these are only some of the apparently unsolvable cases contained in this volume, which the great sleuth, assisted by his trusted friend Doctor Watson, is challenged to clear up with the aid of his sagacity and unrivalled analytical skills. Published a quarter of a century after the first book of Holmes adventures, and including the famous titular story His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes, this collection shows the detective's powers of deduction at their most dazzling, proving that Conan Doyle's ability to entertain and surprise remains undiminished.

Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number.Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author's work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best.In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author's legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words.These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master.

'One of the greatest Japanese writers… his work explores the destructive power of erotic obsessions'Guardian'Outstanding… rich and mysterious'New York Times Book Review A new selection and translation of short stories by a hugely prominent classic Japanese writer, filled with eroticism and fantasy The rich and mysterious short stories of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki pulse with a restless eroticism. Visiting a kingdom ruled by a weak-willed duke, the sage Confucius finds himself drawn into a battle of wills. A naïve servant boy is compelled down a path of vice and sin by his master's daughter. A young prince finds himself enraptured by his newest possession: a beguiling, enchanting mermaid. These three stories, two of which are here translated for the first time by Bryan Karetnyk, capture the essence of Tanizaki's shorter writings. Drawing on tales from both Japanese and Chinese mythology, combined with poignant psychological realism, Tanizaki reveals and revels in the paper-thin line between the sublime and the depraved.

Elizabeth MacKintosh was born on the 25th July 1896 in Inverness, Scotland.After attending Inverness Royal Academy and then the Anstey Physical Training College in Erdington, Birmingham she taught physical training at schools throughout England and Scotland.In 1923, she returned to Inverness to care for her invalid mother. She stayed after her mother's death later that year to keep house for her father. It was now that she began her literary career and first published in The Westminster Gazette in 1925, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. She continued to write and publish in periodicals until, in 1929, her first novel ‘Kif: An Unvarnished History'was published to good reviews followed, three months later, by her first mystery novel, ‘The Man in the Queue'. Despite her good fortune and talents her mind was set on writing a play that would receive a West End run. ‘Richard of Bordeaux', under the Daviot pseudonym, made its debut in 1932 at the Arts Theatre.In all she completed about a dozen one-act plays and a dozen full-length plays, many with biblical or historical themes, and all with the Daviot pseudonym. Only four of these plays were produced.Perhaps her best-known books all involve the Scotland Yard Inspector, Alan Grant, and required yet another pseudonym. This time Josephine Tey.She was intensely private, and during the last months of her life, when she knew she was terminally ill, she avoided all of her friends. Elizabeth Mackintosh died from liver cancer on 13th February 1952 in London. She was 55.

Ethel Lina White was born on the 2nd April 1876 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in Wales.Her family were wealthy due to her father's invention of a waterproofing material used, initially, for the London Underground.Ethel started writing when she was only a child and published essays and poems in children's papers. She was also a talented artist.As an adult she began to write short stories and, some years later, she started writing novels. At the time she was working for the Ministry of Pensions in London but resigned in order to accept an advance of ten pounds and begin a career as a novelist. It was this determination that helped her become one of the best-known crime writers in the English-speaking world during the 1930's and 40's.Perhaps her best-known books are the ‘The Lady Vanishes'and ‘The Spiral Staircase'both of which were originally entitled differently but were republished with new names after being filmed. Whilst today she lacks attention, in her day she was as popular and as highly regarded as Agatha Christie.Ethel Lina White died in London on the 13th of August 1944 of ovarian cancer. She was 68.In her will she made a bizarre condition in order for her sister to receive her estate of £5737. It read:'I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death.'In life she had a fear of being buried alive.

Ethel Lina White was born on the 2nd April 1876 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in Wales.Her family were wealthy due to her father's invention of a waterproofing material used, initially, for the London Underground.Ethel started writing when she was only a child and published essays and poems in children's papers. She was also a talented artist.As an adult she began to write short stories and, some years later, she started writing novels. At the time she was working for the Ministry of Pensions in London but resigned in order to accept an advance of ten pounds and begin a career as a novelist. It was this determination that helped her become one of the best-known crime writers in the English-speaking world during the 1930's and 40's.Perhaps her best-known books are the ‘The Lady Vanishes'and ‘The Spiral Staircase'both of which were originally entitled differently but were republished with new names after being filmed. Whilst today she lacks attention, in her day she was as popular and as highly regarded as Agatha Christie.Ethel Lina White died in London on the 13th of August 1944 of ovarian cancer. She was 68.In her will she made a bizarre condition in order for her sister to receive her estate of £5737. It read:'I give and bequeath unto Annis Dora White all that I possess on condition she pays a qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into my heart after death.'In life she had a fear of being buried alive.

Dorothy Edwards, an only child, was born on the 18th August 1902 at Ogmore Vale in Glamorgan.Her father was a headmaster and an early activist in the Independent Labour Party. At age 9 Dorothy, dressed in red, welcomed Keir Hardy on to the stage at Tonypandy during the national coal strike of 1912. She was taught that revolution was at hand, that class barriers would be a thing of the past. Dorothy won a scholarship and boarded at Howell's School for Girls in Llandaff before moving to University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire where she read Greek and philosophy.Her early hopes to be an opera singer were set to one side after graduating and the death of her father. Instead she took on part-time work to supplement her mother's pension with whom she now lived.Dorothy managed to write a number of short stories which appeared in the literary journals of the day. She spent several months with her mother in Vienna, all the time revising or writing before embarking on ‘Winter Sonata', a short novel published in 1928.Introductions to several members of the Bloomsbury Group meant a move to London and a division of her time between child-care for the family of Bloomsbury author David Garnett and the promise of an advance payment for her work on a new volume of stories.However, Dorothy's life was starting to spiral out of control; she was attracted to the Welsh nationalist movement but felt that her Welsh provincialism made her, in London at least, feel socially inferior. Leaving her mother dependent on a hired companion consumed her with guilt as did the end of an affair with a married musician.On the 5th January 1934, having spent the morning burning her papers, Dorothy Edwards threw herself in front of a train near Caerphilly railway station. Her suicide note read:'I am killing myself because I have never sincerely loved any human being all my life. I have accepted kindness and friendship and even love without gratitude, and given nothing in return.'

Excerpt:'Italian humour, says Mr. J. A. Symonds, died with Ariosto; and, in the face of such a declaration, any attempt to bring together a collection of specimens, some of which at any rate belong to a more recent date, would seem to savour of presumption. Yet, even at the risk of differing from such a recognised authority on Italian literature, we venture to think that a good deal has been produced since the age of Ariosto which may legitimately be defined as humour, though, for various reasons presently to be detailed, there are peculiar difficulties connected with its presentation in a foreign tongue It may as well be said at once that the professed humorist, the writer who is comic and nothing else, or, at any rate, whose main scope is to be funny, is all but unknown in modern Italian literature. Strictly speaking, he is perhaps a Germanic rather than a Latin product. The jokes in Italian comic and other papers are not, as a rule, overpoweringly amusing; and if we do come across a book which sets itself forth as Umoristico, the chances are that it turns out to be very tragical mirth indeed. But in novels and tales, even in essays and descriptions, which have no specially humorous intention, you often come across passages of a pure and spontaneous humour, inimitable in its own kind.'

'I found it terrible, yet at the same time touching, for in all the years of the war I had not seen so perfect and pure an expression of bliss on any German face.'An ostensibly whimsical story about the adventures of a Berlin art dealer, Stefan Zweig's The Invisible Collection is a powerful evocation of the condition of Germany between the wars. When Zweig's anonymous narrator sets off to the provinces in search of a lucrative bargain, he finds himself caught up in the slow unfolding of a family tragedy—and is confronted with a unique reminder of the power of art…

The English interwar writer Arthur Ransome, best known for the ‘Swallows and Amazons'children's books, is noted for popularising the pattern for “holiday adventure” stories. A writer of various genres, his first success, ‘Bohemia in London', is a partly autobiographical account of his early days. He also published a noted general ‘History of Story-Telling', as well as landmark critical works on Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde. During the Great War, Ransome worked as a war correspondent in Russia, where he studied native folktales, which he retold for children. He also wrote extensively about his passion of angling, producing the seminal work in its field, ‘Rod and Line'. For the first time in publishing history, this eBook presents Ransome's complete fictional works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) • Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Ransome's life and works• Concise introductions to the major works• All the ‘Swallows and Amazons'novels, with individual contents tables• Includes Ransome's original illustrations to the novels• Many rare texts appearing for the first time in digital publishing • Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts• Excellent formatting of the texts• Rare short stories available in no other collection• Includes Ransome's rare non-fiction works• Features the celebrated autobiography – discover Ransome's intriguing life• Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres CONTENTS: The Swallows and Amazons BooksSwallows and Amazons (1930)Swallowdale (1931)Peter Duck (1932)Winter Holiday (1933)Coot Club (1934)Pigeon Post (1936)We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea (1937)Secret Water (1939)The Big Six (1940)Missee Lee (1941)The Picts and the Martyrs (1943)Great Northern? (1947) Other Children's BooksThe Child's Book of the Seasons (1906)Pond and Stream (1906)The Things in our Garden (1906)The Hoofmarks of the Faun (1911)Old Peter's Russian Tales (1916)Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp in Rhyme (1920)The Soldier and Death (1922) The Horror NovelThe Elixir of Life (1915) The Short StoriesMiscellaneous Stories The Non-FictionThe Souls of the Streets and Other Little Papers (1904)Bohemia in London (1907)A History of Story-telling (1909)Edgar Allan Poe (1910)Oscar Wilde (1912)Portraits and Speculations (1913)Six Weeks in Russia (1919)The Crisis in Russia (1921)Racundra's First Cruise (1923)Rod and Line (1929)Racundra's Third Cruise (1972) The AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Arthur Ransome (1976)

The beloved children's author Arthur Ransome is noted for popularising the pattern for “holiday adventure” stories. A writer of various genres, his first success, ‘Bohemia in London', is a partly autobiographical account of his early days. He also published a noted general ‘History of Story-Telling', as well as landmark critical works on Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde. During the Great War, Ransome worked as a war correspondent in Russia, where he studied native folktales, which he retold for children. He also wrote extensively about his passion of angling, producing the seminal work in its field, ‘Rod and Line'. This eBook presents Ransome's collected works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) • Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Ransome's life and works• Concise introductions to the major works• Rare children's books, with the original artwork• Many rare texts appearing for the first time in digital publishing • Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts• Excellent formatting of the texts• Rare short stories available in no other collection• Includes Ransome's rare non-fiction works• Features the celebrated autobiography – discover Ransome's intriguing life• Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres CONTENTS: Other Children's BooksThe Child's Book of the Seasons (1906)Pond and Stream (1906)The Things in our Garden (1906)The Hoofmarks of the Faun (1911)Old Peter's Russian Tales (1916)Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp in Rhyme (1920)The Soldier and Death (1922) The Horror NovelThe Elixir of Life (1915) The Short StoriesMiscellaneous Stories The Non-FictionThe Souls of the Streets and Other Little Papers (1904)Bohemia in London (1907)A History of Story-telling (1909)Edgar Allan Poe (1910)Oscar Wilde (1912)Portraits and Speculations (1913)Six Weeks in Russia (1919)The Crisis in Russia (1921)Racundra's First Cruise (1923)Rod and Line (1929)Racundra's Third Cruise (1972) The AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Arthur Ransome (1976)

In this chilling classic British mystery thriller, a Scotland Yard inspector and his sister search for her missing fiancé in a city of vanishing people. Petty con man Alfred Routh thinks a place like Milton Manor outside Oxford will have something nice to steal. When he learns what is inside, however, he is desperate to steal away with his life... Meanwhile, Sir John Appleby from Scotland Yard is headed to Oxford to help his sister Jane. Her fiancé, a war hero and promising academic, has gone missing and many are concerned for his safety. But he's not the only recent disappearance in the area. As Appleby's investigation begins, things only get more bizarre. The trail of clues leads him and Jane through the city of Oxford to the grounds of Milton Manor and the terrifying secrets within...Originally published as The Paper Thunderbolt. Praise for Michael Innes and Inspector Appleby “The author's ingenuity and wit are seemingly endless.” —The Daily Telegraph “Altogether a brilliant piece of work.” —Birmingham Post “Innes is in a class by himself when it comes to detective fiction.” —The Times Literary Supplement

Excerpt:'A heavy fog pressed down upon the city of Washington. To the boy watching it from the vantage point of the window in the top floor of the apartment in which he stood, it spread as mysterious and as sodden as a flood, enveloping streets, parks, houses, indeed all but the tops of the highest structures, the domes and roofs of public buildings and spires of churches, and here and there a dark, drowned mass of foliage. The apartment stood on a height and as the boy looked he saw a glow in the east, followed quickly by thin banners of red and orange. Then the Sun rose and turned the domes and spires swimming on the sea of mist into fairy flotillas wrought of pearl and gold.'

One story is about helping a boy with a toothache, helping him get over his fear of going to the dentist. Another story is about a little girl who doesn't like her freckles and wishes she didn't have them at all. He shows her little freckled bird eggs and she sees how cute they are and the when the chicks hatch she realizes her freckles are pretty. I wish I could say these are the same problems our children face today. Sometimes they do but our children are under constant assault from far worse. Still the stories are refreshing, simple and carry themes that still apply. (Amazon)

Arrowsmith tells the story of bright and scientifically minded Martin Arrowsmith of Elk Mills, Winnemac (the same fictional state in which several of Lewis's other novels are set), as he makes his way from a small town in the Midwest to the upper echelons of the scientific community at a prestigious foundation in New York City. Along the way he begins medical school. He becomes engaged to one woman, cheats on her with another woman, becomes engaged to the second woman and then finally invites both women to a lunch to settle the issue. He eventually insults his mentor, Max Gottlieb, and is suspended from school. He takes up life as an ordinary worker, then marries Leora with her family supporting him based on the promise that he will take up private practice as the only doctor in tiny Wheatsylvania, North Dakota. Frustrated with the work, he moves on to a job at the state Department of Public Health branch in Nautilus, Iowa, then becomes romantically involved with the young daughter of its local director. After a series of political disputes, he resigns and joins the staff of an exclusive private hospital in Chicago. Finally, Arrowsmith is recognized by his former mentor, Gottlieb, for a scientific paper he has written, and is invited to take a post with a wealthy and elite research institute in New York City. The book's climax deals with Arrowsmith's discovery of a phage that destroys bacteria and his experiences as he faces an outbreak of bubonic plague on a fictional Caribbean island.

A story of WWII in Paris. Louis Bromfield (1896–1956) was an American author and conservationist who gained international recognition, winning the Pulitzer Prize and pioneering innovative scientific farming concepts.

Virginia Woolf sempre es va sentir atreta per l'univers de les festes, de la vida en societat, perquè en aquestes trobades els homes i les dones deixen de ser qui són i passen a representar el paper que els convé. La senyora Dalloway a Bond Street és un recull d'alguns dels contes que Virginia Woolf va incloure en el llibre La festa de la senyora Dalloway i d'altres relats que l'autora va escriure entre el 1922 i el 1925, l'època en què treballava en la seva gran novel·la: La senyora Dalloway. L'escriptor Sebastià Portell ha estat l'encarregat de fer la tria de relats, de traduir-los per primera vegada al català i d'escriure el pròleg a aquesta edició.

Lavishly opulent stories of sensual obsession, cultural heritage, and mythological creatures—translated into English for the first time—from a classic Japanese writerFeaturing “The Qilin,” “The Siren's Lament,” and the novella Killing O-Tsuya, this gorgeous new edition of 3 classic works translated by Bryan Karetnyk distills the essence of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's shorter fiction: the co-mingling of Japanese and Chinese mythologies, the chillingly dark side of desire, and the paper-thin line between the sublime and the depraved. “The Qilin”: The sage Confucius travels to a kingdom ruled by a struggling duke, whose pursuit of virtue is threatened by his consort's obsession desire for pleasure.Killing O-Tsuya: A naïve servant elopes with his master's daughter, only to be plunged headlong into a world of murder and corruption.“The Siren's Lament”: Exhausted by a lifestyle of never-ending debauchery, a young prince finds himself in possession of a dazzling, beguiling mermaid.The essential short works of one of the most important and widely-read figured in modern Japanese literature, author of hugely popular works including In Praise of Shadows, The Makioka Sisters, and Naomi; renowned for his investigations of family dynamics, eroticism, and cultural identity.