Search

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 22nd May 1859. His childhood was blighted by his father's heavy drinking which for some years broke up the family. Fortunately, wealthy uncles were willing to support them by paying for education and clothing. He was accepted at the University of Edinburgh to study medicine and also began to write short stories the first, ‘The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe', was published in Blackwood's Magazine. Despite several other stories and some articles in the British Medical Journal his medical studies took priority.When these finished he was appointed as Doctor on the Greenland whaler ‘Hope of Peterhead'in 1880 and then, after graduation, as ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba on its voyage to West Africa.1882 saw a move to Plymouth and his own independent practice. With few patients he resumed writing and completed his first novel, ‘The Mystery of Cloomber', although most of his output was short stories based on his experiences at sea. He married Louisa Hawkins in 1885. However, two years later he met and fell in love with Jean Elizabeth Leckie, though they remained platonic out of respect for, and loyalty to, his wife.His literary career suddenly burst into life in November 1886 with ‘A Study In Scarlet', the first of the fabulously successful Sherlock Holmes stories. With two children to support he now revisited his haphazard commercial arrangements and curtailed everything save for commissions from the Strand Magazine. As a sportsman he was remarkably proficient. He was goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club and played ten first-class cricket matches for the Marylebone Cricket Club as well as captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in East Sussex. In 1891 tired of writing Holmes stories, he began a series of historical novels and even went so far as to apparently kill off Holmes in a lethal brawl with his arch-nemesis Moriarty.Despite heavy and sustained criticism he continued to write in support of the Boer War, a fact he thought contributed to his knighthood in 1902. The following year to great relief and acclaim he brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead in his first outing for a decade.Sadly, his wife Louisa died from TB in 1906 and, a year later, he at last married Jean. During the War and for several years after family deaths had left him depressed. In a search for solace and answers he alighted upon spiritualism and, such was his interest, that he wrote several books on the subject.On 7th July 1930 Conan Doyle was discovered in the hall of Windlesham Manor, his house in East Sussex, clutching his chest dying of a heart attack. He was 71.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship's cook. By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the Infantry being posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur. In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time. By 1904 he had completed his first thriller, The Four Just Men. Since nobody would publish it he resorted to setting up his own publishing company which he called Tallis Press. In 1911 his Congolese stories were published in a collection called Sanders of the River, which became a bestseller. He also started his own racing papers, Bibury's and R. E. Walton's Weekly, eventually buying his own racehorses and losing thousands gambling. A life of exceptionally high income was also mirrored with exceptionally large spending and debts. Wallace now began to take his career as a fiction writer more seriously, signing with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921. He was marketed as the ‘King of Thrillers'and they gave him the trademark image of a trilby, a cigarette holder and a yellow Rolls Royce. He was truly prolific, capable not only of producing a 70,000 word novel in three days but of doing three novels in a row in such a manner. It was in, estimating that by 1928 one in four books being read was written by Wallace, for alongside his famous thrillers he wrote variously in other genres, including science fiction, non-fiction accounts of WWI which amounted to ten volumes and screen plays. Eventually he would reach the remarkable total of 170 novels, 18 stage plays and 957 short stories.Wallace became chairman of the Press Club which to this day holds an annual Edgar Wallace Award, rewarding ‘excellence in writing'. Diagnosed with diabetes his health deteriorated and he soon entered a coma and died of his condition and double pneumonia on the 7th of February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills. He was buried near his home in England at Chalklands, Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.

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.

Evelyn May Clowes was born on 7th May 1872 in Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire. Growing up in genteel circumstances, her early childhood was spent at Charlton Down House near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and her teenage years near Heythrop in the Cotswolds. She was educated at home by governesses, excelling at German, Latin, Greek, shorthand, landscape painting, and fabric and wallpaper design.In 1897 she went to Mauritius as companion to her cousin Caroline and in 1898 married Maurice Wilhemn Wiehe, the owner of a sugar plantation. She gave birth to two stillborn children. After a few years of marriage, she found life difficult and returned to England. Shortly afterwards she went by herself to Australia, arriving in June 1902 and gave birth to a son a few months later. She lived in Melbourne for about eight years. To earn a living she took on a wide and varied range of jobs; she edited a woman's fashion paper, wrote short stories and articles, made blouses, designed embroideries, tilled gardens, acted as a housekeeper, and did other artistic work. Her health was not strong, but she undertook any kind of work which would provide a living for herself and her infant son. This gained her an experience of life which was readily put to use in her literary works.Her first book, ‘The Garden of Contentment', was published in 1902 under her pen-name Elinor Mordaunt. It was the first of many works that covered fiction, short stories, travel and autobiography.She changed her name by deed poll to Evelyn May Mordaunt on 1st July 1915 and gained a further reputation as a writer of short stories for magazines which display both her humour and sense of tragedy. Travel was always high on her priority and the experiences used not only for pleasure but in her writings and, as travel books, ideas in themselves. On 27th January 1933 at Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, she married a retired barrister from Gloucestershire. In her own words, the marriage ‘ended in tragedy.'Elinor Mordaunt died on 25th June 1942 at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. She was 70.

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

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.'

Zona Gale was born on 26th August 1874 in Portage, Wisconsin. She was exceptionally close to her parents and later used them as the basis for characters in her works. She wrote and illustrated her first story at the age of 7.By 16 she was being paid for stories from the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. After studies at the University of Wisconsin, where she received a degree and two masters she moved to New York and applied for jobs at every paper in the city. She was later hired as a secretary to Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet, critic, essayist, banker, and scientist. and immersed herself in his literary circle.Gale returned to her hometown in 1903 and saw that her old world was full of new possibilities. She now dedicated herself to full-time writing.Her first novel ‘Romance Island'was published in 1906 and she also began the popular ‘Friendship Village'series of stories. In 1920 came ‘Miss Lulu Bett', which depicts life in the Mid-West. Adapted into a play it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921. It was a stellar achievement.After the deaths of her parents her works, both fiction and non-fiction, drifted towards mysticism and her belief that problems could be solved through a kind of transcendentalist enlightenment.Gale was a suffragist, an activist, and a liberal Democrat as well as an active member of the National Woman's Party and pacifist. Much of her time was taken up with advancing opportunities for women both at school and as writers. It was a problem she repeatedly emphasized in her novels: women's frustration at their lack of opportunities.'In the mid 20's she began caring for a girl, a relative, Leslyn, and later adopted her. At age 54, she married William L Breese, a childhood friend and a widower. He was a wealthy banker and hosiery manufacturer. She also became a step mother to his daughter, Juliette. In mid-December 1938 she went to Chicago for medical treatment and contracted pneumonia a few days later. Zona Gale died of pneumonia in Passavant Hospital in Chicago on 27th December 1938.

Ethel May Dell was born on 2nd August 1881, in the London borough of Streatham, England to a middle class and comfortably off family.She wrote short stories from an early age, mainly romance themed and located in various parts of the British Empire buy more usually India. For their time they were considered to be rather racy.Her first novel, which she worked on for many years, was constantly rejected by publishers until when finally released in 1911 as ‘The Way of An Eagle'was a huge success and went through 30 reprints.Further works followed, all loved by her audience and generally panned by her critics, but it didn't seem to upset her in the slightest. Her income kept all criticisms and enquiries at bay.In 1922 she married Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Tahourdin Savage. He resigned his commission, devoted himself to her well-being and kept all outside interest away from his very shy and private wife.Across her career she wrote some thirty novels and many short stories in magazines and periodicals which were later collected and published in their own volumes.Ethel May Dell Savage died of cancer on 17th September 1939. She was 58.

Ethel May Dell was born on 2nd August 1881, in the London borough of Streatham, England to a middle class and comfortably off family.She wrote short stories from an early age, mainly romance themed and located in various parts of the British Empire buy more usually India. For their time they were considered to be rather racy.Her first novel, which she worked on for many years, was constantly rejected by publishers until when finally released in 1911 as ‘The Way of An Eagle'was a huge success and went through 30 reprints.Further works followed, all loved by her audience and generally panned by her critics, but it didn't seem to upset her in the slightest. Her income kept all criticisms and enquiries at bay.In 1922 she married Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Tahourdin Savage. He resigned his commission, devoted himself to her well-being and kept all outside interest away from his very shy and private wife.Across her career she wrote some thirty novels and many short stories in magazines and periodicals which were later collected and published in their own volumes.Ethel May Dell Savage died of cancer on 17th September 1939. She was 58.

Ethel May Dell was born on 2nd August 1881, in the London borough of Streatham, England to a middle class and comfortably off family.She wrote short stories from an early age, mainly romance themed and located in various parts of the British Empire buy more usually India. For their time they were considered to be rather racy.Her first novel, which she worked on for many years, was constantly rejected by publishers until when finally released in 1911 as ‘The Way of An Eagle'was a huge success and went through 30 reprints.Further works followed, all loved by her audience and generally panned by her critics, but it didn't seem to upset her in the slightest. Her income kept all criticisms and enquiries at bay.In 1922 she married Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Tahourdin Savage. He resigned his commission, devoted himself to her well-being and kept all outside interest away from his very shy and private wife.Across her career she wrote some thirty novels and many short stories in magazines and periodicals which were later collected and published in their own volumes.Ethel May Dell Savage died of cancer on 17th September 1939. She was 58.

Unfortunately, little biographical information is available for this author.Born is 1869 Asataro Mitamori was a Professor of English at Keio University, TokyoHe died in 1952.

The honour of founding the modern detective story belongs to an American writer. Such tales as'The Purloined Letter'and'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'still stand unrivalled.We in America no more than the world of letters at large, did not readily realize what Poe had done when he created Auguste Dupin—the prototype of Sherlock Holmes et genus omnes, up to the present hour. On Poe's work is built the whole school of French detective story writers. Conan Doyle derived his inspiration from them in turn, and our American writers of to-day are helped from both French and English sources. It is rare enough to find the detective in fiction even to-day, however, who is not lacking in one supreme quality,—scientific imagination. Auguste Dupin had it. Dickens, had he lived a short time longer, might have turned his genius in this direction. The last thing he wrote was the'Mystery of Edwin Drood,'the mystery of which is still unravelled. I have heard the opinion expressed by an eminent living writer that had Dickens'life been prolonged he would probably have become the greatest master of the detective story, except Poe.The detective story heretofore has been based upon one of two methods: analysis or deduction. The former was Poe's, to take the typical example; the latter is Conan Doyle's. Of late the discoveries of science have been brought into play in this field of fiction with notable results. The most prominent of such innovators, indeed the first one, is Arthur Reeve, an American writer, whose'Black Hand'will be found in this collection; which has endeavoured within its limited space to cover the field from the start—the detective story—wholly the outgrowth of the more highly developed police methods which have sprung into being within little more than half a century, being only so old.

Stella Benson was born on the 6th January 1892 in Easthope, Shropshire to parents who were landed gentry.Her early years involved frequent household moves which was difficult for the child as she suffered from ill-health. Some of her early education was spent at schools in Germany and Switzerland and by 10 she had developed a lifelong habit of keeping a diary.In the following years her parents separated, and she rarely saw her father. When she did, he encouraged to pause her writing until she had further experience and could better make sense of the world. When he died, she learned he had been an alcoholic.A winter spent in the West Indies provided material for her first novel ‘I Pose'published the following year in 1915.During the War years she became involved in the women's suffrage movement and dedicated time outside of writing to support the troops and help the poor.In 1918 she decided to travel spending much time in California, where she also tutored at the University of California, and continued to write. In China she met her future husband and after marrying in London, journeyed with him to his various Custom postings through Nanning, Beihai, and Hong Kong and the Far East.The works continued to flow novels, short stories, travel essays all helped to build a deserved and burgeoning reputation.Although her works are now in the forgotten and neglected department her writing style, characters, and narratives more than capably demonstrate her obvious talents. Stella Benson died of pneumonia on the 7th December 1933, at Hạ Long in the Vietnamese province of Tonkin. She was 40.

Robert William Chambers was born on 26th May 1865 in Brooklyn. Chambers was educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and then the Art Students'League. From there he studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, from 1

Alfred Lichtenstein was born on the 23rd August 1889, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, the son of a Jewish manufacturer. He grew up in Berlin before studying law at Erlangen in Bavaria. A writer in the Expressionist style his poems and short stories are short but beautifully honed works. His tragically short life allowed only a small part of his talents to rest with us. Undoubtedly a full life would have given the world a very gifted literary force. Alfred Lichenstein volunteered for duty in the German Army for World War I. He died on the front at the Somme in the early months of the war on 25th September 1914. He was 25.

Ferguson Wright Hume was born in Powick, Worcestershire on the 8th July 1859.When he was three the family emigrated to Dunedin in New Zealand. Here he started his education at the Otago Boys'High School before studying law at the University of Ota

Ferguson Wright Hume was born in Powick, Worcestershire on the 8th July 1859.When he was three the family emigrated to Dunedin in New Zealand. Here he started his education at the Otago Boys'High School before studying law at the University of Ota

Stefan Zweig was born on the 28th November 1881 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and into a wealthy Jewish family with interests in banking and textiles.He studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and achieved his degree in 1904.Zweig first published in 1900 and two decades later was a popular and highly regarded author in many parts of the world, although not in England. During the Great War he served in the Archives of the Ministry of War and supported Austria's war effort through his writings in the ‘Neue Freie Presse'. Whilst his work praised his Country's progress and, on occasions, its excesses and massacres, he later claimed, in his memoir, that he was a pacifist.In 1912 he began an affair with the married, and mother or two, Friderike Maria von Winternitz, but it was only in 1920 that circumstances allowed them to marry. She took care of much of his business interests and supported him artistically. In this decade too many of his most famous works including the short stories; ‘Amok', and ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman'(filmed in 1948 by Max Ophüls), novels; ‘Confusion of Feelings'and biographies including that on Marie Antoinette (filmed by MGM in 1938) were published.He was also the librettist with Richard Strauss of two operas and a keen collector of autographed musical manuscripts. His collection of over two hundred pieces was later donated to the British Library. In 1934, Zweig, as a Jew, and finding life very difficult under his anti-Semitic government and the neighbouring Nazi's persuaded him to leave Austria for England. In 1940 Zweig, now divorced and married to his second wife, and former secretary, Lotte Altmann, left London and via New York moved to Petrópolis, a German-colonized town 50 miles north of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Although he continued to write he became, along with his wife, increasingly depressed about the situation in Europe and the future for humanity, His memoir ‘The World of Yesterday'was completed on the 22nd February 1942.The following day the Zweig's were found in their house dead of a barbiturate overdose, holding each other's hand. He was 60.

Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex.His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. There he struggled with constraints and boundaries and by night he took to a bohemian lifestyle. Middleton moved into rooms in Blackfriars and joined the New Bohemians club where his literary contacts grew.He became an editor at Vanity Fair where he told a fellow editor, the notorious Frank Harris, that he wanted to pursue a career as a poet. Shortly afterwards Harris published Middleton's poem ‘The Bathing Boy'.As an author he is most remembered for his short ghost stories.Richard Middleton died on 1st December 1911. He was 29.

Joshua Albert Flynn was born in Sheerness, Kent, on 15th September 1863. He was educated at private schools and later graduated from King's College, London. His initial career was with the Civil Service where he thrived. A marriage to Ada Parkinson brought two sons and three daughters into their lives. He worked in South Africa as a financial adviser to Lord Kitchener before stints at the Admiralty and the War Office. In 1916 he was appointed director-general of finance at the Ministry of Pensions. His stellar professional career brought him a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1910 and a knighthood in 1919. His career in literature started late and is almost forgotten today. Although he wrote a handful of novels, he was well regarded as the author of short stories for children. But amongst the 250 stories he wrote and published in the leading periodicals and the magazines of the day his ambitions spread much wider. He was able to write across a number of genres. His humourous stories received particular praise as did his many science fiction stories, where undoubtedly his time in Government helped bring across a particular way of imparting information into the structure of narratives as normal everyday folk came up against terrifying and dystopian happenings.Owen Oliver, died in Streatham, south London on 8th October 1933. He was 70.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on the 30th August 1797 in Somers Town, London.Her mother, the famous feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft died when Mary was only 11 days old and she was raised by her father, the philosopher, novelist, journalist, and perpetually in debt, William Godwin.Though Mary received little formal education her father taught her a broad range of subjects and added to her bright and curious personality she easily absorbed a good and broad education.In July 1814, after conducting a secret affair with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had earlier promised to pay off yet another round of her father's business debts, the pair eloped to France. Within two months, penniless and pregnant they returned to England.Her husbands'affairs caused her frequent heartbreak but despite all the travails, including the loss of her own child, Shelley's recent inheritance gave them the opportunity to journey again to Europe.It was here that ‘Frankenstein'was born and established Mary's own name in literature.Her life hereafter was plagued with loss; the death of two further children and then her husband in a boating accident. Her writing continued through novels, travel pieces and biographies. Her short stories, some based in Europe, tackle difficult situations and genres as well the obstacles that women were burdened with in society. Her editorship of her late husband's poetry was also widely praised. Mary's radical politics continued to guide her journey throughout her life but, by 1840, illness had begun to haunt her years, depriving her of energy and vigour. Mary Shelley died on the 1st February 1851, at Chester Square, London of a suspected brain tumour. She was 53.

Louisa MacDonald was born in 1845, one of eleven children of part Scottish descent. Together with three of her sisters they were known as the ‘MacDonald sisters'primarily because of their marriages to well-known men. In 1866 she married the wealthy industrialist Alfred Baldwin in a double wedding with her sister Anne. After giving birth to Stanley on the 3rd August 1867, who would go on to become Prime Minister, she drifted into an unhappy life in her then residence in Worcestershire. She had at least one miscarriage and days alone depressed and in darkness.During the 1870's the couple travelled to find a lasting cure and tried a variety of treatments which led to her recovery in 1883. She now became a leading figure in her local village of Wilden, near Stourbridge.Her writing career of novels, short stories and poetry is often overlooked, as was the case with so many women, yet her works reveal many talents and a gift for melding odd and weird circumstances into seemingly everyday life. Louisa Baldwin died in 1925.

Joshua Albert Flynn was born in Sheerness, Kent, on 15th September 1863. He was educated at private schools and later graduated from King's College, London. His initial career was with the Civil Service where he thrived. A marriage to Ada Parkinson brought two sons and three daughters into their lives. He worked in South Africa as a financial adviser to Lord Kitchener before stints at the Admiralty and the War Office. In 1916 he was appointed director-general of finance at the Ministry of Pensions. His stellar professional career brought him a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1910 and a knighthood in 1919. His career in literature started late and is almost forgotten today. Although he wrote a handful of novels, he was well regarded as the author of short stories for children. But amongst the 250 stories he wrote and published in the leading periodicals and the magazines of the day his ambitions spread much wider. He was able to write across a number of genres. His humourous stories received particular praise as did his many science fiction stories, where undoubtedly his time in Government helped bring across a particular way of imparting information into the structure of narratives as normal everyday folk came up against terrifying and dystopian happenings.Owen Oliver, died in Streatham, south London on 8th October 1933. He was 70.

Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex.His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. There he struggled with constraints and boundaries and by night he took to a bohemian lifestyle. Middleton moved into rooms in Blackfriars and joined the New Bohemians club where his literary contacts grew.He became an editor at Vanity Fair where he told a fellow editor, the notorious Frank Harris, that he wanted to pursue a career as a poet. Shortly afterwards Harris published Middleton's poem ‘The Bathing Boy'.As an author he is most remembered for his short ghost stories.Richard Middleton died on 1st December 1911. He was 29.

Lettice Galbraith is yet another of those mysterious women of British literature of whom little was recorded.Lizzie Susan Gibson was born on the 27th January 1859 in Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire into a comfortable middle-class family.Her education was primarily private but at fifteen her father died, and life became rather different.After several years in London, she moved with her mother to Reigate in Surrey. In 1885 she published her first story anonymously and her pseudonym ‘Lettice Galbraith'only appeared from late 1892.Although he canon of works is small, she mainly achieved her reputation on a single volume of ghost and supernatural stories ‘New Ghost Stories'.After her mother's death in 1901 she moved to London and continued to write, this time moving on from the short story to the novel as well as reverting to her given name.For the last two decades of her life, she did not continue her literary career.Lettice Galbraith died on 8th July 1932 at Downe, then in Kent. She was 73.

Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Hanley one of the six towns that formed the Potteries that later joined together to become Stoke on Trent; the area in which most of his works are located. For a short time he worked for his solicitor father before realising that to advance his life he would need to become his own man. Moving to London at 21 he obtained work as a solicitor's clerk and gradually moved into a career of Journalism. At the turn of the Century he turned full time to writing and shortly thereafter in 1903 he moved to Paris and in 1908 published to great acclaim The Old Wives Tale. With this his reputation was set. Clayhanger and The Old Wives Tale are perhaps his greatest and most lauded novels. But standing next to these are many fine short stories and it is to these in this volume we turn our attention. Bennett bathes us in vignettes of life, of characters that whatever their ambitions are easy to immerse ourselves in.

Alfred Lichtenstein was born on the 23rd August 1889, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, the son of a Jewish manufacturer. He grew up in Berlin before studying law at Erlangen in Bavaria. A writer in the Expressionist style his poems and short stories are short but beautifully honed works. His tragically short life allowed only a small part of his talents to rest with us. Undoubtedly a full life would have given the world a very gifted literary force.Alfred Lichenstein volunteered for duty in the German Army for World War I. He died on the front at the Somme in the early months of the war on 25th September 1914. He was 25.

Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell was born on the 1st November 1885 on Hayling Island in Hampshire. Her childhood was fraught with problems, her alcoholic father left early in her life and was later found dead on a London Street. Life thereafter was poverty with an uncaring mother.However, her talents took her to the Slade School of Fine Art and later to study in Paris. Her first fiction, written at a mere 16, was a violent medieval historical novel, ‘The Viper of Milan'. Initially rejected by several publishers it went on to become a best-seller After this her prolific writings were the main financial support for the family. Her literary output numbered over 150 volumes, mainly under the pseudonym of Marjorie Bowen but she also used the names Joseph Shearing, George R Preedy, John Winch, Robert Paye and Margaret Campbell. Within this output she assigned the pseudonyms to the various genres she worked across, from Historical fiction to supernatural short stories. Perhaps her best known work is the 1909 book ‘Black Magic', a Gothic horror novel about a medieval witch.Several of her works were also adapted into films. She was married twice. The first to Zefferino Emilio Constanza (they had two children), who died of tuberculosis, and then to Arthur L Long (and another two children).Marjorie Bowen died on the 23rd December 1952 at St Charles Hospital in North Kensington, London after suffering a serious concussion from a fall in her bedroom. She was 67.

Alfred Noyes was born on the 16th September, 1880 in Wolverhampton, England. When Noyes was four, the family moved to Aberystwyth in Wales where his father now taught Latin and Greek and encouraged his son's education and love for literature. The beautiful Welsh coast and mountains were a lifetime inspiration for his later lyrical poetry.His classical literature studies at Exeter College, Oxford were sidelined by his time spent rowing and writing. Instead of sitting his finals, he met with a publisher about releasing ‘The Loom of Years'. Despite failing to get a degree, the critical acclaim to his volume established him as a promising new voice in English poetry.‘The Highwayman'in 1906 cemented Noyes's reputation. Its rhythmic and vivid storytelling, became immensely popular and remains one of his best-known works. These early successes led to a prolific period of numerous poetry volumes, primarily with a romantic and idealised vision of England, with its historical and mythical past and natural beauties of the landscape. In 1907, he married the American Garnett Daniels, and this led to frequent travels across the Atlantic. He became a lecturer, often on world peace and disarmament, and a visiting professor at various American universities which further broadened his influence and readership. During World War I, his defective eyesight meant his military service was on attachment to the Foreign Office, where he worked with John Buchan on propaganda, despite he himself being an outspoken pacifist and his detestation of war. Noyes also wrote several novels and short stories though poetry was by far the main claimant on his talents.He faced several personal challenges especially after the death of his wife in 1926. He later remarried, to Mary Angela and converted to Roman Catholicism, which particularly influenced his later works. Noyes continued writing and lecturing throughout his life and remained both a significant figure in literary circles and decidedly popular among the reading public. Alfred Noyes died on the 25th June, 1958, on the Isle of Wight. He was 77.

Stephen P H Butler Leacock FRSC was born on the 30th December 1869 in Swanmore, near Southampton, England, the third of eleven children.The family emigrated to Canada in 1876 to live on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario. There Leacock was home-schooled and later enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto. Academically he was very strong and enrolled at the University of Toronto to study languages and literature. He left there after his alcoholic father abandoned the family and finances were too stretched to continue his attendance. He now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher and with it a regular income.Leacock published humorous articles in many Canadian and US magazines but his real passion was economics and political theory. In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903.His marriage to Beatrix Hamilton produced a single child 15 years later. Over time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son's diminutive stature of only four feet. He accepted a post at McGill University and kept it until he retired in 1936. His work ‘Elements of Political Science', was adopted as a standard textbook for two decades and was also his most profitable. He now also began public speaking and lecturing. In 1910, he privately printed some articles as ‘Literary Lapses'. It was then released by a recognised publisher, and he became a commercially successful writer. His collections of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire were now frequently published along with biographies and several award-winning volumes on Canada.Politically Leacock was a difficult creature. He opposed women's right to vote, was a champion of Empire but advocated social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views.Leacock has been forgotten as an economist, but it's often said that in 1911 more people had heard of him than had heard of Canada. For the decade after 1915 Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world.Stephen Leacock died on 28th March 1944 of throat cancer in Toronto, Canada. He was 74.

Robert Barr was born in Glasgow, Scotland on the 16th September 1849. Five years later the family emigrated to a farm near Muirkirk in Upper Canada. His early years were uneventful as the family settled into their new lives and Barr began his education.A career path as a teacher opened up for him and, by 1874, he had been appointed as headmaster at the Central School at Windsor. Concurrently he also wrote travel and humourous articles for magazines. Within two years their success in the regional periodicals encouraged him to change careers to become a reporter and columnist.In August 1876, at age 27, he married Eva Bennett and they began a family.A half decade later he was the exchange editor of the ‘Free Press'but decided to relocate to London to establish an English edition and to write fiction, which both met with much success.Over the years he was a prolific writer and in 1892, along with Jerome K Jerome, he established ‘The Idler'magazine and, just after the turn of the century, became its sole proprietor.Although a number of his crime novels and short stories are parodies on Sherlock Holmes and other best-selling detectives of the time, he also wrote short stories across a whole range of subjects and genres usually with intriguing ideas and many laced with wit and humour.Robert Barr died at his home in Woldingham, Surrey of heart disease on the 21st October 1912. He was 63.

Richard Bernard Heldmann was born on 12th October 1857, in St Johns Wood, North London. By his early 20's Heldmann began publishing fiction for the myriad magazine publications that had sprung up and were eager for good well-written content. In October 1882, Heldmann was promoted to co-editor of Union Jack, a popular magazine, but his association with the publication ended suddenly in June 1883. It appears Heldman was prone to issuing forged cheques to finance his lifestyle. In April 1884 he was sentenced to 18 months hard labour. In order to be well away from the scandal and the damage that this had caused to his reputation Heldmann adopted a pseudonym on his release from jail. Shortly thereafter the name ‘Richard Marsh'began to appear in the literary periodicals. The use of his mother's maiden name as part of it seems both a release and a lifeline.A stroke of very good fortune arrived with his novel ‘The Beetle'published in 1897. This would turn out to be his greatest commercial success and added some much-needed gravitas to his literary reputation. Marsh was a prolific writer and wrote almost 80 volumes of fiction as well as many short stories, across many genres from horror and crime to romance and humour. His unusual characters, plotting devices and other literary developments have identified his legacy as one of the best British writers of his time. Richard Marsh died from heart disease in Haywards Heath in Sussex on 9th August 1915. He was 57.

Louisa MacDonald was born in 1845, one of eleven children of part Scottish descent. Together with three of her sisters they were known as the ‘MacDonald sisters'primarily because of their marriages to well-known men. In 1866 she married the wealthy industrialist Alfred Baldwin in a double wedding with her sister Anne. After giving birth to Stanley on the 3rd August 1867, who would go on to become Prime Minister, she drifted into an unhappy life in her then residence in Worcestershire. She had at least one miscarriage and days alone depressed and in darkness.During the 1870's the couple travelled to find a lasting cure and tried a variety of treatments which led to her recovery in 1883. She now became a leading figure in her local village of Wilden, near Stourbridge.Her writing career of novels, short stories and poetry is often overlooked, as was the case with so many women, yet her works reveal many talents and a gift for melding odd and weird circumstances into seemingly everyday life. Louisa Baldwin died in 1925.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire.He was educated at Malvern College, Tonbridge School, Eastbourne College and finally Trinity College, Cambridge where he focused on his passions of mountaineering and poetry and published several volumes.Life for Crowley was to abandon his parents'Christian faith and instead to inject himself into Western esotericism. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was trained in ceremonial magic before studying both Hindu and Buddhist practices in India.On his Egyptian honeymoon in 1904 he claimed contact with an entity―Aiwass―who gave him the sacred Book of the Law which served as the basis for the Thelema religion where he identified as its prophet. During the Great War, which he spent in the United States, he claimed to be working for British Intelligence but by the 1920s he had decamped to pursue a libertine lifestyle in Sicily, and in the ensuing scandals was evicted by the Italian Government.He divided the following two decades between France, Germany, and England, and the continuing promotion of Thelema.During his life he gained widespread notoriety for his drug use, his bisexuality, and his alarming views on society. In short, polite society frowned on his ways, his thoughts and his influence but to many others his stance had much of value. Even after death he was a darling for the 60's counterculture but his influence has since waned. His literary works were both prolific and covered many topics. In the early part of his career he published many poetry books, even plays, before his darker and more forceful works came to dominate his output.Aleister Crowley died on 1st December 1947 at Hastings in England. He was 72.

Joseph Conrad was born on 3rd December 1857 in Berdychiv in the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His birthplace had been part of Poland which its neighbours dismembered into their own Empires.Conrad's early years were spent in constant movement, his father was politically active and frequently in trouble trying to help re-ignite a Polish state which meant arrests and exile and the young Conrad himself suffered from ill-health, spending a year at a retreat in Kyiv recovering. By 11 he was orphaned. His education was mainly private and although he was a voracious reader, he was a poor academic student. Now, being raised by an uncle who wanted Conrad to have a worthwhile job, it was hoped that a merchant-marine career might bring out the best of him.At 16 he was sent to Marseille to embark on that adventure. Conrad himself was determined to be both a sailor and a great writer.Life on board a ship was full of adventures and experiences which included gun-running and close quarter encounters with political conspiracies.By his mid 30's Conrad had returned to shore permanently to add his prodigious literary talents to full time writing. Although he wrote with a comprehensive command in English his spoken English was often cited as ‘horrible'. He was now also a British Citizen. Conrad brought to English Literature both narrative mastery, compelling prose and fully formed characters as well as a deeper examination of the human psyche in a wealth of work. He wrote many novels, short stories, nonfiction, and memoirs which are rightly regarded today as some of the finest in English literature.Jospeh Conrad died on the 3rd August 1924 at Bishopsbourne, Kent in England. He was 66.

Robert William Chambers was born on 26th May 1865 in Brooklyn. Chambers was educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and then the Art Students'League. From there he studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, from 1

David Caradoc Evans was born on the 31st December 1878 in Rhydlewis, Cardiganshire.He left school at only 14 and worked in a series of menial jobs before moving to London to become a draper's apprentice. After attending classes at St Pancras Working Men's College he became a journalist and worked at The Daily Mirror from 1917 and then edited T P's Weekly from 1923 until it closed 6 years later.His first and most famous work was a series of short stories called ‘My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales'in 1915. His intention was to shock with his personally experienced stories of poverty, meanness and hypocrisy. The Welsh critics were brutally savage and for a time he was called ‘the best hated man in Wales'.As well as collections of short stories he wrote novels and plays but nothing was to achieve either the success, or the howls of rage, that his short stories ever did.He married for the first time on Christmas Day 1907 but, after divorcing, he married the Countess Helene Marguerite Barcynska, a writer of romantic novels under the pseudonym Oliver Sandys. The couple lived at Ruislip, Middlesex for a time before, with the outbreak of war in 1939, they returned to Aberystwyth.David Caradoc Evans died of heart failure at the Aberystwyth and Cardiganshire General Hospital, Aberystwyth on the 11th January 1945. He was 66.

David Caradoc Evans was born on the 31st December 1878 in Rhydlewis, Cardiganshire.He left school at only 14 and worked in a series of menial jobs before moving to London to become a draper's apprentice. After attending classes at St Pancras Working Men's College he became a journalist and worked at The Daily Mirror from 1917 and then edited T P's Weekly from 1923 until it closed 6 years later.His first and most famous work was a series of short stories called ‘My People: Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales'in 1915. His intention was to shock with his personally experienced stories of poverty, meanness and hypocrisy. The Welsh critics were brutally savage and for a time he was called ‘the best hated man in Wales'.As well as collections of short stories he wrote novels and plays but nothing was to achieve either the success, or the howls of rage, that his short stories ever did.He married for the first time on Christmas Day 1907 but, after divorcing, he married the Countess Helene Marguerite Barcynska, a writer of romantic novels under the pseudonym Oliver Sandys. The couple lived at Ruislip, Middlesex for a time before, with the outbreak of war in 1939, they returned to Aberystwyth.David Caradoc Evans died of heart failure at the Aberystwyth and Cardiganshire General Hospital, Aberystwyth on the 11th January 1945. He was 66.

Robert William Chambers was born on 26th May 1865 in Brooklyn. Chambers was educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and then the Art Students'League. From there he studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, from 1886 to 1893. His illustrative work was good and displayed at the Salon from as early as 1889. On returning to New York, he sold illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. His career then took a dramatic turn for reasons that are not entirely clear. His new expression was in writing. He had written his first novel in 1887 ‘In the Quarter'and felt that was where his time would now be best spent.His best-known work is ‘The King in Yellow'(1895), a highly vivid collection of Art Nouveau short stories. These stories are woven together by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title, which drives those who read it insane. This classic of Weird fiction was a genre he would return to again in several short story collections during his career. Chambers was also a writer of historical fiction and wrote many, including a trilogy of novels, set during the earlier Franco-Prussian War.Robert W. Chambers died on 16th December 1933, three days after intestinal surgery.

Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London. The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him.He resumed his education at Mr Cole's private boarding school in Highbury, Islington. Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story. This ‘little brute'helped create one of England's greatest writers. On leaving school, in 1841, he became a clerk at a tea merchant before, 2 years later, publishing his first short story. However, his first novel was rejected and remained so during his lifetime. A brief stint at Lincoln's Inn to please his father and to acquire a steady income was halted by his father's death. Collins then wrote and published his fathers'memoirs. He then completed his legal education though he would never practice. In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens and there now started a period of sustained literary output and a remarkable lifelong friendship. His stories were published in Dicken's magazines, and he toured with Dicken's theatrical before the two of them travelled to the Continent.By the early 1860's worrying signs of ill-health appeared with rheumatic gout. As it worsened, he sought respite and cures in German spa towns and gave up writing to help his recuperation.His personal life had become very complicated. He was living with the widowed Caroline Graves and conducting an affair with a much younger Martha Rudd. With the serialised release of ‘The Moonstone'and vicious attacks of gout Caroline left him and married another. Collins was now prescribed opium and was soon its lifelong dependent. Martha bore him two children and with the return of a now divorced Caroline Graves he now divided his time between the two women.In 1874 he set aside writing to tour North America on a reading tour.Throughout his later years he continued to write and publish. In all 30 novels, 14 plays, 60 short stories and over a 100 non-fiction essays as well as many more collaborations with Dickens.In 1884 the Society of Authors elected him as it's Vice-President.Wilkie Collins died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, in London. He was 65.

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.

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.

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.

A distinguished American writer of fiction said to me lately:'Did you ever think of the vital American way we live? We are always going after mental gymnastics.'Now the mystery story is mental gymnastics. By the time the reader has followed a chain of facts through he has exercised his mind,—given himself a mental breather. But the claims of the true mystery story do not end with the general reader. It is entitled to the consideration of the discriminating because it indubitably takes its own place as a gauge of mastery in the field of the short story.The demand was never quite so keen as it is now. The currents of literature as of all things change swiftly these times. This world of ours has become very sophisticated. It has suffered itself to be exploited till there is no external wonder left. Retroactively the demand for mystery, which is the very soul of interest, must find new expression. Thus we turn inward for fresh thrills to the human comedy, and outward to the realm of the supernatural.The riddle story is the most naïve form of the mystery story. It may contain a certain element of the supernatural—be tinged with mysticism—but its motive and the revelation thereof must be frankly materialistic—of the earth, earthy. In this respect it is very closely allied to the detective story. The model riddle story should be utterly mundane in motive—told in direct terms. Here again the genius of that great modern master asserts itself, and in'The Oblong Box'we have an early model of its kind. The stories of this collection cover a wide range and are the choice of reading in several literatures.

French literature has rightly acquired a famed and storied reputation over the centuries. Many of its authors have created both literary sensations and literary movements the equal of any other language.In this volume we examine the Short Story and whilst Dumas, de Maupassant, Hugo and Zola are here so too are others with less exposure outside the shores of France than those leviathans but of equal talent. Within these rich and carefully crafted stories gems of literary genius await your eyes.

The ghost story is as old as human speech,—and perhaps even antedates it. A naïve acceptance of the supernatural was unquestionably one of the primal attributes of human intelligence. The ghost story may thus quite conceivably be the first form of tale ever invented. It makes its appearance comparatively early in the annals of literature. Who that has read it is likely to forget Pliny's account in a letter to an intimate of an apparition shortly after death to a mutual acquaintance? Old books of tales and legends are full of the ghost story. It has persisted throughout the ages. It began to attain some real standing in literature,—to take its definite place,—a little more than a century ago. Like the apparition it embodies it had always been—and is still to-day even—more or less discredited. Mrs. Radcliffe gave it a new being and even a certain dignity in her'Castle of Otranto'; and after her came Sir Walter Scott who frankly surrendered to the power and charm of the theme. The line of succession has been continuous. The ghost has held his own with his human fellow in fiction, and his tale has been told with increasing skill as the art of the writer has developed. To-day the case for the ghost as an element in fiction is an exceedingly strong one. There has indeed sprung into being within a couple of decades a new school of such writers. Nowadays almost every fictionist of account produces one good thriller at least of this sort. The temptation is irresistible for the simple reason that the theme imposes absolutely no limit on the imagination.The reader will find here a careful selection illustrating the growth in art of this exotic in literature during the past fifty years, and for a contrast, spanning the centuries, the naïve narration of Pliny the Younger.

There is an intermediate ground between our knowledge of life and the unknown which is readily conceived as covered by the term mysticism. Mystery stories of high rank often fall under this general classification. They are neither of earth, heaven nor Hades, but may partake of either. In the hands of a master they present at times a rare, if even upon occasion, unduly thrilling—aesthetic charm. The examples which it has been possible to gather within the space of this volume are offered as the best of their type.The humorist, thank heaven, we have always with us. Spectres cannot afright him, nor mundane terrors deflect him from his path. He takes nothing either in earth or heaven seriously, as is his God-given right. Some of the best examples of what he has done in the general field of mystery are presented here for the first time in any collection.

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.

The case for the'psychic'element in literature rests on a very old foundation; it reaches back to the ancient masters,—the men who wrote the Greek tragedies. Remorse will ever seem commonplace alongside the furies. Ever and always the shadow of the supernatural invites, pursues us. As the art of literature has progressed it has grown along with it. To-day there is a whole new school of writers of Ghost-Stories, and the domain of the invisible is being invaded by explorers in many paths. We do not believe so much more, perhaps, that is, we do not so openly express a belief, but art has finally and frankly claimed the supernatural for its own. One discerning authority even goes so far as to assert that the borders of its domain will be greatly enlarged in the wonderful new field of the screen.There is no motive in a story, no image in poetry, that can give us quite the thrill of a supernatural idea. If we were formally charged with this we might resent the imputation, but the evidence has persisted from the beginning, lives on every hand, and multiplies daily. What we have been in the habit of calling the'machinery'of the old Greek drama—its supernatural effects—has come finally to be an art cultivated with care at the present hour, and has given us some wonderful new writers. In fact, few of the best masters for a generation now have been able to resist its persistent and abiding charm. Every writer of true imagination, almost without exception, including even certain realists, has given us at least one story, long or short, in which the central motive is purely psychical in the Greek sense of the word.The whole subject opens up a virgin field which has after all only begun to be tilled. Within the coming generation we may look for great artists to devote their whole powers to it, as Algernon Blackwood is doing to-day. A simple underlying reason is enough to account for it all—the new field imposes simply no limit on the imagination. In addition to all that science has taught us, there is illimitable store of myth and legend to aid, to draw from, to work in, to work over, as Lord Dunsany has shown us. It is the most significant movement in literature at the present hour, and whether it is supported by a special background of interest—as at present in spiritism—or not, the assertion is logical that it is creating a new body of fictional literature of permanent importance for the first time in the history of literature. The human comedy seems to have been exploited to its final limits; as the art of the novel, the art of the stage, but too sadly prove to-day. We have turned outward for new thrills to the supernatural and we are getting them.It only remains to be added that the present great interest in spiritualism and allied phenomena has made necessary the addition of certain material of a'literal'character which we believe will be found quite as interesting by the general reader as the purely literary portion of the book.

Bithia Mary Sheppard was born in Kilgefin, County Roscommon, Ireland, the only daughter of an Anglican Church of Ireland rector. She was educated at Rockferry, Cheshire and in Tours, France. Her initial fame rested as a horsewoman with the Kildare Hunt. In 1871, she married John Stokes Croker, an officer in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and later the Royal Munster Fusiliers.In 1877, the couple moved to Madras and then Bengal. They would spend 14 years in India.Bithia only began writing at the age of 33 and in her life wrote 42 novels and 7 volumes of short stories. Within her short story creations are much anthologized ghost, supernatural and macabre tales. Many of her novels reveal a side of Empire that is undeniably of its time and a fine example of both talent and observation.After her husband's retirement at the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1892, the couple moved to County Wicklow, then London, and finally Folkestone, where her husband died in 1911.Bithia Mary Croker died at 30 Dorset Square, London, on 20th October 1920.