Résultats Éditeur "Deadtree Publishing" dans Anthologies et nouvelles

The German peoples spent centuries as tribes and regions without being a whole. Otto von Bismarck was instrumental in unifying these central European states into one country albeit based on the militaristic doctrine of Prussia. In the 20th Century its history was blighted by its capacity to resort to war to fulfill its ambitions, or right its perceived historical wrongs. In this volume the short stories by its greatest authors readily attest that their talents are equal to the greatest in World literature.

Whatever the reasons given or proffered the reality and known facts are that if you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, that feeling that in an empty house we are not quite alone and that sometimes the sharp, sheer shock of what just happened is upon us then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your listening pleasure.

For an atheist it’s a great deal, though it does suggest atheism may have a weak point. For those of faith it’s a matter of jam now and purgatory tomorrow. A bargain many artists feel is something they can live with. For agnostics it’s usually a question of can the afterlife really be that bad, would workplace regulations reach all parts of heaven and hell. However, in this volume the terms are agreed and the Devil pays his fees and the character his dues, each happy to wait a few decades for the eternal payback.

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.

Whilst faith can be practiced anywhere religious faith is usually at a church or temple. The stories in this volume are centered both in houses of worship and with those with a strong association to its calling. Of course, short story authors have a determined belief in their undoubted talents to make us look at this subject from different angles. In this volume they take us on literary journeys that are revealing and challenging yet always entertaining.

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.

Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch. But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives. Indeed their lives, in their own eyes, become almost meaningless, their sense of themselves subsumed under a myriad of problems, whether real or imagined. Seismic events in a life might crush them; the loss of a loved one for instance. Coping is difficult, support hard to find and isolation abounds.

Our fear of the Devil, whatever his temptations and rewards, is amplified by the thought of eternal damnation in his hell house service. In this volume our authors are all from Europe and see the Devil in ways that we recognise and yet are culturally distinct to the European mainland.

In this volume we examine the German language. Or rather the authors who wrote in German but are here translated into English. German is most often called the language of philosophers due to its precision and clarity. However, if you’ve studied German, you will know that sentence construction can be difficult to grasp. However, within these stories the language of these great talents express themselves in dazzling prose and searching narratives. And the characters? Clearly the works of genius.

Stephen Crane was born 1st November, 1871 in Newark, New Jersey and was the eighth surviving child out of fourteen. Incredibly he began writing at the age of four and was published several times by the age of sixteen. His poems, predominantly short and abstract, display another facet of his talent which questions, advises and presents his audience with much to contemplate. Some are difficult to engage with but with the effort comes the reward.

Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London. He pursued 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.

Runyon's short stories are almost always told in the first person by a narrator who is never named and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and has no job that can be gleaned from his musings, nor does he admit to any criminal involvement; he’s a bystander, an observer, an average street-corner Joe. Runyon described himself as 'being known to one and all as a guy who is just around'. That line seems to say a lot about Runyon and his life.

The world since earliest times has always had spies. Information is a valuable commodity and even more so in times of war or tension. Many authors and poets have had real life incarnations as spies from Christopher Marlowe and Aphra Behn to Daniel Defoe. But it’s a dangerous game. Working in a murky, secretive world where any trust given could be at the expense of your life.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. His classic "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" carefully pulls apart the relationship between two cousins one hot summer. Something has to give and with Fitzgerald its an absolute certainty that the brittle lives of young women finally snap in unique ways.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. The Russian Literary Tradition has justly earned a magnificent reputation. The Russian Empire of the Czars was a huge and disparate patchwork of peoples ruled by an overbearing elite that employed a middle-class bureaucracy to keep the working class firmly underfoot. Within its vaulted ranks are a role call of many of the greatest literary talents of the ages.

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

'A Nice Price' & 'The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown' from The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour. Damon Runyon is acknowledged as one of the great writers to come out of 20th-century America. Runyon's short stories are almost always told in the first person by a narrator who is never named and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and has no job that can be gleaned from his musings, nor does he admit to any criminal involvement; he’s a bystander, an observer, an average street-corner Joe.

Runyon's short stories are almost always told in the first person by a narrator who is never named and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and has no job that can be gleaned from his musings, nor does he admit to any criminal involvement; he’s a bystander, an observer, an average street-corner Joe. Runyon described himself as 'being known to one and all as a guy who is just around'. That line seems to say a lot about Runyon and his life.

An essential for life. Without it life is impossible. Was it always that way? In this volume of stories, water becomes the landscape and narrative, a character more deadly and perhaps more aware of its power than us mere mortals. We are beguiled by its sight, whether softly breaking waves on a sandy beach or a thunderous storm engulfing the cliff face. But also in other forms; as lakes and lagoons. Water is everywhere, and where there is water is the shadow of menace.