Showing results by narrator "Mark Young" in All Categories

David Planer and I walked into the hotel bar through opposite doors and met in the middle of the room before anyone else could accost him.

De Profundis is a 50,000-word letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas, his lover. Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897; he was not allowed to send it, but took it with him upon release. In it he repudiates Lord Alfred for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting."

David Riley knew that he spent rather too much time watching the world go by as he worked at his desk in the window of his shabby flat. He looked down on a busy city street and in a couple of months he had come to recognise the familiar faces of those who lived and worked there.

Mr Gabo was an unlikely looking author, but then most of their authors were unlikely looking. Asphodel Books always attracted the improbable.

Up until the moment I approached the door everything had been effortless. My connections from Amsterdam to Bialystok had been on time, and there, at the airport, had been my old friend David to greet me.

Justin had been humiliated many times in front of his fellow students. On a regular basis they were all made to put their work up on the studio wall for a Criticism, when their tutors would patiently explain exactly how and why their art failed.

I spent nearly forty years working for the District Council in their Housing Department, and now that I've retired I look back and wonder whether I wasted my life there?

The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan European feel. Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern life, especially the effects of isolation and the dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their inhospitable man-made environment. The Grandmaster's Final Game: The Church of St Ignatius of Loyola appeared to be empty but the Reverend Mooney, S.J., still sat waiting in the confessional, squinting at his watch in the shadows.

The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan European feel. The Impasse: The Ulymas Organisation was located in a sprawl of dilapidated buildings on the far west side of the city. None of the structures were more than four floors high and the exteriors were of bland, whitewashed brickwork, the paint flaking away from the walls.

The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan European feel. The Search for Kruptos: The man who writes these lines bears only an infinitesimal resemblance to the bespectacled student of the waking world who left Dublin æons ago clad in his father's three-piece suit.

Mr. Polly is an ordinary middle-aged man who is tired of his wife's nagging and his dreary job as the owner of a regional gentleman's outfitters. Faced with the threat of bankruptcy, he concludes that the only way to escape his frustrating existence is by burning his shop to the ground, and killing himself. Unexpected events, however, conspire at the last moment to lead the bewildered Mr. Polly to a bright new future - after he saves a life, fakes his death, and escapes to a life of heroism, hope and ultimate happiness.

The tale of a man who is incapacitated by visions of the future and the cacophony of overheard thoughts, and yet who can't help trying to subvert his vividly glimpsed destiny, it is easy to understand The Lifted Veil as being autobiographically revealing of Eliot's sensitivity to public opinion and her awareness that her days concealed behind a pseudonym were doomed to a tragic unveiling (as indeed came to pass soon after this novella's publication). 

The protagonist Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose great hall, Heorot, is plagued by the monster Grendel. Beowulf kills Grendel with his bare hands, then kills Grendel's mother with a giant's sword that he found in her lair. Later in his life, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats, and finds his realm terrorized by a dragon, some of whose treasure had been stolen from his hoard in a burial mound.

The Mystery of the Sea, a mystery novel by Bram Stoker, was originally published in 1902. Stoker is best known for his 1897 novel Dracula, but The Mystery of the Sea contains many of the same compelling elements. It tells the story of an Englishman living in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who meets and falls in love with an American heiress. She is involved with the intrigues of the Spanish-American War, and a complex plot involving second sight, kidnapping, and secret codes unfolds over the course of the novel. 

With Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland is a feminist novel and sociological commentary written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The novel is a follow-up and sequel to Herland (1915), and picks up immediately following the events of Herland, with Terry, Van, and Ellador traveling from Herland to "Ourland" (the contemporary 1915-16 world). The majority of the novel follows Van and Ellador's travels throughout the world, and particularly the United States, with Van curating their explorations through the then-modern world, while Ellador offers her commentary and "prescriptions".

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 - December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and screenwriter. He was best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age a term he popularized. BOOK 2: In the spring of 1917, when Doctor Richard Diver first arrived in Zurich, he was twenty-six years old, a fine age for a man, indeed the very acme of bachelorhood. Even in war-time days, it was a fine age for Dick, who was already too valuable, too much of a capital investment to be shot off in a gun.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 - December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and screenwriter. He was best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age a term he popularized. BOOK 3: Frau Kaethe Gregorovius overtook her husband on the path of their villa. 'How was Nicole?' she asked mildly; but she spoke out of breath, giving away the fact that she had held the question in her mind during her run. Franz looked at her in surprise.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 - December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and screenwriter. BOOK 1: Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people; a decade ago it was almost deserted after its English clientele went north in April. Now, many bungalows cluster near it, but when this story begins only the cupolas of a dozen old villas rotted like water lilies among the massed pines between Gausse's Hôtel des Étrangers and Cannes, five miles away.

The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan, European feel. Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern life, especially the effects of isolation and the dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their inhospitable, man-made environment. Colony: There was also a telephone number. I made an appointment with the gravel-voiced Mangan to view the flat the same evening. I had been looking for somewhere new for months...

The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan, European feel. Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern life, especially the effects of isolation and the dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their inhospitable, man-made environment. Apartment: Pieter Slokker awoke from a dream in which he was trapped in a dark, windowless room. It was three o'clock in the morning, and it sounded as if someone were hammering at the door of his flat.