Bøger af Sheba Blake

For much of the nineteenth century, the boundaries of the United States were in flux. Frontier lawyer turned Western writer Emerson Hough takes on the topic of one such border controversy in the novel 54-40 or Fight, an action-packed account of the campaign to wrest control of the Pacific Northwest from the British. Emerson Hough (1857-1923) was an American author best known for writing western stories and historical novels. Hough was born in Newton, Iowa on June 28, 1857. He was in Newton High School's first graduating class of three in 1875. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1880 and later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1882. His first article, "Far From The Madding Crowd," was published in Forest and Stream in 1882. He moved to White Oaks, New Mexico, practiced law there, and wrote for the White Oaks newspaper Golden Era for a year and a half, returning to Iowa when his mother was ill. He later wrote Story of the Outlaw, A Study of the Western Desperado, which included profiles of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Hough moved to New Mexico after Garrett shot Billy the Kid, and he became a friend of Garrett. He wrote for various newspapers in Des Moines, Iowa, Sandusky, Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, and Wichita, Kansas. In 1889 he got a position as western editor of Forest and Stream, editing the "Chicago and the West" column. He was hired by George Bird Grinnell, the owner of Field and Stream, who founded the Audubon Society in 1886 which, along with Theodore Roosevelt's Boone and Crockett Club, was a leader in the conservation movement.

Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H.G. Wells published in 1909. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty," against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the Women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter inspired by the 1908 attempt of suffragettes to storm Parliament. Mr. Stanley forbids his adult daughter, a biology student at Tredgold Women's College and the youngest of his five children, to attend a fancy dress ball in London, causing a crisis. Ann Veronica is planning to attend the dance with friends of a down-at-heel artistic family living nearby and has been chafing at other restrictions imposed for no apparent reason on her. After her father resorts to force to stop her from attending the ball, she leaves her home in the fictional south London suburb of Morningside Park in order to live independently in an apartment "in a street near the Hampstead Road" in North London. Unable to find appropriate employment, she borrows forty pounds from Mr. Ramage, an older man, without realizing she is compromising herself. With this money, Ann Veronica is able to devote herself to study in the biological laboratory of the Central Imperial College (a constituent college of London University) where she meets and falls in love with Capes, the laboratory's "demonstrator." But Mr. Ramage loses little time in trying to take advantage of the situation, precipitating a crisis. Distraught after Ramage tries to force himself on her, Ann Veronica temporarily abandons her studies and devotes herself to the cause of women's suffrage; she is arrested storming Parliament and spends a month in prison. Sobered by the experience, Ann Veronica convinces herself of the necessity of compromise. She returns to her father's home and engages herself to marry an admirer she does not love, Hubert Manning. But she soon changes her mind, renounces the engagement, and boldly tells Capes she loves him. Though he returns Ann Veronica's love, at first the thirty-year-old Capes insists on the impossibility of the situation: he is a married (albeit separated) man with a sullied reputation because of an affair that became public. They can only be friends, he declares. But Ann Veronica is undeterred by his confession and his prudence, and finally Capes's resistance buckles: "She stood up and held her arms toward him. 'I want you to kiss me, ' she said. . . . 'I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself to you. I want to be whatever I can to you.' She paused for a moment. 'Is that plain?' she asked." Capes decides to throw over his employment at the college in order to live with Ann Veronica, and they enjoy a glorious "honeymoon" in the Alps. A final chapter shows the happy couple four years and four months later living in London. Capes has become a successful playwright, and Ann Veronica is pregnant and has reconciled with her family.

Nicholas Nickleby is a novel by Charles Dickens. Originally published as a serial from 1838 to 1839, it was Dickens' third novel. The novel centres on the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies. Nicholas Nickleby is Charles Dickens' third published novel. He returned to his favourite publishers and to the format that was considered so successful with The Pickwick Papers. The story first appeared in monthly parts, after which it was issued in one volume. The style is considered to be episodic and humorous, though the second half of the novel becomes more serious and tightly plotted. Dickens began writing 'Nickleby' while still working on Oliver Twist and while the mood is considerably lighter, his depiction of the Yorkshire school run by Wackford Squeers is as moving and influential as those of the workhouse and criminal underclass in Twist. 'Nickleby' marks a new development in a further sense as it is the first of Dickens' romances. When it was published the book was an immediate and complete success and established Dickens's lasting reputation. The cruelty of a real Yorkshire schoolmaster named William Shaw became the basis for Dickens's brutal character of Wackford Squeers. Dickens visited his school and based the school section of Nicholas Nickleby on his visit. Like most of Dickens' early works, the novel has a contemporary setting. Much of the action takes place in London, with several chapters taking place in Dickens' birthplace of Portsmouth, as well as settings in Yorkshire and Devon. The tone of the work is that of ironic social satire, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices. Many memorable characters are introduced, including Nicholas' malevolent Uncle Ralph, and the villainous Wackford Squeers, who operates an abusive all-boys boarding school at which Nicholas temporarily serves as a tutor.

The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, was published in four volumes on 8 May 1794 by G. G. and J. Robinson of London. The firm paid her £500 for the manuscript. The contract is housed at the University of Virginia Library. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, along with Radcliffe's novel The Romance of the Forest, plays a prominent role in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, in which an impressionable young woman, after reading Radcliffe's novel, comes to see her friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims with amusing results. The Mysteries of Udolpho is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror; remote, crumbling castles; seemingly supernatural events; a brooding, scheming villain; and a persecuted heroine. Modern editors point out that only about one-third of the novel is set in the eponymous Gothic castle, and that the tone and style vary markedly between sections of the work. Radcliffe also added extensive descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, and of Venice, none of which she visited and for details of which she relied on contemporary travel books, leading to the introduction of several anachronisms. Set in 1584 in southern France and northern Italy, the novel focuses on the plight of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman who is orphaned after the death of her father. Emily suffers imprisonment in the castle Udolpho at the hands of Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and guardian Madame Cheron. Emily's romance with the dashing Valancourt is frustrated by Montoni and others. Emily also investigates the mysterious relationship between her father and the Marchioness de Villeroi, and its connection to the castle at Udolpho.

The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors (along with The Tempest) is one of only two of Shakespeare's plays to observe the Unity of Time (classical unities). It has been adapted for opera, stage, screen and musical theatre numerous times worldwide. The Comedy of Errors tells the story of two sets of identical twins that were accidentally separated at birth (Shakespeare was father to one pair of twins). Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant, Dromio of Syracuse, arrive in Ephesus, which turns out to be the home of their twin brothers, Antipholus of Ephesus and his servant, Dromio of Ephesus. When the Syracusans encounter the friends and families of their twins, a series of wild mishaps based on mistaken identities lead to wrongful beatings, a near-seduction, the arrest of Antipholus of Ephesus, and false accusations of infidelity, theft, madness, and demonic possession.

When the World Shook is a novel by H. Rider Haggard written in 1919. It deals with the adventures of Bastin, Bickley, and Arbuthnot as they travel to the south sea island of Orofena. The story begins as the main character, Humphrey Arbuthnot-a writer of adventure stories-is married to his wife Natalie. Shortly thereafter, she claims that she is going to die soon even though she has been given a clean bill of health from their doctor, Bickley. Right as Natalie dies, she tells Arbuthnot that soon he will want to travel somewhere, and that is where the two shall meet again. Natalie dies, and shortly thereafter Arbuthnot has a sudden urge to travel to the Pacific islands. He gets on a ship with two friends, Bickley, a doctor, Bastin, a minister, and Arbuthnot's dog, Tommy. The ship is then taken by a cyclone after all the crew abandons ship. When the three adventurers awaken, they find themselves shipwrecked on the South Sea island of Orofena. Here they meet the Orofenan people who worship a God called Oro. The men win the love of the Orofenans as Bickley teaches the men western medicine techniques and saves a few lives. They are told not to go to a part of the island named Orofena which is a volcano. After a dispute in which Bickley destroys a symbol of Oro and kills one of the natives who was about to be sacrificed. They flee to a small volcanic island in the center of a lake at the center of the island of Orofena. The men search a cave in the side of the volcano and find two crystal coffins with two people in them. First they revive an old man who is the original Oro. Next they revive his daughter Yva. After being revived, Oro makes astronomical observations to confirm by stellar movements that he and his daughter have been unconscious for 250,000 years. Yva claims they know the position of the stars as they came from a society that was filled with wisdom known as the age of wisdom. To describe what the age of wisdom was like, Yva conjures up scenes from the age of wisdom by showing the men a hallucination of the past.

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)-a castaway who spends twenty-eight years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has since been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966, but various literary sources have also been suggested. Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel. Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning numerous imitations in film, television and radio that its name was used to define a genre, Robinsonade.

Animal Ghosts is a collection of ghost stories in which the antagonists are various animals. Divided up into chapters of ghost sightings by each group of animals, you will hear of hauntings by dogs, cats, birds, jungle animals, etc. Elliott O'Donnell (27 February 1872 - 8 May 1965) was an author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He claimed to have seen a ghost, described as an elemental figure covered with spots, when he was five years old. He also claimed to have been strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin (however, no permanent effect would seem to have been suffered). His first book, written in his spare time, was a psychic thriller titled For Satan's Sake (1904). From this point onward, he became a writer. He wrote several popular novels, including an occult fantasy, The Sorcery Club (1912) but specialized in what were claimed as true stories of ghosts and hauntings. These were immensely popular, but his flamboyant style and amazing stories suggest that he embroidered fact with a romantic flair for fiction. O'Donnell wrote material for numerous magazines, including Hutchinson Story Magazine, The Novel Magazine, The Idler, Weekly Tale-Teller, Hutchinson's Mystery-Story Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, Lilliput and Weird Tales. As he became known as an authority on the supernatural, he was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast (radio and television) on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. In addition to his more than 50 books, he wrote scores of articles and stories for national newspapers and magazines. He claimed "I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist." Many of O'Donnell's books possess autobiographical sections in which he reveals a desperate struggle to escape early poverty (such as the plight of the three protagonists at the beginning of 'The Sorcery Club') and scrape acquaintance with the wealthy and the influential. These revelations, coupled with both his employment of actors such as C. Aubrey Smith to help stage hauntings, and the fact that he left no notes relating to his studies after his death, suggest that he embellished or perhaps even invented many of his supposed experiences. This is borne out by the fact that virtually every reference book in the field of supernatural fiction accords O'Donnell the status as a fiction writer.[citation needed] Certainly he was never approached by, nor worked with, the Society for Psychical Research. However, O'Donnell once spent a night at St. Nicholas Church, Brockley Combe with Everard Fielding, an investigator from the Society for Psychical Research. Elliott O'Donnell died aged 93 at the Grosvenor Nursing Home at Clevedon in North Somerset on 8 May 1965. In his will he left £2,579.

The Book of Dragons is a collection of stories written by Edith Nesbit. A dragon who flies out of a magical book; one whose purr quiets a fussy baby; another who eats an entire pack of tame hunting-hippopotomuses: These eight dragon tales are filled with the imaginative wit of children's author Edith Nesbit. Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 - 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on more than 60 books of children's literature. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party.

A Daughter of the Snows is Jack London's first novel. Set in the Yukon, it tells the story of Frona Welse, "a Stanford graduate and physical Valkyrie" who takes to the trail after upsetting her wealthy father's community by her forthright manner and befriending the town's prostitute. She is also torn between love for two suitors: Gregory St Vincent, a local man who turns out to be cowardly and treacherous; and Vance Corliss, a Yale-trained mining engineer. The novel is noteworthy for its strong and self-reliant heroine, one of many who would people his fiction. Her name echoes that of his mother, Flora Wellman, though her inspiration has also been said to include London's friend Anna Strunsky. Despite the progressive attitude toward women, the novel focuses on the racial superiority of Anglo-Saxons. The novel was commissioned by publisher S. S. McClure, who provided London a $125 a month stipend to write it.

The Club of Queer Trades is a collection of stories by G. K. Chesterton first published in 1905. Each story in the collection is centered on a person who is making his living by some novel and extraordinary means (a "queer trade", using the word "queer" in the sense of "peculiar"). To gain admittance one must have invented a unique means of earning a living and the subsequent trade being the main source of income. The framing narrative by "Cherub" Swinburne describes his quest for The Club of Queer Trades with his friend Basil Grant, a retired judge, and Rupert Grant, a private detective who is Basil's younger brother. Each of the stories describes their encounter with one of the trades. The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown: While investigating a case of assault brought by Major Brown, Rupert Grant, the private detective, and his brother Basil stumble upon the Adventure and Romance Agency, Limited, an agency that creates adventures for its clients. The story is notable for prefiguring the concept of the alternate reality game. The Painful Fall of a Great Reputation: Basil Grant investigates Wimpole, the great raconteur. The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit: "Cherub" Swinburne is asked to investigate the mysterious assault on the Vicar of Chuntsey. The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent: Basil Grant investigates the mystery of Lieutenant Keith, whose house, "The Elms", Buxton Common, cannot be found. The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd: Basil Grant finds out why Professor Chadd insists on dancing. The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady: Rupert Grant rescues a lady from her kidnappers but cannot understand why she refuses to be rescued. The answer leads to the final unveiling of the mystery of The Club of Queer Trades.

Kirk Munroe was a well-traveled writer and journalist who was born in Wisconsin, educated in Massachusetts, began his career in New York City, and finally settled in Florida. Once there, Munroe's proximity to Cuba likely influenced the point of view he employs in "Forward, March", a large part of which details the efforts of an American agent in Cuba during the war. Kirk Munroe (September 15, 1850 - June 16, 1930) was an American writer and conservationist. Born Charles Kirk Munroe in a log cab near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Munroe was the son of Charles and Susan (Hall) Munroe. His youth was spent on the frontier, after which his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he attended school until he was sixteen. He publicly dropped "Charles" from his name in 1883. In 1876, Kirk Munroe was hired as a reporter for the New York Sun. Three years later he became the first editor of Harper's Young People magazine; he resigned in 1881. From 1879 to 1884, he was the commodore of New York Canoe club. During this time he helped found the League of American Wheelmen with Charles E. Pratt on May 31, 1880. Munroe was the Wheelmen's first Commander.

My Man Jeeves is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom in May 1919 by George Newnes. Of the eight stories in the collection, half feature the popular characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, while the others concern Reggie Pepper, an early prototype for Wooster. Although the book was not published in the United States, all the stories had appeared there, mostly in The Saturday Evening Post or Collier's Weekly, and in the Strand in the UK, prior to the publication of the UK book. Several appeared later in rewritten form in Carry on, Jeeves (1925), such as "Helping Freddie", which in its later incarnation was called "Fixing It for Freddie" and featured Jeeves and Wooster. The other Reggie Pepper stories were included in the U.S. version of The Man with Two Left Feet (1917). Jeeves and Wooster had first appeared in the short story "Extricating Young Gussie", which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1915, and was included in The Man with Two Left Feet.

The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic poem which narrates the struggle of the divine prince Rama to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. Along with the Mahabharata, it forms the Sanskrit Itihasa. The epic, traditionally ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki, narrates the life of Rama, the legendary prince of the Kosala Kingdom. It follows his banishment from the kingdom by his father King Dasharatha, his travels across forests in India with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, the kidnapping of his wife by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, resulting in a war with him, and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king. The Ramayana is one of the largest ancient epics in world literature. It consists of nearly 24,000 verses (mostly set in the Shloka meter), divided into seven Kandas (books) and about 500 sargas (chapters). In Hindu tradition, it is considered to be the adi-kavya (first poem). It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king. Ramayana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and culture. Like Mahabharata, Ramayana is not just a story: it presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages in narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical and ethical elements. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and south-east Asian countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. There are many versions of Ramayana in Indian languages, besides Buddhist, Sikh and Jain adaptations. There are also Cambodian, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai, Lao, Burmese and Malaysian versions of the tale.

What Maisie Knew is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Chap-Book and in the New Review in 1897 and then as a book later that year. It tells the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced, irresponsible parents. The book follows the title character from earliest childhood to precocious maturity. When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year with each. The parents are immoral and frivolous, and they use Maisie to intensify their hatred of each other. Beale Farange marries Miss Overmore, Maisie's pretty governess, while Ida marries the likeable but weak Sir Claude. Maisie gets a new governess: the frumpy, somewhat-ridiculous but devoted Mrs. Wix. Both Ida and Beale soon cheat on their spouses; in turn, Claude and the new Mrs. Farange begin an affair with each other. Maisie's parents essentially abandon her and she becomes largely the responsibility of Sir Claude. Eventually, Maisie must decide if she wants to remain with Sir Claude and Mrs. Farange. In the book's long final section set in France, the older (probably teenaged) Maisie struggles to choose between them and Mrs Wix, and concludes that her new parents' relationship will likely end as her biological parents' did. She leaves them and goes to stay with Mrs. Wix, her most reliable adult guardian.

An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic is a poem from ancient Mesopotamia that is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about 'Bilgamesh' (Sumerian for 'Gilgamesh'), king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (circa 2100 BC). These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shutur eli sharri ("Surpassing All Other Kings"). Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later "Standard" version dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba imuru ("He who Saw the Deep", in modern terms: "He who Sees the Unknown"). Approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. After an initial fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain and defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. As a punishment for these actions, the gods sentence Enkidu to death. In the second half of the epic, distress about Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. He eventually learns that "Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands". However, because of his great building projects, his account of Siduri's advice, and what the immortal man Utnapishtim told him about the Great Flood, Gilgamesh's fame survived his death. His story has been translated into many languages, and in recent years has featured in works of popular fiction.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is a melodrama adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The original concept and production of a four-actor version of the story was by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon. Patrick Barlow rewrote this adaptation in 2005. The play's concept calls for the entirety of the 1935 adventure film The Thirty-Nine Steps to be performed with a cast of only four. One actor plays the hero, Richard Hannay, an actress (or sometimes actor) plays the three women with whom he has romantic entanglements, and two other actors play every other character in the show: heroes, villains, men, women, children and even the occasional inanimate object. This often requires lightning fast quick-changes and occasionally for them to play multiple characters at once. Thus the film's serious spy story is played mainly for laughs, and the script is full of allusions to (and puns on the titles of) other Alfred Hitchcock films, including Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo and North by Northwest.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been recognized as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination". Two works that share some similarities predate Poe's stories, including Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819) by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Zadig (1747) by Voltaire. C. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who solves the mystery of the brutal murder of two women. Numerous witnesses heard a suspect, though no one agrees on what language was spoken. At the murder scene, Dupin finds a hair that does not appear to be human. As the first fictional detective, Poe's Dupin displays many traits which became literary conventions in subsequent fictional detectives, including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Many later characters, for example, follow Poe's model of the brilliant detective, his personal friend who serves as narrator, and the final revelation being presented before the reasoning that leads up to it. Dupin himself reappears in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" and "The Purloined Letter".

A Daughter of the Vine was written by Gertrude Atherton. In this emotionally engaging and richly detailed multi-generational epic, author Gertrude Atherton uses her own family history as a lens through which to trace the evolution of the fictional Randolph family, from their roots in England to their eventual ascendance to power and prestige in the rough-and-tumble pioneer era of California. Gertrude Atherton (October 30, 1857 - June 14, 1948) was a prominent and prolific American author. Many of her novels are set in her home state of California. Her bestseller Black Oxen (1923) was made into a silent movie of the same name. In addition to novels, she wrote short stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers on such issues as feminism, politics, and war. She was strong-willed, independent-minded, and sometimes controversial. She is best remembered for her California Series, several novels and short stories dealing with the social history of California. The series includes The Splendid, Idle Forties (1902); The Conqueror (1902), which is a fictionalized biography of Alexander Hamilton; and her sensational, semi-autobiographical novel Black Oxen (1923), about an aging woman who miraculously becomes young again after glandular therapy. The latter was adapted into the film Black Oxen in 1923. Her novels often feature strong heroines who pursue independent lives, undoubtedly a reaction to her stifling married life. Atherton wrote several stories of supernatural horror, including the ghost stories "Death and the Woman", and "Crowned with One Crest", as well as "The Foghorn", and the often anthologised "The Striding Place". "The Foghorn", written in 1933, is a psychological horror story that has been compared to "The Yellow Wallpaper". W. Somerset Maugham called it a powerful story in a 1943 publication of his, Great Modern Reading. In 2009, The Library of America selected Atherton's story "The Striding Place" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales.

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599, as Shakespeare was approaching the middle of his career. The play was included in the First Folio, published in 1623. Much Ado About Nothing is generally considered one of Shakespeare's best comedies because it combines elements of mistaken identities, love, robust hilarity with more serious meditations on honour, shame, and court politics. By means of "noting" (which, in Shakespeare's day, sounded similar to "nothing" as in the play's title, and which means gossip, rumour, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar on the erroneous belief that she has been unfaithful. At the end, Benedick and Beatrice join forces to set things right, and the others join in a dance celebrating the marriages of the two couples.

The Chessmen of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American wrtier Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth of his Barsoom series. Burroughs began writing it in January, 1921, and the finished story was first published in Argosy All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial in the issues for February 18 and 25 and March 4, 11, 18 and 25, 1922. It was later published as a complete novel by A. C. McClurg in November 1922. In this novel Burroughs focuses on a younger member of the family established by John Carter and Dejah Thoris, protagonists of the first three books in the series. The heroine this time is their daughter Tara, princess of Helium, whose hand is sought by the gallant Gahan, Jed (prince) of Gathol. Both Helium and Gathol are prominent Barsoomian city states. Tara meets Prince Gahan of Gathol, and is initially unimpressed, viewing him as something of a popinjay. Later she takes her flier into a storm and loses control of the craft, and the storm carries her to an unfamiliar region of Barsoom. After landing and fleeing from a pack of ferocious Banths (Martian lions), she is captured by the horrific Kaldanes, who resemble large heads with small, crab-like legs. The Kaldanes have bred a symbiotic race of headless human-like creatures called Rykors, which they can attach themselves to and ride like a horse. The Kaldanes imprison Tara, intending to fatten her up, then eat her. While imprisoned, Tara manages to win over one of the Kaldanes, Ghek, with her lovely singing voice. Gahan, who has fallen in love with Tara, sets out to find her, only to find himself caught up in the same storm, and he falls overboard while attempting to rescue one of his crew. He stumbles upon Bantoom, realm of the Kaldanes, and manages to rescue Tara, and together with Ghek they flee in Tara's crippled flier. Tara doesn't recognize Gahan as the prince she met earlier, as he is worn from his ordeals and no longer dressed in his fancy clothes.

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610-11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion and skilful manipulation. He conjures up a storm, the eponymous tempest, to cause his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of Naples to believe they are shipwrecked and marooned on the island. There, his machinations bring about the revelation of Antonio's lowly nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda to Alonso's son, Ferdinand. The story draws heavily on the tradition of the romance, and it was influenced by tragicomedy, the courtly masque and perhaps the commedia dell'arte. It differs from Shakespeare's other plays in its observation of a stricter, more organised neoclassical style. Critics see The Tempest as explicitly concerned with its own nature as a play, frequently drawing links between Prospero's "art" and theatrical illusion, and early critics saw Prospero as a representation of Shakespeare, and his renunciation of magic as signalling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage. The play portrays Prospero as a rational, and not an occultist, magician by providing a contrast to him in Sycorax: her magic is frequently described as destructive and terrible, where Prospero's is said to be wondrous and beautiful. Beginning in about 1950, with the publication of Psychology of Colonization by Octave Mannoni, The Tempest was viewed more and more through the lens of postcolonial theory-exemplified in adaptations like Aimé Césaire's Une Tempête set in Haiti-and there is even a scholarly journal on post-colonial criticism named after Caliban.

What Katy Did is a children's book written by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey under her pen name Susan Coolidge. It follows the adventures of a twelve-year-old American girl, Katy Carr, and her family who live in the fictional lakeside Ohio town of Burnet in the 1860s. Katy is a tall untidy tomboy, forever getting into scrapes but wishing to be beautiful and beloved. When a terrible accident makes her an invalid, her illness and four-year recovery gradually teach her to be as good and kind as she has always wanted. Two sequels follow Katy as she grows up: What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next. Two further sequels relating the adventures of Katy's younger siblings were also published-Clover and In the High Valley. The books were frequently reprinted and all are available online. Coolidge modeled Katy on her own childhood self, and the other 'Little Carrs' on her brothers and sisters. The title is a play on the katydid, a family of insects - which explains the insects on the first edition book cover. 12-year-old Katy Carr lives with her widowed father and her two brothers and three sisters in Burnet, a small midwestern town. Her father is a very busy doctor who works long hours; the children are mostly in the care of his sister Aunt Izzie, who is very particular and something of a scold. Bright, headstrong Katy can hardly avoid getting into mischief almost daily under these circumstances, but she is unfailingly remorseful afterward. She dreams of someday doing something "grand" with her life: painting famous pictures, saving the lives of drowning people, or leading a crusade on a white horse. She also wants to be "beautiful, of course, and good if I can." When her mother died four years earlier, Katy promised to be a little mother to her siblings, but mainly she is the kind of big sister who is sometimes impatient or cross with them, but leads them into all sorts of exciting adventures.

Rilla of Ingleside is the eighth of nine books in the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, but was the sixth "Anne" novel in publication order. This book draws the focus back onto a single character, Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Bertha Marilla "Rilla" Blythe. It has a more serious tone, as it takes place during World War I and the three Blythe boys-Jem, Walter, and Shirley-along with Rilla's sweetheart Ken Ford, and playmates Jerry Meredith and Carl Meredith-end up fighting in Europe with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The book is dedicated: "To the memory of FREDERICA CAMPBELL MACFARLANE who went away from me when the dawn broke on January 25, 1919-a true friend, a rare personality, a loyal and courageous soul." Frederica, Maud's cousin and best friend, grew up in Park Corner, PEI, but died in the worldwide flu epidemic of 1918/19. Frederica may have been the model for Diana Barry, Anne of Green Gables' "bosom friend": both had unusual, non-Christian first names, and the fictional Diana's husband was named, perhaps not coincidentally, Fred. Rilla of Ingleside is the only Canadian novel written from a woman's perspective about the First World War by a contemporary. The novel is also groundbreaking as it is one of the first non-Australian texts to mention the Gallipoli campaign and the sacrifice made by the ANZACs. At some point after Montgomery's death in 1942, publishers quietly trimmed Rilla of Ingleside of a few thousand words, removing among other things passages containing historically accurate but now offensive anti-German sentiment. The trimmed version was the only available "in print" version for decades, until a new, restored and annotated edition of Rilla of Ingleside, edited by Benjamin Lefebvre (editor of Montgomery's The Blythes Are Quoted) and Andrea McKenzie, was published by Viking Canada in October 2010.

A Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843. A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an old miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol at a time when the British were examining and exploring Christmas traditions from the past, such as carols, as well as new customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by experiences from his own past, and from the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired to write the story following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged school, one of several establishments for London's half-starved, illiterate street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of self-interested man redeeming himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this was a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory. Published on 19 December, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve; by the end of 1844 thirteen editions had been released. Most critics reviewed the novella positively. The story was illicitly copied in January 1844; Dickens took action against the publishers, who went bankrupt, reducing further Dickens's small profits from the publication. He went on to write four other Christmas stories in subsequent years. In 1849 he began public readings of the story which proved so successful he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been translated into several languages; the story has been adapted many times for film, stage, opera and other media. With A Christmas Carol, Dickens captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. He has been acknowledged as an influence on the modern Western observance of Christmas and inspired several aspects of Christmas, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.

Herodotus is the Greek historian who has been called the "Father of History," or the "Father of Lies" accordingly - either way he was the first known writer of history to do so in a truly systematic way, weaving his relatively accurate historical hypotheses into a coherent and vibrant narrative. We know very little of his actual life, except that he was born in what is now Turkey, traveled extensively to collect materials for his writings, and finally settled down in southern Italy to write the Histories. The title the "Father of Lies" has clung to Herodotus for ages, as he's prone to exaggeration and speculation, but to his credit he does warn the reader when he's going out on a limb. And when he has two versions of a story, he offers both. Herodotus is also known for his easy and flowing prose style, which is still a joy to read to this day. His Histories have done more to shape our view of the ancient world than any other. Herodotus's Account of Egypt is the second book of the Histories, which contains descriptions of the marvels of the south: the size of the land, the wonders of the Nile, the religious ceremonies which will be as fascinating to the modern reader as it was to the ancient. From the priests at Memphis, Heliopolis, and the Egyptian Thebes he learned what he reports of the size of the country, the wonders of the Nile, the ceremonies of Egyptian religion, their sacred animals, the Crocodile and the Phoenix, their funerals and embalming, lotus and papyrus eating, the great kings and queens, and of the pyramids. Keep in mind that to Herodotus and the ancient Greeks, Egypt essentially was Africa - primitive maps show an ocean on all sides of the mysterious land to the south; so to understand this place was to know much of the world.

Moonfleet is a tale of smuggling, royal treasure and shipwreck by the English novelist J. Meade Falkner, first published in 1898. The book was extremely popular among children worldwide up until the 1970s, mostly for its themes of adventure and gripping storyline. It remains a popular story widely read and is still sometimes studied in schools. In 1757, Moonfleet is a small village near the sea in the south of England. It gets its name from a formerly prominent local family, the Mohunes, whose coat of arms includes a symbol shaped like a capital 'Y'. John Trenchard is an orphan who lives with his aunt, Miss Arnold. Other notable residents are the sexton Mr Ratsey, who is friendly to John; Parson Glennie, the local clergyman who also teaches in the village school; Elzevir Block, the landlord of the local inn, called the Mohune Arms but nicknamed the Why Not? because of its sign with the Mohune 'Y'; and Mr Maskew, the unpopular local magistrate and his beautiful daughter, Grace. Village legend tells of the notorious Colonel John "Blackbeard" Mohune who is buried in the family crypt under the church. He is reputed to have stolen a diamond from King Charles I and hidden it. His ghost is said to wander at night looking for it and the mysterious lights in the churchyard are attributed to his activities. As the main part of the story opens, Block's youthful son, David, has just been killed by Maskew during a raid by the Maskew and other authorities on a smuggling boat. One night a bad storm hits the village and there is a flood. While attending the Sunday service at church, John hears strange sounds from the crypt below. He thinks it is the sound of the coffins of the Mohune family. The next day, he finds Elzevir and Ratsey against the south wall of the church. They claim to be checking for damage from the storm, but John suspects they are searching for Blackbeard's ghost. Later John finds a large sinkhole has opened in the ground by a grave. He follows the passage and finds himself in the crypt with coffins on shelves and casks on the floor. He realises his friends are smugglers and this is their hiding place. He has to hide behind a coffin when he hears Ratsey and Elzevir coming. When they leave, they fill in the hole, inadvertently trapping him. John finds a locket in a coffin which holds a piece of paper with verses from the Bible. John eventually passes out after drinking too much of the wine while trying to quench his thirst, having not eaten or drunk for days. Later he wakes up in the Why Not? inn - he has been rescued by Elzevir and Ratsey. When he is better, he returns to his aunt's house, but she, suspecting him of drunken behaviour, throws him out. Fortunately, Elzevir takes him in.

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow is a collection of humorous essays by Jerome K. Jerome. It was the author's second published book and it helped establish him as a leading English humorist. While widely considered one of Jerome's better works, and in spite of using the same style as Three Men in a Boat, it was never as popular as the latter. A second "Idle Thoughts" book, The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow, was published in 1898. The essays had previously appeared in Home Chimes, the same magazine that later serialised Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. The book consists of 14 independent articles arranged by themes: ON BEING IDLE. ON BEING IN LOVE. ON BEING IN THE BLUES. ON BEING HARD UP. ON VANITY AND VANITIES. ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. ON THE WEATHER. ON CATS AND DOGS. ON BEING SHY. ON BABIES. ON EATING AND DRINKING. ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS. ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT. ON MEMORY.

The House of the Seven Gables is a gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. The novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The setting for the book was inspired by a gabled house in Salem belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll and by ancestors of Hawthorne who had played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The House of the Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television. The novel is set in the mid-19th century, but flashbacks to the history of the house, which was built in the late 17th century, are set in other periods. The house of the title is a gloomy New England mansion, haunted since its construction by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft, and sudden death. The current resident, the dignified but desperately poor Hepzibah Pyncheon, opens a shop in a side room to support her brother Clifford, who has completed a thirty-year sentence for murder. She refuses all assistance from her wealthy but unpleasant cousin, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon. A distant relative, the lively and pretty young Phoebe, arrives and quickly becomes invaluable, charming customers and rousing Clifford from depression. A delicate romance grows between Phoebe and the mysterious attic lodger Holgrave, who is writing a history of the Pyncheon family.

The Centaur is one of the greatest "mystical" works by Blackwood, wherein he explores man's empathy with the unknown forces of the universe. Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 - 10 December 1951) was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T. Joshi has stated that "his work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".