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  Haunted Man and the Ghost's...

  Charles Dickens

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  The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (better known as The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain or simply as The Haunted Man) is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centres on a Professor Redlaw and those close to him.

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  A Christmas Inspiration

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

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  Christmas is not in the lights, nor the gifts, nor the glittering decorations—it is in the hands that give, the hearts that open, the kindness that expects nothing in return. A Christmas Inspiration is a tale that shimmers with the quiet beauty of generosity, a story where one small act of warmth illuminates the season far brighter than any candle. With Montgomery's signature grace, the narrative unfolds like freshly fallen snow—soft, luminous, and filled with the hush of something deeply, unmistakably good. This is Christmas distilled to its essence: not what we receive, but what we choose to give.

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  What Is Man?

  Mark Twain

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  Locked in his desk for 25 years, What Is Man? was Twain's most serious, philosophical, and private work. The narrative appears in the form of a Socratic dialogue between a romantic young idealist and an elderly cynic. The pair debate issues of mankind, such as whether man is free to act or is more of a machine, whether personal merit is meaningless given how the environment shapes us, and if man truly has impulses other than to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. An unflinching critic of human affection, a bittersweet humorist, and a master of comic asides, Mark Twain speaks to us across time with verve and wisdom in this rare work. This recording is performed by comedy legend Carl Reiner, a recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

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  The Growing up of Cornelia

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

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  Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942), published as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables. The book was an immediate success. The title character, orphan Anne Shirley, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.
  The Growing Up of Cornelia: Aunt Jemima gave me this diary for a Christmas present. It's just the sort of gift a person named Jemima would be likely to make. I can't imagine why Aunt Jemima thought I should like a diary. Probably she didn't think about it at all. I suppose it happened to be the first thing she saw when she started out to do her Christmas duty by me, and so she bought it. I'm sure I'm the last girl in the world to keep a diary.

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  Wireless - A rare Kipling...

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai, India on 30th December 1865.   
   
  As was the custom in those days, he and his sister were sent back to England when he was 5.  The ill-treatment and cruelty by the Portsmouth couple they boarded with Kipling said contributed to the onset of his literary life.  
   
  At 16 he returned to India to work on a local paper where he was soon contributing and writing.  It also exposed him to the issues of identity and national allegiance which pervade much of his work.  
   
  In 1886, his ‘Departmental Ditties’, collection of verse appeared in print followed by 39 short stories for his newspaper over only 8 months.  These were then published as ‘Plain Tales from the Hills’, shortly after his 22nd birthday.  
   
  He continued his prolific pace of writing before being dismissed in a dispute and, taking his pay-off and the profits from the sale of some publishing rights, decided to return to London, travelling via Rangoon, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, all the while writing articles, and arriving at Liverpool in October 1889. 
   
  Over the next two years he saw further works published as books and in magazines, as well as a nervous breakdown for which he was prescribed a sea voyage, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India.  
   
  Happier times came with marriage to Caroline Starr Balestier in January 1892.  The honeymoon began in Vermont and ended in Yokahama where they heard their bank had failed.  They returned to Vermont and settled.  Caroline was now pregnant and he was planning the ‘Jungle Books’.  
   
  A failed arbitration between the US and England resulted in an argument between Caroline’s brother and Kipling, and then his arrest.  At the hearing he was mortified by the exposure of his private life and after settling the matter they returned to England and life in Torquay.  ‘Kim’ was published in 1902, and ‘Just So Stories for Little Children’, a year later.  
   
  In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with the citation “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterise the creations of this world-famous author”.   
   
  When the Great War erupted, he scorned those who refused conscription.  His son enlisted and was killed at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at 18, an exploding shell had ripped his face apart.  This death inspired Kipling’s writing thereafter, but the tragedy broke his life and by 1930 his prolific pen had almost ceased. 
   
  Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936 from a perforated duodenal ulcer.  He was 70.  His ashes are buried at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

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  Dracula The Lost Manuscript

  Bram Stoker

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  Dracula, a Gothic novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897, is derived from old vampire legends and is the basis for an entire genre of literature and film. Dracula, the archetypal vampire, is depicted in the novel as having been the origin of the many werewolf legends. The willowy count is believed to have been inspired by the 15th-century Vlad the Impaler, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant. One of Dracula's most iconic powers is his ability to turn others into vampires by biting them and thus infecting them with the vampiric disease. Stoker's novel takes the form of an epistolary tale, in which Count Dracula's characteristics, powers are narrated by multiple narrators. Count Dracula is an undead, centuries-old vampire, and Transylvanian nobleman descended from Attila the Hun. He inhabits a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass. Dracula is devilishly handsome and charismatic, with a veneer of dark aristocratic charm. Likewise, he possesses supernatural abilities gained through his intimate dealings with the Devil. Dracula does not cast a shadow or reflect in mirrors. He can defy gravity and possesses superhuman agility, able to climb vertical surfaces upside down. In the novel he also has great hypnotic, telepathic and illusionary powers. This is the rare, long lost original 1897 manuscript - published here for the first time. 
   
  Produced by Macc Kay 
  Production executive Avalon Giuliano 
  ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano 
  ©2022 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2022 Eden Garret Giuliano

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