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  Female Short Story The - A...

  Vernon Lee, Edith Nesbit,...

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  A wise man once said ‘The safest place for a child is in the arms of his mother’s voice’.  This is a perfect place to start our anthology of female short stories. 
   
  Some of our earliest memories are of our mothers telling us bedtime stories. This is not to demote the value of fathers but more to promote the often-overshadowed talents of the gentler sex. 
   
  Perhaps ‘gentler’ is a word that we should re-evaluate. In the course of literary history it is men who dominated by opportunity and with their stranglehold on the resources, both financial and technological, who brought their words to a wider audience.  Men often placed women on a pedestal from where their talented words would not threaten their own.   
   
  In these stories we begin with the original disrupter and renegade author Aphra Behn.  A peek at her c.v. shows an astounding capacity and leaves us wondering at just how she did all that. 
   
  In those less modern days to be a woman, even ennobled, was to be seen as second class.  You literally were chattel and had almost no rights in marriage.  As Charlotte Smith famously said your role as wife was little more than ‘legal prostitute’.  From such a despicable place these authors have used their talents and ideas and helped redress that situation.   
   
  Slowly at first.  Privately printed, often anonymously or under the cloak of a male pseudonym their words spread.  Their stories admired and, usually, their role still obscured from rightful acknowledgement. 
   
  Aided by more advanced technology, the 1700’s began to see a steady stream of female writers until by the 1900’s mass market publishing saw short stories by female authors from all the strata of society being avidly read by everyone.  Their names are a rollcall of talent and ‘can do’ spirit and society is richer for their works.   
   
  In literature at least women are now acknowledged as equals, true behind the scenes little has changed but if (and to mis-quote Jane Austen) there is one universal truth, it is that ideas change society.  These women’s most certainly did and will continue to do so as they easily write across genres, from horror and ghost stories to tender tales of love and making your way in society’s often grueling rut.  They will not be silenced, their ideas and passion move emotions, thoughts and perhaps more importantly our ingrained view of what every individual human being is capable of.    
   
  It is because of their desire to speak out, their desire to add their talents to the bias around them that we perhaps live in more enlightened, almost equal, times.   
   
  Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. 
   
  01 - The Female Short Story. A Chronological History - An Introduction - Volume 5 
  02 - The Death Mask by H D Everett writing as Theo Parker 
  03 - The Story of 'The Spaniards', Hammersmith by Kate and Hesketh Pritchard 
  04 - A New England Nun by Mary E Wilkins Freeman 
  05 - A Dream of Wild Bees by Olive Schreiner 
  06 - The Hired Baby, A Romance of the London Streets by Mary Mackay writing as Marie Corelli 
  07 - The Runaway by Marion Hepworth-Dixon 
  08 - Amour Dure by Violet Paget writing as Vernon Lee 
  09 - My Flirtations by Ella Hepworth Dixon writing as Margaret Wynham 
  10 - Irremediable by Ella D'Arcy 
  11 - When the Devil Was Well by Gertrude Ather

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  Furies (Morshead Translation)

  Aeschylus

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  The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus concerning the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. The name derives from the character Orestes, who sets out to avenge his father's murder. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theater trilogy, the Oresteia won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BC. When originally performed, it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play that would have followed the trilogy. Proteus has not survived, however. In all likelihood the term "Oresteia" originally referred to all four plays; today it generally designates only the surviving trilogy. Many consider the Oresteia to be Aeschylus' finest work. Principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation.  The Eumenides (??µe??de?, Eumenides; also known as The Kindly Ones) is the final play of the Oresteia, in which Orestes, Apollo, and the Erinyes go before Athena and eleven other judges chosen by her from the Athenian citizenry at the Areopagus (Rock of Ares, a flat rocky hill by the Athenian agora where the homicide court of Athens later held its sessions), to decide whether Orestes's killing of his mother, Clytemnestra, makes him guilty of the crime of murder. - Summary by Wikipedia

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  A Ballet of Lepers - A Novel and...

  Leonard Cohen

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  A never-before-published early novel and stories by the legendary musician, songwriter, and poet Leonard CohenThe pieces in this collection, written between 1956 and 1961 and including short fiction, a radio play, and a stunning early novel, offer startling insights into Cohen's imagination and creative process. Cohen explores themes that would permeate his later work, from shame and unworthiness to sexual desire in all its sacred and profane dimensions to longing, whether for love, family, freedom, or transcendence. The titular novel, A Ballet of Lepers—one he later remarked was "probably a better novel" than his celebrated book The Favourite Game—is a haunting examination of these elements in tandem, focusing on toxic relationships and the lengths to which one will go to maintain them, while the fifteen stories, as well as the playscript, probe the inner demons of his characters, many of whom could function as stand-ins for the author himself. Cohen's work is meditative and surprising, offering playful, provocative, and penetrating glimpses into the world-weary lives of his characters, and a window into the early art of a storytelling master.A Ballet of Lepers, vivid in its detail, unsparing in its gaze, reveals the great artist and visceral genius as never seen before.

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  The Man Who Could Work Miracles

  H G Wells

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  Herbert George Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 in Bromley in Kent. He was the youngest of four siblings and his family affectionately knew him as ‘Bertie’. 
   
  The first few years of his childhood were spent fairly quietly, and Wells didn’t display much literary interest until, in 1874, he accidentally broke his leg and was left to recover in bed, largely entertained by the library of books his father regularly brought him. Through these Wells found he could escape the boredom and misery of his bed and convalescence by exploring the new worlds he encountered in these books. 
   
  From these humble beginnings began a career that was, after several delays, to be seen as one of the most brilliant of modern English writers. 
   
  Able to write comfortably in a number of genres he was especially applauded for his science fiction works such as The Time Machine and War of the Worlds but his forays into the social conditions of the times, with classics such as Kipps, were almost as commercially successful.  His short stories are miniature masterpieces many of which bring new and incredible ideas of science fiction to the edge of present day science fact.  Wells also received four nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature. 
   
  Despite a strong and lasting second marriage his affairs with other women also brought the complications of fathering other children.  His writings and work against fascism, as well as the promotion of socialism, brought him into increasing doubts with, and opposition to, religion.  His writings on what the world could be in works, such as A Modern Utopia, are thought-provoking as well as being plausible, especially when viewed from the distressing times they were written in. 
   
  His diabetic condition pushed him to create what is now the largest Diabetes charity in the United Kingdom.  Wells even found the time to run twice for Parliament. It was a long, distinguished and powerfully successful career by the time he died, aged 79, on August 13th, 1946.

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  Bedtime Stories For Adults -...

  Oscar Wilde

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  As a child being read to was one of the greatest joys imaginable.  A loved one would start a tale whilst you were all cosy warm in bed with the lights nodding off.  Anything could happen but sleep would come and dreams would start and all was good with the world.  Adults too long for reassurance, for comfort, for calm.  Sometimes they may get that.  But with classic authors such as Oscar Wilde, O Henry, Saki, Rabindranath Tagore and many others they may not.  Expect the unexpected. 
   
  1 - Bedtime Stories for Adults  - An Introduction 
  2 - Kabuliwallah by Rabindranath Tagore 
  3 - Springtime a la Carte by O Henry 
  4 - Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf 
  5 - Speed by Sinclair Lewis 
  6 - Tobermory by Saki 
  7 - The Ransom of Red Chief by O Henry 
  8 - The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde 
  9 - The Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather 
  10 - Transients in Arcadia by O Henry 
  11 - An Angel in Disguise by T S Arthur 
  12 - The Skylight Room by O Henry 
  13 - The Magic Shop by H G Wells 
  14 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry 
  15 - The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde 
  16 - The Great Good Place by Henry James

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  Octopussy and the Living...

  Ian Fleming

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  FOUR TALES OF INTRIGUE THAT PUSH 007 TO THE LIMIT 
  In “Octopussy,” a former operative in the Second World War must face the consequences of past sins when James Bond knocks on the door of his Caribbean fortress, and in “The Property of a Lady” Bond deciphers the elaborate codes of a Sotheby’s bidding war in order to catch a KGB agent. “007 in New York” takes Bond to the titular city to warn an ex-agent of her boyfriend’s secret KGB affiliation. And “The Living Daylights” sends Bond to Berlin to protect a British agent before an assassin strikes.

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