These stories about love and death, truth and lies, myth and reality range across many epochs and settings. Brilliantly combining fact and fiction, epic and miniature, horror and comedy, this was Danilo Kiš final work, published in Serbo-Croatian in 1983.Kiš is one of the great European writers of the post-war period - GuardianCompulsively readable - Daily Telegraph Fantasy chases reality and reality chases fantasy. Pirandello and Borges are not far away. But these names are intended as approximate references. Kiš is a new, original writer - Times Literary Supplement Intense and exotic, his mysteries hint at unspeakable secrets that remain forever beyond the story-teller's grasp - Boyd TonkinDanilo Kiš was born in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1935. After an unsettled childhood during the Second World War, in which several of his family members were killed, Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade where he lived for most of his adult life. He wrote novels, short stories and poetry and went on to receive the prestigious NIN Award for his novel Pešcanik. He died in Paris in 1989.

    B. Yeats's The Tower appeared in bookstores in London on Valentine's Day, 1928. His English publisher printed just 2,000 copies of this slender volume of twenty-one poems, priced at six shillings. The book was immediately embraced by book buyers and critics alike, and it quickly became a bestseller. Subsequent versions of the volume made various changes throughout, but this Scribner facsimile edition reproduces exactly that seminal first edition as it reached its earliest audience in 1928, adding an introduction and notes by esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. Written between 1912 and 1927, these poems ("Sailing to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children" among them) are today considered some of the best and most famous in the entire Yeats canon. As Virginia Woolf declared in her unsigned review of this collection, "Mr. Yeats has never written more exactly and more passionately."

    His work is credited with turning the Gothic's focus from the external sources of horror to the inward effects of terror, thus helping to create the psychological basis for supernaturalist literature that continues to this day. Inspired by the Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken, 'Schalken the Painter' is a timeless Gothic tale. Many of the earliest occult stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive.

    Forster also wrote remarkable short stories. He referred to his stories as ‘fantasies’ and his attraction to myth and magic is apparent in many of them. Like his novels, the stories – whether they are set in Italy, Greece, India, and other places Forster visited, or in England itself – contrast the freedom of paganism with the restraints of English civilization, the personal, sensual delights of the body with the impersonal, inhibiting rules imposed by society. Rich in irony and alive with sharp observations on the surprises life holds, the stories often feature violent events, discomforting coincidences, and other disruptive happenings that throw the characters’ perceptions and beliefs off balance. This volume includes all twelve stories published during Forster’s lifetime.

    "Good God..." 'Gooseberries' is accompanied here by 'The Kiss' and 'The Two Volodyas' - three exquisite depictions of love and loss in nineteenth-century Russia by Chekhov, the great master of the short story form. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Chekhov's works available in Penguin Classics are The Steppe and Other Stories, Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories, The Shooting Party, Plays and A Life in Letters.

    

    But who's behind it? Clarke's 1952 novel is read by Nicholas Boulton.

    The special disaster in which the name originated had long been lost from memory when the poet Longfellow chose the spot as a background for his description of the “Wreck of the Hesperus,” and gave it an association that it will scarcely lose while the English language endures. Nor does it matter to the legend lover that the ill-fated schooner was not “gored” by the “cruel rocks” just at this point, but nearer to the Gloucester coast.

    Comprised of spine-chilling tales published by Stoker’s widow after his death, as well as The Lair of the White Worm, an intensely intriguing novel of myths, legends, and unspeakable evils, this collection demonstrates the full range of Stoker’s horror writing.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    One door, one window. The window is boarded up. The former resident - a recluse - is deceased. Is there a story here?Estate liquidators make a living disposing of the personal effects of deceased persons. Typically these are elderly people who may have lived alone, and were considered a bit strange because of their aloofness. But as the liquidator goes through the effects of the deceased, they occasionally find a story. Letters, pictures, and other artifacts prove that this person was once young, vibrant, sexy, full of hopes dreams, and possibilities, intriguing and mysterious.Here, Ambrose Bierce explores some possibilities of the strange person that lived in the cabin with the boarded up window.Public Domain (P)2012 Audio Books by Mike Vendetti

    Harry Blamires helps readers to negotiate their way through this formidable, remarkable novel and gain an understanding of it which, without help, it might have take several readings to achieve. The New Bloomsday Book is a crystal clear, page-by-page, line-by-line running commentary on the plot of Ulysses which illuminates symbolic themes and structures along the way. It is a highly accessible, indispensible guide for anyone reading Joyce's masterpiece for the first time.

    He spent much of his life in Europe and became a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for novels, novellas and short stories based on themes of consciousness and morality.

    It was Thursday and unseasonably hot for April. He had his suitcoat off, his tie removed and shirt collar opened, his sleeve cuffs folded back. There was sunlight on his left arm and on part of his lap. He could feel the heat of it through his dark trousers as he drove along the two-lane highway. For the past twenty minutes, he had not seen another vehicle going in either direction.Then he saw the truck...

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Edith Wharton (1862-1937).Wharton's works available in Penguin Classics are Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and The House of Mirth.

    An O Henry twist at the end of the story, foils Soapy's new plans.