This dawn, Khalid would mark the loss of the seventy-second girl, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran. Khalid didn’t know how many more of these dawns he could take. And there was something about this latest girl that piqued his interest. Not only had she volunteered to marry him, but at their wedding ceremony, she had seemed not the least bit afraid. In fact, what he had seen in her eyes was nothing short of pure hatred. She was about to lose her life. Why wasn’t she afraid? Why did she hate him so? He had never before gone to his wife’s chambers before her death at dawn. Tonight would be different.The ebook is a free purchase via one of the online stores.

    A satirical poem that intentionally over-dramatizes an incident in which a lock of a woman's hair is cut without her permission.

    

    This collects "Sonny's Blues", "The Rockpile" and "Previous Condition", all taken from Going to Meet the Man (Penguin, 1991).

    Tennyson's beautiful and enigmatic poem of unrequited love, set in Arthurian England, has enthralled artists for well over a century. With her luminous illustrations, Genevi?ve C?t? weaves a refreshingly modern interpretation of this beloved poem -- one that will enchant readers of all ages.' to 'This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

    A young English gentleman of means, Aubrey is immediately intrigued by Lord Ruthven, the mysterious newcomer among society’s elite. His unknown origin and curious behavior tantalizes Aubrey’s imagination. But the young man soon discovers a sinister character hidden behind his new friend’s glamorous facade.   When the two are set upon by bandits while traveling together in Europe, Ruthven is fatally injured. Before drawing his last breath, he makes the odd request that Aubrey keep his death and crimes secret for a year and a day. But when Ruthven resurfaces in London—making overtures toward Aubrey’s sister—Aubrey realizes this immortal fiend is a vampyre.   John William Polidori’s The Vampyre is both a classic tale of gothic horror and the progenitor of the modern romantic vampire myth that has been fodder for artists ranging from Anne Rice to Alan Ball to Francis Ford Coppola. Originally published in 1819, many decades before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and misattributed to Polidori’s friend Lord Byron, The Vampyre has kept readers up at night for nearly two hundred years.

    "It spoke!" The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools. Science Fiction – Alien Life and InteractionBeyond Lies the Wub was Philip K. Dick's first published story and appeared in the legendary ”Planet Stories” pulp magazine. Free download from LibriVox.org Play Duration: 00:16:14Down load file sizes[mp3@64kbps - 7.7MB][mp3@128kbps - 15.5MB][ogg vorbis - 11MB] Public Domain stories from Project Gutenberg, that are read by volunteers.

    The journey is triggered by a mysterious package left to Leo by his father, to be opened on his 25th birthday; the package contains an ancient shard of pottery and several documents, suggesting an ancient mystery about the Vincey family. Holly and Leo eventually arrive in eastern Africa where they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and who has a mysterious connection to young Leo. The story expresses numerous racial and evolutionary conceptions of the late Victorians, especially notions of degeneration and racial decline prominent during the fin de siècle. In the figure of She, the novel notably explored themes of female authority and feminine behaviour. It has received praise and criticism alike for its representation of womanhood. (From Wikipedia)

    It is a companion story to the third book of the Grisha Trilogy, Ruin and Rising, and the stories “The Witch of Duva” and “The Too-Clever Fox.”

    

    It is a revision of Thomas Killigrew's play "Thomaso", or "The Wanderer" (1664), and features multiple plot lines, dealing with the amorous adventures of a group of Englishmen and women in Naples at Carnival time. According to Restoration poet John Dryden, it "lacks the manly vitality of Killigrew's play, but shows greater refinement of expression." The play stood for three centuries as "Behn's most popular and most respected play."

    She had a startling early career and was known for her extraordinary prose and haunting women characters. With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. This mesmerizing work introduces us to Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.A new introduction by the award-winning Edwidge Danticat, author most recently of Claire of the Sea Light, expresses the enduring importance of this work. Drawing on her own Caribbean background, she illuminates the setting’s impact on Rhys and her astonishing work.

    Here you will find the secrets of eternal youth, souls that exchange bodies, and ancient Englishmen and Romans newly thawed out of ice. In addition to several stories by Mary Shelley, this volume also features a brand new story by renowned science fiction author Michael Bishop, which serves as a narrative introduction for this collection. Mary Shelley's considerable reputation rests squarely on the shoulders of her one great novel - Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, published anonymously in 1818 and revised under her own byline in 1831. Her powerful tale of blasphemous creation is perhaps more familiar to modern readers through its many film adaptations as it is from the book itself. From Boris Karloff's electrifying performance as Frankenstein to Kenneth Branaugh's latest directorial rendering, the story has received numerous interpretations which have renewed interest in the book time and time again. However, Shelley's other works have not fared as well as Frankenstein. She wrote just a handful of novels, of which only The Last Man (1826) has remained sporadically in print. A precursor to such disaster novels as George R. Stewart's Earth Abides and Richard Jeffries' After London, The Last Man follows its protagonist Lionel Verney through a distant future world which has been depopulated by plague. The shorter works of Mary Shelley have remained difficult to find. During her lifetime, she published just over two-dozen stories, only three of which were of interest to readers of science fiction and fantasy. In addition to these three supernaturally-themed stories, two additional stories were published after Shelley's death. "Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman," was printed in a volume of reminisces by a magazine editor who had commissioned the story thirty years earlier. "Valerius: The Reanimated Roman," a story in a similar vein to "Roger Dodsworth," remained unpublished until 1976, when both stories were discovered by Charles E. Robinson, a Shelley scholar and professor of English at the University of Delaware.Contents"The Unexpected Visit of a Reanimated Englishwoman": Introduction by Michael Bishop"The Mortal Immortal: A Tale""Transformation""Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman""The Dream""Valerius: The Reanimated Roman"

    Let the carriage to a royal ball wait. There is a story to be told: of a starless night, a mother and her sick son, and a mortal who falls in love with the snow god, and will do anything to have her...

    We jump into the past as the narrator begins his story about his brother.The narrator is six years old when Doodle is born. Doodle is a sickly child, and everyone but Aunt Nicey thinks he will die. Daddy even buys Doodle a coffin. When Doodle has lived for two months, Mama and Daddy name him William Armstrong. The narrator doesn't think the name suits him, so he nicknames him Doodle.This is a tragic short story following the narrator as he tries to teach his weak younger brother to walk and play like a normal boy. It was first published in The Atlantic Monthly and won the "Atlantic First" award.