Dubliners

Dubliners
by James Joyce

Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.

The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences a life-changing self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence and maturity.

The stories

1. "The Sisters" – After the priest Father Flynn dies, a young boy who was close to him and his family deal with his death superficially.
2. "An Encounter" – Two schoolboys playing truant encounter an elderly man.
3. "Araby" – A boy falls in love with the sister of his friend, but fails in his quest to buy her a worthy gift from the Araby bazaar.
4. "Eveline" – A young woman weighs her decision to flee Ireland with a sailor.
5. "After the Race" – College student Jimmy Doyle tries to fit in with his wealthy friends.
6. "Two Gallants" – Two con men, Lenehan and Corley, find a maid who is willing to steal from her employer.
7. "The Boarding House" – Mrs Mooney successfully manoeuvres her daughter Polly into an upwardly mobile marriage with her lodger Mr Doran.
8. "A Little Cloud" – Little Chandler's dinner with his old friend Ignatius Gallaher casts fresh light on his own failed literary dreams. The story also reflects on Chandler's mood upon realising that his baby son has replaced him as the centre of his wife's affections.
9. "Counterparts" – Farrington, a lumbering alcoholic scrivener, takes out his frustration in pubs and on his son Tom.
10. "Clay" – The old maid Maria, a laundress, celebrates Halloween with her former foster child Joe Donnelly and his family.
11. "A Painful Case" – Mr Duffy rebuffs Mrs Sinico, then, four years later, realises that he has condemned her to loneliness and death.
12. "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" – Minor politicians fail to live up to the memory of Charles Stewart Parnell.
13. "A Mother" – Mrs Kearney tries to win a place of pride for her daughter, Kathleen, in the Irish cultural movement, by starring her in a series of concerts, but ultimately fails.
14. "Grace" – After Mr Kernan injures himself falling down the stairs in a bar, his friends try to reform him through Catholicism.
15. "The Dead" – Gabriel Conroy attends a party, and later, as he speaks with his wife, has an epiphany about the nature of life and death. At 15–16,000 words this story has also been classified as a novella. The Dead was adapted into a film by John Huston, written for the screen by his son Tony and starring his daughter Anjelica as Mrs. Conroy.

"Guns, Gentlemen"

"Guns, Gentlemen"
by Cornell Woolrich

"Guns, Gentlemen" was first published in Argosy in the December 18 issue of 1937. According to Francis Nevins it was the last story that Woolrich published that year with Argosy. It was submitted by Woolrich to the magazine under the title "Twice-Trod Path" and was later published again in a collection of stories under a third title, "The Lamp of Memory."

The story centers around Stephen Botiller, the son of a wealthy family with a historic and heroic past. Stephen is obsessed by a portrait in his home of his great-grand uncle, who caries the same name as Stephen and died abroad under strange and mysterious circumstances at the age of twenty-five.
Now twenty-five himself and a college graduate, the current day Stephen finds himself traveling overseas and, in a strangely familiar surrounding, fighting a duel with a local nobleman over the affections of a beautiful woman.

It's a rare story where Woolrich deals with the subject of death in such a gentle, romantic manner.

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (4 December 1903 – 25 September 1968) is one of America's best crime and noir writers who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. He's often compared to other celebrated crime writers of his day, Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner and Raymond Chandler.

Woolrich is considered the godfather of film noir and is often referred to as the Edgar Allen Poe of the 20th century, writing well over 250 works including novels, novelettes, novellas and short stories.

"The Colour Out of Space"

"The Colour Out of Space"
by H.P. Lovecraft

"The Colour Out of Space" is a short story written by American horror author H. P. Lovecraft in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the wild hills west of Arkham, Massachusetts. The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, draining the life force from anything living nearby; vegetation grows large, but tasteless, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.

Lovecraft began writing "The Colour Out of Space" immediately after finishing his previous short novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and in the midst of final revision on his horror fiction essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Seeking to create a form of life that was truly alien, he drew his inspiration from numerous fiction and nonfiction sources. First appearing in the September 1927 edition of Hugo Gernsback's science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, "The Colour Out of Space" became one of Lovecraft's most popular works and remained his personal favorite short story. It was adapted into feature film versions in 1965 and 1987.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle

First published in: The Strand Magazine, and in Collier’s Weekly, both December 1908.

Time frame of story (known/surmised): November 21, 1895. (One of the few instances where Watson’s statement of the date was totally clear.)

H&W living arrangements: Sharing quarters at 221B Baker St.

Opening scene: November, and a dense yellow fog had enveloped London. The greasy, heavy brown swirl condensed in oily drops upon the windowpanes, and instilled a feeling of lethagy in H&W. Holmes had on his mouse-coloured dressing-gown. Then, a telegram. Mycroft was planning a visit. Coming at once, regarding Cadogan West, a young man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday morning.

Client: The British Government, represented by Mycroft Holmes.

Crime or concern: West’s body found with skull crushed, alongside the tracks near the Aldgate Station on the Underground. West was a junior clerk at the Woolwich Arsenal, and upon his body was found some of the missing plans (but not the most crucial portions) for a top-secret submarine of a radically new and important type. Enemy naval warfare would become impossible within the radius of a Bruce-Partington’s operation.

Villain: Col. Valentine Walter, brother of the head of the Submarine Department at the arsenal, Sir James Walter.

Motive: Sell the plans to a foreign agent to cover a Stock Exchange debt that had to be paid.

Logic used to solve: The key point was that West was killed elsewhere, and his body fell from the roof of the train. Deduced by SH from the fact that there was very little blood on the body even though there was a considerable wound. There was no ticket in West’s pockets. There were points (switches, to Americans) on a curve of the tracks, so the carriage would pitch and sway as it came round.

Policemen: Lestrade of Scotland Yard arrived at 221B accompanying Mycroft.

Holmes’ fees: “I play the game for the game’s own sake,” said Holmes. “But the problem certainly presents some points of interest, and I shall be very pleased to look into it.” After solving the case and returning the submarine plans, Holmes got a fancy tie-pin from the Queen. No mention of a monetary reward.

Transport: After inspecting the location where the body was found, H&W took their seats in the Woolwich train. Then a cab to & from Sir James Walter’s house, having learned Sir James had died. He was the government expert in charge of the plans and the arsenal. His decorations and sub-titles would fill two lines of a book of reference. He had grown gray in the service, was a gentleman, a had been a favoured guest in the most exalted houses, and, above all, a man whose patriotism was beyond suspicion.

Food: Holmes ate at Goldini’s garish Italian restaurant. Watson joined him there. H&W had breakfast the next day, and a light dinner that evening. The day after H&W burgled the spy’s lodgings. Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after breakfast.

Drink: At Goldini’s H&W had coffee and curacao.

Vices: H&W tried one of the proprietor’s cigars, which were less poisonous than one would expect.

Other cases mentioned: GREE, and also mention of Brooks and Woodhouse, who had good reason for wanting to take Holmes’ life.

Notable Quotables: “Act, Sherlock — act!” cried Mycroft, springing to his feet. Use your powers! Go to the scene of the crime! See the people concerned! Leave no stone unturned! In all your career you have never had so great a chance of serving your country.”

“It was one of my friend’s most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own.” – Watson, describing Holmes.

“See the foxhound with hanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare it with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high scent — such was the change in Holmes after he came up with the idea about the body falling off the train.” – Watson, describing Holmes.

“It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.” – SH

Other interestings: Having had some personal experience as a draughtsman, we wonder how much space is taken up by the plans for a submarine. We would guess closer to a truckload than a pocketful. But in this story, they were probably talking about the plans of some unique and important feature, not the whole thing. In any event, we at McMurdo’s Camp do not view our role as questioning the premises of a story as related by the author.

Mycroft’s salary in his government position was £450/year.

In this story, SH developed a new hobby, music of the Middle Ages. In his spare moments, he had undertaken a monograph upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. It was later printed for private circulation, and was said by experts to be the last word upon the subject.

When all was said and done: Once SH figured out the body had been placed upon the top of the carriage, he looked at the living quarters of known international spies, and quickly found the one whose rooms abutted upon the Underground (in a spot where the tracks were not under ground). He then lured the suspect to an appointment with a fake message in the agonies and captured the crooked colonel.

After the case was solved, Holmes spent a day at Windsor, whence he returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie-pin. When asked him if he had bought it, he answered that it was a present from a certain gracious lady in whose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a small commission.

Colonel Walter died in prison two years later.

"All You Zombies"

"--All You Zombies--"
by Robert Heinlein

" '—All You Zombies—' " is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. It was written in one day, July 11, 1958, and first published in the March 1959 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine after being rejected by Playboy.

The story involves a number of paradoxes caused by time travel. In 1980, it was nominated for the Balrog Award for short fiction.[1]

"'—All You Zombies—'" further develops themes explored by the author in a previous work: "By His Bootstraps", published some 18 years earlier. Some of the same elements also appear later in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1988), including the Circle of Ouroboros and the Temporal Corps.

"The Lottery"

"The Lottery"
by Shirley Jackson

"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, written in June 1948 and first published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. The story describes a small town in contemporary America which has an annual ritual known as "the lottery". It has been described as "one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature," as well as being described as "a chilling tale of conformity gone mad."

Response to the story was negative, surprising Jackson and The New Yorker. Readers canceled subscriptions and sent hate mail throughout the summer. The story was banned in the Union of South Africa. Since then, it has been accepted as a classic American short story, subject to critical interpretations and media adaptations, and it has been taught in middle schools and high schools for decades since its publication.

"The Call of Cthulhu"

"The Call of Cthulhu"
by H.P. Lovecraft

"The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, in February 1928.

In the text, narrator Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston, recounts his discovery of notes left behind by his granduncle, George Gammell Angell, a prominent Professor of Semitic languages at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who died suddenly in "the winter of 1926–27" after being "jostled by a nautical-looking negro".

The first chapter, The Horror in Clay, concerns a small bas-relief sculpture found among the papers, which the narrator describes: "My somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature.... A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings". The sculpture is the work of Henry Anthony Wilcox, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design who based the work on his delirious dreams of "great Cyclopean cities of titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror". Wilcox frequently refers to Cthulhu and R'lyeh. Lovecraft makes Wilcox's residence in the story the real Providence structure the Fleur-de-Lys Studios.

Angell also discovers reports of "outre mental illnesses and outbreaks of group folly or mania" around the world (in New York City, "hysterical Levantines" mob police; in California, a Theosophist colony dons white robes to await a "glorious fulfillment").

The second chapter, The Tale of Inspector Legrasse, discusses the first time the Professor had heard the word "Cthulhu" and seen a similar image. At the 1908 meeting of the American Archaeological Society in St. Louis, Missouri, a New Orleans police official named John Raymond Legrasse asked the assembled antiquarians to identify a statuette composed of an unidentifiable greenish-black stone, "captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting". The idol resembles the Wilcox sculpture, and represented a "...thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters".

On November 1, 1907, Legrasse had led a party of policemen in search of several women and children who disappeared from a squatter community. The police found the victims' "oddly marred" bodies used in a ritual in which almost 100 men—all of a "very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type"—were "braying, bellowing, and writhing" and repeatedly chanting the phrase, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn". After killing five of the participants and arresting 47 others, Legrasse interrogated the prisoners and learned "the central idea of their loathsome faith": "They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men...and...formed a cult which had never died...hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.[10]

The prisoners identified the statuette as "great Cthulhu", and translated the chanted phrase as "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming". One particularly talkative cultist, known as "old Castro", named the centre of the cult as Irem, the City of Pillars, in Arabia, and referred to the Necronomicon: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die".

One of the academics present at the meeting, William Channing Webb, a professor of anthropology at Princeton, states that on an 1860 expedition "high up on the West Greenland coast" he had encountered "a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Esquimaux whose religion, a curious form of devil-worship, chilled him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness and repulsiveness." Webb claimed that the Greenland cult had both the same chant and a similar "hideous" fetish. Thurston, the narrator, reflects that "My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as I wish it still were.".

In the third chapter, The Madness from the Sea, Thurston discovers an article dated April 18, 1925, from the Sydney Bulletin, an Australian newspaper. The article reported the discovery of a derelict ship in the Pacific Ocean with only one survivor—Norwegian sailor Gustaf Johansen, second mate on the schooner Emma, which sailed from Auckland, New Zealand. On March 22, the Emma apparently encountered a heavily armed yacht, the Alert, crewed by "a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes" from Dunedin, New Zealand. Despite being attacked by the Alert without provocation, the crew of the Emma were able to kill the opposing crew, but lost their own ship in the battle. Commandeering the Alert, the surviving crew sailed on and the following day discovered an island in the vicinity of co-ordinates of 47°9′S 126°43′W—despite there being no charted islands in the area. With the exception of Johansen and another man, the remaining crew died on the island, but Johansen was apparently "queerly reticent" about the circumstances of their death.

Thurston travels to New Zealand and then Australia, where at the Australian Museum he views a statue retrieved from the Alert with a "cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal". Travelling to Oslo, Norway, Thurston learns that Johansen died suddenly after an encounter with "two Lascar sailors". Johansen's widow provides Thurston with a manuscript written by her late husband that reveals the final fate of the crew of the Emma.

The uncharted island was described as "a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh". The crew also struggle to comprehend the non-Euclidian geometry of the city. When the sailors accidentally open a "monstrously carven portal", they release Cthulhu: "It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway.... The stars were right again, and what an age-old cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for delight".

Johansen describes Cthulhu as "a mountain [who] walked or stumbled..." and flees with the crew, almost all of whom die. Johansen and one crewmate return to the yacht and set sail, but note with horror that Cthulhu has entered the water to pursue the vessel. Johansen turns the Alert and rams the creature's head, which bursts with "a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish"- only to immediately begin reforming". The Alert escapes, with Johansen's fellow crewmate having gone insane and dying soon afterwards.

After finishing the manuscript, Thurston realizes he is now a target, thinking, "I know too much, and the cult still lives".

Night Shift

Night Shift
by Stephen King

Night Shift is the first collection of short stories by Stephen King, first published in 1978. In 1980, Night Shift received the Balrog Award for Best Collection, and in 1979 it was nominated as best collection for the Locus Award and the World Fantasy Award. Many of King's most famous short stories were included in this collection.

Title	Originally published in
Jerusalem's Lot	Previously unpublished
Graveyard Shift	October 1970 issue of Cavalier
Night Surf	Spring 1969 issue of Ubris
I Am the Doorway	March 1971 issue of Cavalier
The Mangler	December 1972 issue of Cavalier
The Boogeyman	March 1973 issue of Cavalier
Gray Matter	October 1973 issue of Cavalier
Battleground	September 1972 issue of Cavalier
Trucks	June 1973 issue of Cavalier
Sometimes They Come Back	March 1974 issue of Cavalier
Strawberry Spring	Fall 1968 issue of Ubris
The Ledge	July 1976 issue of Penthouse
The Lawnmower Man	May 1975 issue of Cavalier
Quitters, Inc.	Previously unpublished
I Know What You Need	September 1976 issue of Cosmopolitan
Children of the Corn	March 1977 issue of Penthouse
The Last Rung on the Ladder	Previously unpublished
The Man Who Loved Flowers	August 1977 issue of Gallery
One for the Road	March/April 1977 issue of Maine
The Woman in the Room	Previously unpublished

Masque of the Red Death

"Masque of the Red Death"
by Edgar Allen Poe

"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy" (1842), is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a masquerade ball within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. Prospero dies after confronting this stranger, whose "costume" proves to have nothing tangible inside it; the guests also die in turn.

The story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the titular disease. The story was first published in May 1842 in Graham's Magazine. It has since been adapted in many different forms, including the 1964 film starring Vincent Price. It has been alluded to by other works in many types of media.

"The Beautiful Stranger"

"The Beautiful Stranger" 
by Shirley Jackson

In “The Beautiful Stranger,” Margaret, a housewife unhappy in her marriage, retrieves her husband at the train station, despising “the sight of his hands on the wheel” as they drive home. It’s never clear what’s gone wrong between them; we know only that Margaret considered his business trip “a good time to get things straight” and to “try to get a hold of myself again.” Suddenly, though, when they get home, Margaret realizes that the man she’s picked up is not the same one she dropped off. Her husband has been replaced by a double. The two of them never raise the subject, though Margaret believes they are both in collusion about the switch, and the narrative, streamed through her narrow perspective, denies us an answer about the “stranger’s” true identity. Is Margaret suffering from Capgras delusion? Or has she simply chosen, for her own happiness, to believe her husband is someone else? Is he truly another man? Are suburban husbands really that indistinguishable?

Sixes and Sevens

Sixes and Sevens
by O. Henry

The first collection of humorous short stories from the author of The Four Million, his stories deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen and waitresses and often use twist endings which turn on an ironic or coincidental circumstance in his stories. Most of his stories are set in his contemporary present, the early years of the 20th century. Many take place in New York.

 O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term "O. Henry Ending."

A Treasure Chest of Sea Stories

A Treasure Chest of Sea Stories
edited by Max J. Herzberg

A collection of short stories about life on the sea by a variety of authors. Twenty exciting, red-blooded stores of the sea, of sailing ships and iron ships, of heroism and bravery, storm, shipwreck and desert islands, tall tales and sailors' yarns. Authors include Jack London, William Holder, Richard Stern, W. W. Jacobs, James Norman and Arthur Mason among others.

White Flash/Black Rain

White Flash/Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb 
edited by Vance-Watkins & Aratani 

 White Flash/Black Rain: Women Of Japan Relive The Bomb speaks of the shared accountability for bringing about war, any war. These women bear witness not only to the unspeakable mass destruction unleashed by the United States when it dropped the bomb, but also of the disastrous path Japan followed with its policy of conquest and Emperorism in Korea and China, and the abuse of the "comfort women" used by Japanese soldiers. White Flash/Black Rain is a book of peace. These women tell their stories in hope that what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki will never happen again.

Civil War Stories

Civil War Stories
by Ambrose Bierce

Newspaperman, short-story writer, poet and satirist, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) stands among the most striking and unusual literary figures that America has ever produced. During the Civil War, he enlisted in the Indiana infantry. Most of the sixteen stories in the above collection are based on Bierce’s recollections of the war.

In The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce defined "war" as "a by-product of the arts of peace." A Civil War veteran, Bierce had absolutely no illusions about "courage," "honor," and "glory" on the battlefield. These stories form one of the great antiwar statements in American literature. Included here are the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Chickamauga, The Mocking Bird, The Coup de Grâce, Parker Anderson, Philosopher, and other stories celebrated for their intensity, startling insight, and mastery of form.

Asian Tales and Tellers

Asian Tales and Tellers

edited by Cathy Spagnoli

In this abundant and kaleidoscopic collection, Spagnoli includes stories from Japan, India, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Laos, Tibet, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Burma, and Nepal. After profiling modern Asian storytellers practicing traditional storytelling styles, she arranges the stories around dominant Asian themes such as Harmony and Friendship

"What is carved on rocks will wear away in time, What is told from mouth to mouth will live forever." Spagnoli, herself a storyteller, uses this epigraph of Vietnamese origin to launch a glittering collection of tales. Here are stories from Laos, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Korea, Malaysia - the list goes on. Some of the stories carry ancient wisdoms, others bring us contemporary belly-laughs with equal flair. Prefatory chapters contain information on storytellers and storytelling from different regions of the continent, as well as on tools and techniques of this unique performing art. Stories are thematically grouped. Also included are notes, a glossary, and resources both online and print.

At the Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness
by H.P. Lovecraft

A complete short novel, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is a tale of terror unlike any other. The barren, windswept interior of the Antarctic plateau was lifeless—or so the expedition from Miskatonic University thought. Then they found the strange fossils of unheard-of creatures...and the carved stones tens of millions of years old...and, finally, the mind-blasting terror of the City of the Old Ones. Three additional strange tales, written as only H.P. Lovecraft can write, are also included in this macabre collection of the strange and the weird.

The Collected Tales of Edgar Allen Poe

The Collected Tales of Edgar Allen Poe
by Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most original writers in the history of American letters, a genius who was tragically misunderstood in his lifetime. He was a seminal figure in the development of science fiction and the detective story, and exerted a great influence on Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, and Charles Baudelaire, who championed him long before Poe was appreciated in his own country. Baudelaire's enthusiasm brought Poe a wide audience in Europe, and his writing came to have enormous importance for modern French literature. This edition includes his most well-known works--"The Raven," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "Annabel Lee," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"--as well as less-familiar stories, poems, and essays.

Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard

Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
by Elmore Leonard


Before he brilliantly traversed the gritty landscapes of underworld Detroit and Miami, Elmore Leonard wrote breathtaking adventures set in America's nineteenth-century western frontier—elevating a popular genre with his now-trademark twisting plots, rich characterizations, and scalpel-sharp dialogue.

No author has ever written more evocatively of the dusty, gutsy heyday of the American West than Elmore Leonard. This complete collection of his thirty-one Western tales will thrill lovers of the genre, his die-hard fans, and everyone in between. From his very first story ever published—"The Trail of the Apache"—through five decades of classic Western tales, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard demonstrates the superb talent for language and gripping narrative that has made Leonard one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of our time.

Books of Blood

Books of Blood, Volumes 1-3
by Clive Barker

With the 1984 publication of Books of Blood, Clive Barker became an overnight literary sensation. He was hailed by Stephen King as "the future of horror," and won both the British and World Fantasy Awards. Now, with his numerous bestsellers, graphic novels, and hit movies like the Hellraiser films, Clive Barker has become an industry unto himself. But it all started here, with this tour de force collection that rivals the dark masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe. Read him. And rediscover the true meaning of fear.