LITMIR.BIZ

Jack London became an instant celebrity in America from his first appearance on the literary scene. Born in San Francisco in 1876, he spent his adult life dedicated to the new genre of commercial magazine fiction, which reached audiences all over the globe. He amassed a large amount of money, but used much of it in his social activism. His most well-known work is «Call of the Wild,» followed by «White Fang.» He grew up and worked during the gold rush, which informed much of his writing's subject matter. «Klondike Tales» takes the spirit of the Klondike Gold Rush and infuses it into 23 stories from his most well-known short story collections. From the 1900 collection «Sons of the Wolf» are «The White Silence,» «The Wisdom of the Trail,» and «The Son of the Wolf.» Stories from «The God of His Fathers» and «Children of the Frost» are added, as well as Klondike stories not published in larger collections. London describes with vivid realism and brutal conditions which miners battled on an everyday basis in the Yukon. Even London himself mined during this time and, like many of his fellow workers, suffered from diseases like scurvy and fevers. The lackluster working conditions, combined with the massive amounts of labor for little payoff, helped to shape his political and social views.

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Known best for his avant-garde and modernistic style, Herman Melville's stories come together in the compilation «Billy Budd and Other Stories.» In «Billy Budd, Foretopman,» Melville returns to the sea life and describes the tale of a well-liked sailor who is wrongly convicted of trying to enact mutiny against the ship's master at arms. Billy Budd accidentally kills his superior during a fight, and he is sentenced to death and hung in front of the whole crew. It is a story about good and evil, with Billy Budd representing the right, while his antagonist is frequently described as a snake, like the serpent in the Bible. The story is also about justice and how justice isn't always served in certain cases. In his other works, Melville leads his audience on journeys to uncover the identity of America; many of America's citizens were suffering an identity crisis due to the shifting social and political climate of the 1800's, and Melville personified these feelings in his shorter works. Melville had a difficult time finding an audience during his life, though, so many of his works went unnoticed and undiscovered until the 20th century during a «Melville Revival.» It is because of this revival that works like «The Piazza» and «The Bell Tower» have found their place in the great canon of American literature.

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Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffman, (the A in his pen name stands for Amadeus, out of admiration for Mozart), was one of the most influential German writers in his time. He is credited with instigating the Romantic movement, creating the first detective story, introducing themes of the supernatural and psychological abnormality to the literary world, and inspiring many eminent writers and composers. Tchaikovsky's ballet «The Nutcracker» is based on his «Nutcracker and Mouse King». Hoffmann had a taste for the macabre, lending to tales that interweave fantasy with realism. This collection of stories, his «Weird Tales», includes «Mademoiselle de Scudéri,» the story of an illusive master goldsmith who will go to violent lengths to not be parted from his creations; «Signor Formica,» the hilarious tale of the famous Italian artist Salvator Rosa and his assistance in the marriage of two friends; «The Sand-man» and many others. All told this edition brings together the eleven tales contained in volumes one and two of Hoffmann's «Weird Tales».

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"The Body Snatcher, The Suicide Club, and Other Tales" is a thrilling collection of Robert Louis Stevenson's lesser known novellas and short stories. In this volume you will find the following captivating tales: The Suicide Club, The Rajah's Diamond, The Pavilion On The Links, A Lodging For The Night, The Sire De Malétroit's Door, Providence And The Guitar, The Merry Men, Will O' The Mill, Markheim, Thrawn Janet, Olalla, The Treasure Of Franchard, The Beach Of Falesá, The Bottle Imp, The Isle Of Voices, The Misadventures Of John Nicholson, The Body-Snatcher, and The Story Of A Lie.

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"Tales of the Jazz Age" is a collection of stories and dramas that exemplifies a classic period in American history. At the beginning of the roaring twenties it was a period in which Jazz, a truly American art form, would become the most popular form of music in America. It was a time in America that Fitzgerald's writing is most identified with. Contained within this volume are the following stories: The Jelly-Bean, The Camel's Back, May Day, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Tarquin of Cheapside, «O Russet Witch!», The Lees of Happiness, Jemina, and the two short dramas, Porcelain and Pink, and Mr. Icky.

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English novelist, short story writer and playwright, William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), achieved incredible success in the twentieth century with the reading public, despite a lackluster reception from literary critics. His simple and lucid style complemented his interesting and highly-developed characters, appealing to readers as much in the 1920s and 1930s as it does today. The works contained in this edition—The Pacific, Mackintosh, The Fall of Edward Barnard, Red, The Pool, Honolulu, Rain, and Envoi—were inspired by Maugham's journeys to the South Sea Islands of the Pacific. Through these stories, Maugham sought to differentiate between his view of life in the South Seas from the views of his 'Romantic' predecessors like Herman Melville, Pierre Loti, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Readers will appreciate Maugham's honest and vivid accounts of cultural and racial interactions, love in the tropics, and his unforgettable descriptions of exotic islands in these dramatically powerful tales.

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"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" is a collection of thirteen detective stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous literary creation, Sherlock Holmes. Contained within this collection are the following tales: The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, The Adventure of the Dancing Men, The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, The Adventure of the Priory School, The Adventure of Black Peter, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, The Adventure of the Three Students, The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez, The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, and The Adventure of the Second Stain.

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Henry James (1843-1916) was an America-born English writer whose novels, short stories and letters established the foundation of the modernist movement in twentieth century fiction and poetry. His career, one of the most significant and influential in English literature, spanned over five decades and resulted in a body of work that has had a profound impact on generations of writers. Born in New York, but educated in France, Germany, England and Switzerland, James often explored the cultural discord between the Old World (Europe) and the New World (United States) in his writings. Included in this eighth volume of «The Complete Tales of Henry James» are the following stories: «Brooksmith,» «The Marriages,» «The Chaperon,» «Sir Edmund Orme,» «Nona Vincent,» «The Private Life,» «The Real Thing,» «Lord Beaupré,» «The Visits,» «Sir Dominick Ferrand,» «Collaboration,» «Greville Fane,» and «The Wheel of Time.»

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Famed Anglo-Irish author, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957), was a short story writer, playwright, poet, essayist and autobiographer whose works earned him notoriety as one of the most significant contributors to the modern fantasy genre. His short stories, especially, were widely popular with audiences who enjoyed his formulated mythologies, his examination of the nature of time and human existence, and his satiric, and often anti-industrial, views on the relationship of humanity to nature. This twenty-nine-story edition contains A Dreamer's Tales (1910), one of Dunsany's earliest and best-known works, which is full of exotic and fantastic realms, creatures and lavish descriptions of the endless wonders that characterized Dunsany's work. Also included in this collection: Blagdaross, Where the Tides Ebb and Flow, Bethmoora, Poor Old Bill, The Hashish Man, and The Day of the Poll and other tales, many set in the Land of Dreams and other fantasy worlds.

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"The Aspern Papers" is the story of an unnamed narrator who travels to Venice in search of some letters by Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. Inspired by a true story about a fan of the poet Shelley who sought out similar papers, «The Aspern Papers» is one of Henry James's more popular novellas. It is included in this volume with the following three shorter works by Henry James: «The Private Life», «The Middle Years», and «The Death of the Lion».

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