The five stories brought together in Tales of Unrest (1898) mark a turning point in the writer's career. Conrad's first short story collection evidences a writer firmly in control of his new craft staking a claim to diverse cultural and fictional territories. The introduction situates the writing of these stories in Conrad's career and discusses their sources and contemporary reception. The explanatory notes identify literary and historical references...

A pleasant short story about Sir Arthur Savile, charming in her naivety and hypertrophied in her nobility. Ironic humor, a beautiful syllable, wise quotes, an English spirit and a non-standard prose of life. At the dinner party, the young and noble Sir Arthur Savile finds out that from now on he does not allow him to live in peace and marry his girlfriend. After a night of thought, he makes a gentleman's decision, requiring him to act in a non-gentlemanly...

"From one of Britain's most accomplished, acclaimed, and garlanded writers, Hilary Mantel delivers a brilliant collection of contemporary short stories that demonstrate what modern England has become in The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel's trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display.Her classic wicked humor in each story--which range from a ghost story...

Tucked away in a museum, lies the original notebooks of a teenage Jane Austen. Within the pages can be found the early writings of a girl who would go on to shape the literary landscape for years to come. From movies such as "Clueless" to "Emma", Jane Austen has been inspiring storytellers for over 200 years. 'Love and Friendship' is a collection of short stories from her journals that show the beginnings of some of her best-known stories. Her bold...

(Excerpt): "They look so dull and dowdy in the spring weather, when the snow drops and the crocuses are putting on their dainty frocks of white and mauve and yellow, and the baby-buds from every branch are peeping with bright eyes out on the world, and stretching forth soft little leaves toward the coming gladness of their lives. They stand apart, so cold and hard amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around them."

We can't always choose the object of our affections, and often, Cupid's arrow causes people to fall in love with the most unsuitable candidates. That's a theme that surfaces time and time again in the collection Frivolous Cupid from British writer Anthony Hope. Bringing together one novella and a series of short stories, this delectable delight will enchant romance fans.

'Twixt Land and Sea (1912) contains three long stories written for magazines in the 1909-11 period. 'The Secret Sharer' is one of the great tales in the English language. All three tales explore a young captain under stress. Although in this period of renewed personal and financial turmoil Conrad's imagination turns nostalgically to life at sea, the sea is no longer the simplified world of 'Typhoon' or 'The End of the Tether', where moral distinctions...

"The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountains might have absorbed them into its eternal snows." Thought recently married, the honeymoon fase of a young English couple is disrupted by the bride's haunting dreams. Every time she closes her eyes, the vision of a dark and remarkable-looking man with a mysterious air appears before her. He says nothing. He does nothing. He just looks...

"There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock that is always right-except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country." – Jerome K. Jerome, 'Clocks'. In Jerome K. Jerome's short, humorous essay, 'Clocks', the writer uses observational comedy – that will be enjoyed by fans of stand-up...

"When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted House, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up an angle off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap of things in a corner." When a waiter in a hotel stumbles upon some luggage that has been left behind, he searches through it to identify its owner only to find a handful of stories instead. The writing is so good that he gets the stories...