The Babyons series consists of four long stories strung together by a supernatural thread and chronicling the family history of the Babyons over a period of about 200 years. The ghostly thread is introduced in the first story, “Third Personal Singular,” a tale of 1750. James Babyon, engaged to marry his cousin Hariot, becomes suddenly averse from her and breaks the engagement within a month of the date set for the wedding. In a passionate scene in which the probable madness of Hariot is su...

The play centers on a troubled family caught in the emotional aftermath of a divorce and the consequences of mental illness. The central character is Hilary Fairfield, a woman whose husband, who had been committed to an asylum for many years, is unexpectedly released. The reunion with her estranged husband, who is still emotionally disturbed, forces Hilary to confront past decisions and the disintegration of her marriage.Hilary's struggle becomes even more complicated when her daughter, Ma...

"First the Blade: A Comedy of Growth" is a novel by Clemence Dane, a British author known for her work in both drama and fiction. The book is a comedic exploration of personal development and the trials of growing up.The story revolves around the character of Beatrix "Trixie" Clayton, a young woman in her early twenties who is navigating the complexities of adulthood. Trixie is an aspiring writer who is both ambitious and somewhat naïve. Her journey is marked by a series of humorous and in...

The play is structured around Shakespeare’s life in the years leading up to his rise as a playwright and his later success in London. While it is not a strict biographical account, Will Shakespeare provides a dramatic and introspective look at the man behind the iconic works. In four acts, the play alternates between Shakespeare’s personal struggles, his relationships with his family, friends, and colleagues, and his evolving sense of artistic identity.In the first act, Shakespeare is depi...

The curtain rises on the living room of a sixteenth century cottage. The walls and ceiling are of black beams and white-washed plaster. On the left is a large oven fireplace with logs burning. Beyond it is a door. At the back is another door and a mullioned window half open giving a glimpse of bare garden hedge and winter sky. On the right wall is a staircase running down from the ceiling into the room, a dresser and a light shelf holding a book or two. Under the shelf is a small table pil...

The school secretary pattered down the long corridor and turned into a class-room. The room was a big one. There were old-fashioned casement windows and distempered walls; the modern desks, ranged in double rows, were small and shallow, scarred, and incredibly inky. In the window-seats stood an over-populous fish-bowl, two trays of silkworms, and a row of experimental jam-pots. There were pictures on the walls—The Infant Samuel was paired withCherry Ripe, and Alfred, in the costume of Robi...

‘Once upon a time’—and we pull in our deep chairs, you quietly, I with a quick impatient jerk that scrabbles up the hearth-rug and worries your tidy soul. But you yourself have forgotten the blinds! Draw them close, lest the Zeppelins catch us at our story-telling, whilst I put the carpet to rights again and pile up logs (we sawed them ourselves, didn’t we?) upon the fire. One must save the electricity these hard times. And now—you have your knitting and I the fountain-pen you gave me: it ...

If she had not been ill so long it would have been harder. As it was—but there’s no use in writing down that black time. Afterwards I didn’t know what to do. The pension had stopped, of course. I’d managed to teach myself typing, though Mother couldn’t be left much; but I didn’t know shorthand, and I couldn’t get work, and my money was dwindling, and I was getting scared. I was ready to worship Anita when her letter came. She was sorry about Mother and she wanted a secretary. If I could ty...

The curtain rises on the hall, obviously used as the common-room of a country house. On the right (of the audience) is the outer door and a staircase that runs down from an upper landing towards the middle of the room, half hiding what has once been a separate smaller room with a baize door at the back. In the corner a French window opens on to a snowbound garden. On the left, facing the entrance, a log fire is blazing. Staircase, pictures, grandfather clock, etc., are wreathed with holly ...

Sapphic Violets: Lesbian Classics Boxed Set gathers foundational texts in the long, varied history of women's same-sex desire, moving across lyric antiquity, Victorian Gothic, and twentieth-century psychological realism. Its range encompasses fragmentary song, atmospheric supernatural fiction, and socially observant narrative, revealing how lesbian feeling has been encoded as devotion, menace, secrecy, pedagogy, and self-recognition. From violet-strewn poetic address to the haunting figure...

'Love Has No Gender - Gay Classics Collection' serves as a seminal anthology, traversing extensive literatural landscapes through its rich tapestry of styles and themes, all anchored in the exploration of LGBTQ+ experiences across different epochs. Each piece in this collection, whether it is a poignant prose, an evocative poem, or a gripping narrative, delves deep into the notions and nuances of identity, love, and societal norms. This collection not only celebrates the diversity within t...

Love Has No Gender—Pride Month Special Series gathers writing across antiquity, the nineteenth century, and modernism to trace the many idioms through which same-sex desire, gender variance, companionship, secrecy, and self-fashioning have entered literature. Poetry, satire, Gothic fiction, social realism, decadent prose, and experimental modernist writing coexist here, revealing love as both private feeling and public question. From the lyric compression associated with Sappho and the iro...