The amazing story of the rise of John Lennon's group - The Beatles - to fame and fortune.David Stuart Ryan carried out a great deal of original research into the true background to John, speaking to many of the characters who helped formhis intense view of the world. This was backed up with full access to the files of Time magazine. The result is a comprehensive picture of a great artist living at a time of both tumult and awakening.The author spoke to many of the ke...

‘How on earth did you piece together all this?’ he asked in wonder. Mr Reeder shook his head sadly. ‘I have that perversion,’ he said. ‘It is a terrible misfortune. I see evil in everything. I have the mind of a criminal.’Let us introduce you to the enigmatic J. G. Reeder, a timid, gentle middle-aged man who carries a furled up umbrella and wears an old-fashioned flat-topped bowler hat. He is one of the great unsung sleuths of mystery fiction, created by the prolific Edgar Wallace,...

Learn about the world's greatest detective in The Sherlock Holmes Book.Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Sherlock Holmes in this overview guide to the subject, brilliant for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Sherlock Holmes Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catchi...

Three British Mystery Novels: detective, thriller, and (mild) horror set in Britain by British authors. Three great reads, for those who like to wrap their minds round unusual plots, presented as an e-book bundle.An ideal gift for mystery lovers.A Taste for Blood, set in and around London, by the late Sherlock Holmes expert David Stuart Davies.Ellipsis, set in London, a psychological thriller by Nikki Dudley....

M.R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror.As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M.R. James, ‘Stories I Have Tried To Write’, which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are ‘Casting the Runes’, ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll come to you, My Lad’, ‘The Tractate Middoth’, ...

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies.Oliver Onions is unique in the realms of ghost story writers in that his tales are so far ranging in their background and substance that they are not easily categorised. His stories are powerfully charged explorations of psychical violence, their effects heightened by detailed character studies graced with a powerful poetic elegance. In simple terms Oliver Onions goes for the cerebral rather than the jugular. However, mak...

Selected and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent at Canterbury.Late in the eighteenth century authors began to write ‘Gothic’ stories as a way of putting literature back in touch with the irrational, the supernatural and the bizarre, which had been neglected in the ‘Age of Reason’.This superb new collection brings together stories from the earliest decades of Gothic writing with later 19th and early 20th century tales fr...

‘His body was pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, and the face was a mask of agonised horror and fruitless entreaty. But the eyes were already glazed in death, and before Francis could reach the bed the body had toppled over and lay inert and lifeless. Even as he looked, he heard a limping step go down the passage outside.’E. F. Benson was a master of the ghost story and now all his rich, imaginative, spine-tingling and beautifully written tales are presented together ...

Vampires, those dark children of the night, who rise from their coffins to suck the blood of the living, continue to hold a strange fascination and dread. In this unique collection of vampire stories you will find some of the earliest depictions of these fearful creatures as in John Polidori's 'The Vampyre' and James Malcolm Rymer's 'Varney, the Vampyre', a tale which held readers in thrall when it was first published in the mid-nineteenth century.As well as these rare stories and ...

With an Introduction and Notes by Martin Scofield, University of Kent at Canterbury.Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche. This edition includes all ten of his ghost stories, and as such is the fullest collection currently available.The stories range wi...

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies.'I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with horror which at all times assails me yet'.With its strange, imaginative blend of horror, science fiction, romance and lyrical prose, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a classic masterpiece of weird fiction. This series of vaguely connected stories is linked by the presence of a monstrous and suppressed book which brings fright, madne...

‘And behind him, like a misshapen black frog, bounded the Thing, its redtongue lolling out of its gash of a mouth, its diminutive blubbery lipsdrawn back in a murderous snarl…’Let Henry S. Whitehead take you into the mysterious and macabre world ofvoodoo where beasts invade the mind of man and where lives of theliving are racked by the spirits of the dead. In this collection of rareand out of print stories you will encounter the curses of the...