Short stories and poetry: written by three Irish writers, two living in Wexford and one in Dublin who worked together virtually during the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020. All writing is fictional, some relating to the virus and its effects, others reflecting different topics inspired during the time. Writing the book provided the writers with an escape and they took comfort in the task.We hope it provides insights into a unique time and living during a global pandemic but mostly that it...

Dean Worcester’s Fantasy Islands brings to life one of the most significant (but under examined) figures in the history of U.S. colonialism in the Philippines. Upon the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Worcester, a scientist who had traveled twice to the Philippines on zoological expeditions, established himself as one of America’s leading experts on the Philippines. Over a fourteen-year career as a member of the U.S. colonial regime, Worcester devoted much of his time and en...

The planning and execution of Operation Weserübung was the first major joint operation of its kind in history utilizing naval, ground, air, and airborne forces. Its conduct proves to be one of the most noteworthy applications of operational art and the principles of war during all of World War II. The principles of surprise and security were the most critical in the German success. The German planning taking into account and exploiting the operational factors of time, space and force are a...

On paper, things looked good for Mark Rice-Oxley: wife, children, fulfilling job. But at his 40th birthday party, his world crumbled as he succumbed to depression. Many men suffer from depression yet it remains a taboo subject. By telling his story, Mark Rice-Oxley hopes to enable others to tell theirs. This is a memoir that is brimful of experience, understanding and hope for all who read it.

Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator.Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism. In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s s...

Gustav Meyrink was born in Vienna on the 19th January, 1868.As a young man he co-founded a bank in Prague, but a personal crisis and a suicide attempt turned his life away from commerce to a study of the occult and a career in literature.His early short stories, supernatural, occult and weird, are full of promise, menace and the unusual.In 1915 he published his landmark novel ‘Der Golem’ and followed these with others which, whilst noted, failed to achieve the extra...

Israel Zangwill was born in London on 21st January 1864, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.Zangwill was initially educated in Plymouth and Bristol. At age 9 he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east London. Zangwill excelled here. He began to teach part-time at the school and eventually full time. Whilst teaching he also studied with the University of London and by 1884 had earned his BA with triple honours in philosophy, history, and t...

Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family.Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father.In 1889 Kafka was sent to the Deutsche Knabenschule, an elementary school in Prague. His father would only allow him to be educated in German-speaking schools and even went so far as to limit visits to the synagogue to ...

Dorothy Edwards, an only child, was born on the 18th August 1902 at Ogmore Vale in Glamorgan.Her father was a headmaster and an early activist in the Independent Labour Party. At age 9 Dorothy, dressed in red, welcomed Keir Hardy on to the stage at Tonypandy during the national coal strike of 1912. She was taught that revolution was at hand, that class barriers would be a thing of the past.Dorothy won a scholarship and boarded at Howell's School for Girls in Llandaff before...

Frederick Ignatius Cowles was born in 1900 in Cambridge, England.This unfamiliar name is one of the gems of English supernatural fiction as well as several other works of travelogues, history, folklore, and children's books.When his supernatural short stories, and some are very short indeed, were first published they were compared to the works of M R James and EF Benson, yet unlike those two authors he fell, unfairly, into obscurity.In all he wrote perhaps 60 short ...

Joshua Albert Flynn was born in Sheerness, Kent, on 15th September 1863.He was educated at private schools and later graduated from King's College, London.His initial career was with the Civil Service where he thrived. A marriage to Ada Parkinson brought two sons and three daughters into their lives.He worked in South Africa as a financial adviser to Lord Kitchener before stints at the Admiralty and the War Office. In 1916 he was appointed director-general of financ...

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire on 27th July 1853.His father died when he was 13 and life was then often struck with bouts of poverty, which resulted in his education being somewhat erratic. A spell in exile at 23 was followed by another as the politics of the times opposed his volatile but heart-felt passions.Writing was also coming to the fore and in 1879 his debut short story telling of a young Narodnik sea...