There is something about the number 3.The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore them...

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 at Atlas House, 46 High Street, Bromley, Kent. He was the youngest of four siblings and his family affectionately knew him as ‘Bertie’.The first few years of his childhood were spent fairly quietly

Stefan Zweig was born on the 28th November 1881 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and into a wealthy Jewish family with interests in banking and textiles.He studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and achieved his degree in 1904.Zweig first published in 1900 and two decades later was a popular and highly regarded author in many parts of the world, although not in England.During the Great War he served in the Archives of the Ministry of War ...

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia.His family life was difficult; his father was strict and over-bearing but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’.At school Chekhov was distinctly average. At 16 his father mis-managed his finances and was declared bankrupt. His family fled to Moscow. Chekhov remain...

In the annual celebration of faith many things are not quite as they seem. Words in the hands of authors such as Anton Chekhov, Hugh Walpole, Ethel Lina White, Lucy Maud Montgomery and many others weave narratives that all become a little on the dark side.1 - A Strange Christmas - Tales from the Dark Side - An Introduction2 - At Christmas Time by Anton Chekhov3 - The Christmas Banquet by Nathaniel Hawthorne4 - The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson...

The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is J J Bell.

The Modern Age is one of information overload. Bombarded, surrounded, and battered by facts, figures, opinions and seemingly whatever else comes out of anyone’s head from all directions at all hours of the day and night. It’s exhausting.However, in this volume we go back a little way to when social media was an actual chat on the street corner or a dinner party, when breaking news was tomorrow’s newspaper or something momentous when a TV or radio programme could be interrupted with...

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke was born into a troubled marriage on the 4th December 1875 in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother, having previously lost a baby girl, would dress the young boy up in girl’s clothing.Later his father dispatched him to a military academy at age 10 but after a miserable 5 years the young Rilke left due to illness and instead entered first Prague and then Munich and finally Berlin university to study art history, phil...

Lettice Galbraith is yet another of those mysterious women of British literature of whom little was recorded.Lizzie Susan Gibson was born on the 27th January 1859 in Kingston-Upon-Hull in Yorkshire into a comfortable middle-class family.Her education was primarily private but at fifteen her father died, and life became rather different.After several years in London, she moved with her mother to Reigate in Surrey.In 1885 she published her first story anonymou...

The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is J Jefferson Farjeon.

The Detective has been a mainstay of fiction writing ever since we can remember.Their deductive powers, their intuition and fleet-footed grasp of every detail can often turn the unlikeliest situation, or bunch of red herrings, into a breakthrough to capture even the most ingenious and dastardly of criminals.In this series our classic authors explore not only various themes, such as Occult Detectives, Female Detectives, Curious Crimes and a whole host more, but also bring a ...

The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is CJohn Oakum.