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...

This exciting anthology brings together the work of two much admired Sherlock Holmes writers. In these stories Holmes and Watson are engaged in daring exploits applying their razor-sharp intelligence in new cases. This e-book presents ten separate Sherlock Holmes stories: By David Stuart Davies The Reichenbach Secret The Adventure of the Brewer's Son The Secret of the Dead Murder at Tragere House By Matthew Booth The Dragon of Lea Lane The Fairmont Confession The Mornington Scream The Ridd...

With an Introduction and Notes by Scott Brewster, University of Central Lancashire.Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery, and The Woman in White is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in north London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress.The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast, from the ...

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’, ...

'Nothing is so improbable as what is true'Of all the writers of ghost and horror stories, Ambrose Bierce is perhaps the most colourful. He was a dark, cynical and pessimistic soul who had a grim vision of fate and the unfairness of life, which he channelled into his fiction. And in his death, or rather his disappearance, he created a mystery as strange and unresolved as any that he penned himself. But more of that later.Ambrose Gwinett Bierce was born in a log cabin on 21st...

Harry, a retired geologist with a deep connection to the earth, suddenly finds himself facing three life-altering crises. The first unfolds among the people he encounters in the vast, unforgiving expanse of the Southern Sahara. The second strikes closer to home, involving a beloved family member in the UK. Finally, Harry must confront a personal challenge that threatens his very ability to navigate life. Each crisis is met with a fierce struggle, leading to partial resolution, but not with...

Scottish football authors David Stuart and Robert Marshall cross the border to salute the contributions and successes of their fellow countrymen and women who have displayed their skills in the English football leagues from the end of the Second World War to the present day. They take a celebratory look at great Scots Law, Mackay, Bremner, Dalglish, Gemmill, Strachan, McAllister and other who have played their part in era-defining teams crafted by the likes of Bill Nicholson, Don Revie, Br...

The sixth novel in the Detective Johnny (One Eye) Hawke series.Two laser-sharp detectives, two thought-provoking cases and two skilful plots. Featuring private investigator Johnny (One Eye) Hawke, and his one-time colleague in the police force Detective David Llewellyn. Llewellyn is investigating the chilling crimes of a top psychiatrist and his scheming patient who the doctor believes has knuckled under his authority. In the meantime, Hawke is on the case of a mysterious suicide i...

A brilliant, hilarious, and ultimately devastating debut novel about how racial discord grows in AmericaIn late-1980s rural Ohio, bright but mostly friendless Barry Nadler begins his freshman year of high school with the goal of going unnoticed as much as possible. But his world is upended by the arrival of Gurbaksh, Gary for short, a Sikh teenager who moves to his small town and instantly befriends Barry and, in Gatsby-esque fashion, pulls him into a series of inc...

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....

Some six or seven feet above the port bulwarks, framed in fog, and as utterly unsupported as the full moon, hung a Face. It was not human, and it certainly was not animal, for it did not belong to this earth as known to man'Rudyard Kipling, celebrated author of The Jungle Book, the Just So Stories and other entertaining fictions, was also a master of the short story in which he was able to combine the strange and unnerving in order to draw the reader into the world of his own dark ...

Bannerworth Hall, Hampshire. Midnight. The night is woken by screams, from the bedroom of the beautiful and noble-hearted Flora. To their horror, her family discover that she has been the victim of a murderous attack. The Bannerworths are about to lose their home, to pay the debts of their dead father. The hunt is for his missing gold on, but then they begin to have doubts about their repulsive, hissing new neighbour, Sir Francis Varney, who is so eager to purchase the hall - and to marry ...