Sherwood Anderson was born on 13th September 1876 in Camden, Ohio.When his father’s business failed the family was forced to move on a regular basis before finally settling in Clyde, Ohio.Anderson, one of 7 children, left school at 14 to take a number of jobs to help with the family finances. These were difficult years.He moved to Chicago in search of opportunities before joining the Army for the US-Spanish War of 1898. He then entered Wittenberg Academy in Springfi...

Charles Waddell Chesnutt was born on 20th June 1858 in Cleveland, Ohio, to parents who were both ‘free persons of color’. His paternal grandfather was a white slaveholder, and Chesnutt although he identified as African-American noted that he was seven-eighths white.By age 20 Chesnutt had married and settled in Cleveland. After reading law and passing the bar exam he established a lucrative court reporting business, which rapidly elevated his financial standing.The Atlantic ...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?The theme ...

Uriah Derick D’Arcy seems to all intents to be a literary pseudonym. Why no-one would want to take ownership of this story from its first publication in 1819 has been the subject of several conjectures.The only settled agreement is that it was written by a man and from there the trail runs cold until it was reprinted in 1845 and attributed to Robert C. Sands.But modern opinion now suggests that the true author was his fellow Columbia graduate Richard Varick Dey, a theologia...

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation.From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own.America prides itself on liberty, on justice for all and, if you are a wealthy white man, that is essentially true. Sadly, many other segments of society find it difficult to feel or become part of this en...

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...

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation.From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own.America prides itself on liberty, on justice for all and, if you are a wealthy white man, that is essentially true. Sadly, many other segments of society find it difficult to feel or become part of this en...

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation.From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own.America prides itself on liberty, on justice for all and, if you are a wealthy white man, that is essentially true. Sadly, many other segments of society find it difficult to feel or become part of this en...

The top 10 short stories of all time written by American female authors.Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immedia...

For almost everyone the idea of having our blood, our life-force, sucked out of us while we sleep is both disturbing and primordially real.Vampires are a popular tool of unease from authors down the decades. They come in all shapes and sizes, both male and female and for much of their time interact with everyday people as kind and helpful neighbours, not the product of our wildest fears.In this volume we can offer little in the way of comfort, but we can offer chilling fear...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Being curious, learning from all of our experiences, is one of our most pleasing traits as human beings.In this series we examine particular facets of ourselves and, with the aid of many classic authors, delve into characters and stories that not only entertain us, but inform us on how short stories can help us both deal and understand issues that touch and weave into our lives with the words and narratives of many wise talents.The evil stain of Racism blights much of human...