This mammoth anthology is divided into two main parts with further subdivisions. The first Detection and Mystery starts with Biblical mysteries: The History of Bel (considered to be the first locked-room mystery) where Daniel reveals that the food offered to Bel is actually eaten by the priests. Daniel plays detective again in The History of … Continue reading #ClassicsClub: The Omnibus of Crime (ed.) by Dorothy L. Sayers (1929)
Category: Story
Short Stories: Here Comes the Copper by Henry Wade (1938)
Police-Constable John Bragg is an ambitious young man who wants to be in the metropolitan CID. For this he keeps on noticing things, taking tours in the night, slinking in dark doorways, even rain does not deter him from his duty. The book chronicles 13 cases of our hero, starting in May 1935 when he … Continue reading Short Stories: Here Comes the Copper by Henry Wade (1938)
SSW: Great English Stories (ed) Lewis Melville and Reginald Hargreaves (1930) – Part V
Time to wind up the book. The last grouping begins with Ernest Bramah's The Malignity of the Depraved Ming-Shu Rears its Offensive Head which is an extract from his book Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat. Ming-Shu, the villain to the hero Kai Lung, attacks his village and kidnaps his wife and sets off with her. … Continue reading SSW: Great English Stories (ed) Lewis Melville and Reginald Hargreaves (1930) – Part V
SSW: Great English Stories (ed) Lewis Melville and Reginald Hargreaves (1930) – Part IV
On to the last part of the book: the authors who saw both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. There are 39 authors in this section, so I have divided it into two parts. We begin with Ouida, the pen-name of Anglo-French Louis de la Ramee. Her story Cecil Castlemaine's Cage takes us back to … Continue reading SSW: Great English Stories (ed) Lewis Melville and Reginald Hargreaves (1930) – Part IV
SSW: Great English Short Stories (ed) Reginald Hargreaves and Lewis Melville (1930) – Part III
Last Year, I started this mammoth book and even posted about it. Everything was proceeding to plan when I ran across a novelette by Benjamin Disraeli. Seriously, what is a 70+ pages work doing in an anthology of short stories? On top of that, the satire failed to work for me. The long and short … Continue reading SSW: Great English Short Stories (ed) Reginald Hargreaves and Lewis Melville (1930) – Part III
#HYH25: May Fair by Michael Arlen (Hundred Years Hence)
This book - Being an Entertainment purporting to reveal to Gentlefolk the Real state of Affairs existing in the very Heart of London during the fifteenth and sixteenth years of the reign of His Majesty King George the Fifth: together with Suitable reflections on the last follies, misadventures, and galantries of These Charming People - … Continue reading #HYH25: May Fair by Michael Arlen (Hundred Years Hence)
SSW: A Very Murderous Christmas (ed) by Cecily Gayford (2018)
This book contains 10 stories set around the festive season. The anthology begins with Margery Allingham's The Man with the Sack. Albert Campion is invited to a Christmas party which includes the mandatory nouveau-riche vulgar person. Soon there is a robbery. There is nothing new in this story of the clash of the classes. The … Continue reading SSW: A Very Murderous Christmas (ed) by Cecily Gayford (2018)
SSW: Great English Short Stories (ed) Reginald Hargreaves & Lewis Melville (1930) – Part II
It is Wednesday and time for me to move on to the second review of the book, this time looking at the authors whose lives straddled the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We begin with Sir Walter Scott. In The Tapestried Chamber, a General in Lord Cornawallis' army returning home after the American revolution (yes we … Continue reading SSW: Great English Short Stories (ed) Reginald Hargreaves & Lewis Melville (1930) – Part II
SSW: Great English Short Stories (ed) by Reginald Hargreaves and Lewis Melville (1930) – Part I
Great English Short Stories, a mammoth book, over 1000 pages long and comprising of more than 80 stories, has stories in the English language, arranged chronologically. It is difficult to write just one post on it, so I have decided to break it into parts. As the exact year of publication for stories is not … Continue reading SSW: Great English Short Stories (ed) by Reginald Hargreaves and Lewis Melville (1930) – Part I
First Read of 2024: The Christmas Peacemaker by Virna Sheard (1900)
I begin 2024 with a new author. Virna Sheard (1865-1943) was a Canadian poet, novelist,and short story writer. Her story captures the spirit of Christmas. https://allpoetry.com/Virna-Sheard Lucinda Ellen who is called Cinders is a young girl who works as a maid. The poor girl is overworked and underpaid and treated in an unkindly manner by … Continue reading First Read of 2024: The Christmas Peacemaker by Virna Sheard (1900)
a hot cup of pleasure