Bøger udgivet af Horse's Mouth

Francis Bret Harte was born on August 25, 1836 in Albany New York. As a young boy Harte developed an early love of books and reading. He first published at the tender age of 11; a satirical poem titled "Autumn Musings." Expecting praise he encountered anything but and was later to write "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse." By age 13 his formal education was at an end and four years later, in 1853, the family moved to California. Here the young man worked in a variety of capacities; miner, teacher, messenger, and journalist. But it was also here on the West coast that he found the stories and inspiration for the works that would endure his fame across the literary world. He championed the early writings of Mark Twain. He was instrumental in propelling the short story genre forward and brought tales of the Old West and the Gold Rush to a greater audience. At the height of his fame we would entertain staggering monetary offers to write for monthly magazines. His talents extended to poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches. As he moved location initially further east to New York and then through Consular appointments to Europe and finally to settle in England his audience diminished but he continued to experiment, to write and to publish. Bret Harte died of throat cancer on May 5th 1902 and is buried in St Peter's Church in Frimley, Surrey, England. Here we publish another very fine collection of his short stories; "Frontier Stories".

Jerome K Jerome's early life of poverty exacerbated by the death of his parents in his early teens helped to cruelly mould the young Jerome. After early stints on the railways, as an actor, a journalist, a school teacher, a writer and a solicitors clerk he had some minor success with a collection of comic memoirs "On The Stage - And Off" about his earlier stint as an actor. Shortly thereafter he married and his honeymoon on the Thames became the inspiration for Three Men In A Boat. This of course was a wild success both critically and commercially and also his creative highpoint. Although he was now able to write full time he was never able to attain all the heights of that classic humorous novel. However he was prolific at the shorter form and it is from that rich seam that these stories have been mined. Here we publish another of his classics 'Idle Ideas of 1905'.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was born on June 22nd, 1856 at Bradenham in Norfolk, England. After his education he was pushed towards an Army career but failed the entrance exam. Next Haggard was positioned to work for the British Foreign Office but he seems not to have sat that exam. Using family connections, he was sent to Southern Africa by his father in search of a further opportunity of a career. Haggard spent six years there before a return to England and marriage. He had begun to write and publish some non-fiction in Africa but it was only after studying Law in the hope it might prove to be the proper career his father wanted for him that Haggard began to write fiction, using his African experiences as the basis. His first fiction was published in 1885 and the following year King Solomon's Mines was published. It was a phenomenal success. His career was set. Haggard wrote well and wrote often. He managed to sympathise with the local populations even though they were exploited and manipulated by Europeans intent on amassing fortunes in money, people and resources. His writing career covered the great sprint to Empire of several European powers and both reflects and criticizes these events through his well-loved characters including Allan Quatermain and Ayesha. In his later years Haggard pursued much in the way social reform as well as standing for Parliament and writing a great many letters to The Times. Henry Rider Haggard died on May 14th, 1925 at the age of 68. His ashes were buried at Ditchingham Church.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was born on June 22nd, 1856 at Bradenham in Norfolk, England. After his education he was pushed towards an Army career but failed the entrance exam. Next Haggard was positioned to work for the British Foreign Office but he seems not to have sat that exam. Using family connections, he was sent to Southern Africa by his father in search of a further opportunity of a career. Haggard spent six years there before a return to England and marriage. He had begun to write and publish some non-fiction in Africa but it was only after studying Law in the hope it might prove to be the proper career his father wanted for him that Haggard began to write fiction, using his African experiences as the basis. His first fiction was published in 1885 and the following year King Solomon's Mines was published. It was a phenomenal success. His career was set. Haggard wrote well and wrote often. He managed to sympathise with the local populations even though they were exploited and manipulated by Europeans intent on amassing fortunes in money, people and resources. His writing career covered the great sprint to Empire of several European powers and both reflects and criticizes these events through his well-loved characters including Allan Quatermain and Ayesha. In his later years Haggard pursued much in the way social reform as well as standing for Parliament and writing a great many letters to The Times. Henry Rider Haggard died on May 14th, 1925 at the age of 68. His ashes were buried at Ditchingham Church.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, South West England into a comfortably well off middle class family to an American father and storyteller mother with two older siblings. Agatha was home schooled by her father and although her mother didn't want her to learn to read until she was 8, Agatha taught herself by the age of 5. By 18 she was writing stories which were published in the 1930s, albeit heavily revised. Although she met her first husband, aviator Archie Christie in 1912 and married him in 1914, the war meant they met infrequently and in her autobiography she states that married life didn't really begin until 1918. In 1920 she wrote her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles which introduced the character of detective Hercule Poirot. He was to feature in 33 of her novels and 54 short stories. The Guinness Book of Records cites Christie as the world's best selling novelist with her novels selling approx 4 billion copies and translated into over 103 languages, making her also the most translated author. Nicknamed the Queen of Crime or Mystery and master of the classic mystery structure, she had an incredible talent for plotting, characterisation and suspense which came very naturally to her: "I may spend three weeks to nine months in thinking up a plot - the actual time of writing and typing it would be approximately three months". Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at the age of 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House near Wallingford in Oxfordshire and buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey.

Wilkie Collins was born on January 8th, 1824 at 11 New Cavendish Street in Marylebone, London. A novelist, playwright and author of short stories, William Wilkie Collins was a popular figure in Victorian literature which was further enhanced by his charm and flamboyant lifestyle. He was a friend and collaborator of Charles Dickens. His own talents outshone most other literary figures and he is credited with the introduction of the modern detective story with 'The Woman In White'. Other achievements were 'The Moonstone', 'All Year Round' and 'Amadale'. In all Wilkie Collins wrote some 30 novels, 14 plays, over 60 short stories and at least 100 nonfiction essays. He died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, at 82 Wimpole Street, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in West London. Catharine Graves is buried with him, following her death in 1895. Here we publish 'A Rogues Life'. Once again the mind and pen of Wilkie Collins produce a work that is both compelling and captivating.

Born on November 22nd 1857 George Robert Gissing published 23 novels over his lifetime. Perhaps the one that creates most interest is New Grub Street. In the 18th Century Grub Street was the centre of cheap and despicable hack literature. Despite Grub Street itself no longer existing when Gissing wrote his novel hack literature certainly did and the story centres on two writers, Edwin Reardon, a shy novelist and Jasper Milvain a young journalist who encapsulates many of the striving ambitions of Victorian society but equally many of its flaws.

James Elroy Flecker was born on 5th November 1884, in Lewisham, London.Flecker does not seem to have enjoyed academic study and achieved only a Third-Class Honours in Greats in 1906. This did not set him up for a job in either government service or the academic world.After some frustrating forays at school teaching he attempted to join the Levant Consular Service and entered Cambridge to study for two years. After a poor first year he pushed forward in the second and achieved First-Class honours. His reward was a posting to Constantinople at the British consulate.However, Flecker's poetry career was making better progress and he was beginning to garner praise for his poems including The Bridge of Fire. Unfortunately, he was also showing the first symptoms of contracting tuberculosis. Bouts of ill health were to now alternate with periods of physical well-being woven with mental euphoria and creativity.Before his early death he managed to complete several volumes of poetry, which he continually revised, together with some prose works and plays. It was a small canon of work but on his death on 3rd January 1915, of tuberculosis, in Davos, Switzerland he was described as "unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of Keats".