Bøger udgivet af MINIATURE MASTERPIECES

The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Oscar Wilde.Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin Ireland. The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Dublin, then at Oxford. Wilde moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles. With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day.His is only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with Salome in 1891. His society comedies produced enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London.Whilst his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, was on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel. The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. It was to break him.On release he left for France, There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line 'Alas I am dying beyond my means'.Many of these stories are also available as an audiobook from our sister company Word Of Mouth. Many samples are at our youtube channel http: //www.youtube.com/user/PortablePoetry?feature=mhee The full volume can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores. They are read for you by Richard Mitchley & Ghizela RoweIndex Of StoriesThe Model Millionaire The Canterville Ghost The Portrait of Mr. W. H. The Devoted FriendThe Birthday Of The Infanta

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on 22nd February 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters. Her early years were tinted with much difficulty; divorced parents, poverty and a constant change of location. Despite this once settled in Camden, Maine Edna developed her literary talents at a furious rate. By 15, she had published her poetry in the popular children's magazine St. Nicholas, the Camden Herald, and the high-profile anthology Current Literature. In 1912, at 20, she entered her poem 'Renascence' in The Lyric Year poetry contest. Despite being considered the best poem it was only given fourth place. The ensuing uproar brought publicity and the offer of funding for her education at Vassar College. Here she wrote, both verse and plays as well as embarking on a series of affairs with women as she explored the wider world and all it offered. Edna achieved significant fame when she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for 'The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver'. It was a magnificent triumph. She married Eugen Jan Boissevain but on her wedding day she fell ill and he drove her to Manhattan for emergency surgery. He nursed her back to health with remarkable devotion. They were together, in an open marriage, until his death in 1949. In the summer of 1936, Edna was riding in a station wagon when the door swung open and she was hurled into the pitch-darkness and rolled into a rocky gully. She survived but with severely damaged nerves in her spine and was to live the rest of her life in pain. In 1942 in an article for The New York Times Magazine, Edna mourned the callous destruction of the Czechoslovak town of Lidice by Nazi forces in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The article would serve as the basis of her 32-page poem, 'Murder of Lidice' in 1942. Edna St. Vincent Millay, after suffering a heart attack, fell down the stairs and died at her home on 19th October 1950. She was 58 years old.

"You can still die when the sun is shining."The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. It is often classified by critics as a "fictional auto-biography" since the story's protagonist is naturally identified with the author himself. Events in the novel are not as important as the psychological development and maturation that Joyce's hero Stephen Dedalus goes through from the beginning till the end of the narrative. As an Irish young man, Dedalus wishes to pursue a career of an artist and a writer, yet he is continuously preoccupied with his existential and religious concerns. In fact, he has been raised as a Roman Catholic in a family and a society that often mingle religion with politics and nationalistic sentiments. His concerns are even more intensified when his father goes into serious financial troubles. After a first sexual experience, then a second, Dedalus indulges in a period of debauchery and in all sorts of desires of the flesh. He is soon drowned in feelings of remorse and guilt, however. He turns back to religiosity and decides to lead a life of abstinence and piety, though carrying on with his writing and acting activities. Dedalus's monologues and contemplations often center on the relationship between religion, sensual desire and the appreciation of beauty. He ultimately determines to escape from all his religious, family and nationalistic chains to lead a life of complete independence and to live only for beauty and art.

Mr. REE and Reggie find themselves involved in a locked-room mystery in a newly renovated Boston theatre. A cloaked figure known as the Specter is murdering the cast and crew, all of whom were present when the original theatre burnt to the ground and four people perished. Time is running out for everyone when they become trapped inside without hope of escape. Is it a ghost returning from the grave to seek vengeance, or is the killer among them?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on the 14th August 1802 in Chelsea, London. A precocious child she had her first poem published is 1820 using the single 'L' as her marker. The following year her first volume appeared and sold well. She published a further two poems that same year with just the initials 'L.E.L." It provided the basis for much intrigue. She became the chief reviewer of the Gazette and published her second collection, 'The Improvisatrice', in 1824. By 1826, rumours began to circulate that she had had affairs. For several years they continued to circulate until she broke off an engagement when her betrothed, upon further investigation, found them to be unfounded. Her words reflect the lack of trust she felt "The mere suspicion is dreadful as death" On June 7th 1838 she married George Maclean, initially in secret, and a month later they sailed to the Cape Coast. However, the marriage proved to be short lived as on October 15th, that same year, Letitia was found dead, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on the 14th August 1802 in Chelsea, London. A precocious child she had her first poem published is 1820 using the single 'L' as her marker. The following year her first volume appeared and sold well. She published a further two poems that same year with just the initials 'L.E.L." It provided the basis for much intrigue. She became the chief reviewer of the Gazette and published her second collection, 'The Improvisatrice', in 1824. By 1826, rumours began to circulate that she had had affairs. For several years they continued to circulate until she broke off an engagement when her betrothed, upon further investigation, found them to be unfounded. Her words reflect the lack of trust she felt "The mere suspicion is dreadful as death" On June 7th 1838 she married George Maclean, initially in secret, and a month later they sailed to the Cape Coast. However, the marriage proved to be short lived as on October 15th, that same year, Letitia was found dead, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand.