Search results for ""British Library Publishing""

Staffordshire in the 1950s. Within the clay tanks at the pottery company Shentall's, a body has been found. Amid cries of industrial espionage and sabotage of this leader of the pottery industry, there is a case of bitter murder to solve for Inspector Hedley Nicholson. Kelly's mystery won the CWA Gold Dagger Award in 1961 for its impeccable sense of place and detail, and for the emotional weight of its central crime. The novel is part of a shift from the cosiness of crime novels before to mysteries characterised by their psychological interest and affecting realism. An influential classic.

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Buoyed by the runaway success of his bestselling A General History of the Pirates (1724), Captain Charles Johnson went on to publish a much-expanded edition of the work to include a further 80 accounts of some of the most extraordinary British criminals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries entitled A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Pirates, Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, &c. (1734). He added further pirate biographies but expanded the cast to include a ferocious band of ruthless and vicious highwaymen, murderers, and wider criminals. Johnson's volumes, featuring fictional accounts based on factual sources, are significant as the forerunners of the real-life criminal biography genre, and for their influence on such early novels as Defoe's Moll Flanders and Fielding's Jonathan Wild but equally resonate right through to the present day inspiring the fiction of Ben Aaronovich and Jake Arnott. Originally published in folio size complete with fine engravings, this new collection of rogues includes the very best of these original decorative plates but also presents a series of related illustrations, playbills, and portraits from the British Library collections.

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An honest policeman, Sergeant Wigan, escorts a drunk man home one night to keep him out of trouble and, seeing his fine book collection, slowly falls in to the gentle art of book collecting. Just as the friendship is blossoming, the policeman's book-collecting friend is murdered. To solve the mystery of why the victim was killed, and which of his rare books was taken, Wigan dives into the world of 'runners' and book collectors, where avid agents will gladly cut you for a first edition and then offer you a lift home afterwards. This adventurous mystery, which combines exuberant characters with a wonderfully realised depiction of the second-hand book market, is sure to delight bibliophiles and classic crime enthusiasts alike.

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Exploring the gardens, monuments, museums, and churches with walks both urban and rural, from the Bronte parsonage in Haworth to Zadie Smith's North London and Shakespeare's Stratford, The Book Lover's Bucket List takes you through some 100 wonderfully described literary sites and landscapes, complete with colour destination photographs and illustrations from the British Library collections. Start with Chaucer, Dickens and Larkin in Westminster Abbey. Spend an afternoon at Colliers Wood Nature Reserve in Nottinghamshire and take in the lake D. H. Lawrence described as 'all grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow'. Venture south to Cornwall and work your way up to the Scottish Highlands, taking detours to Northern Ireland in the west and Norfolk in the east - or simply drop in on the place nearest to you. Wherever you are in the United Kingdom, you're never far from something associated with a good book.

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"'You don't mean you're going to divorce him?' Miss Spanner said with horror." A sophisticated, emotive novel, Chatterton Square concerns the complex web of relationships between two neighbouring families, the Blacketts and the Frasers. Framed by the advance of the Second World War, the subtle mechanics of marriage and love are laid bare through the observation of three of the marital options open to the mid-century woman: unmarried, separated, miserably married. Chatterton Square was published ten years after calls for a change in divorce law resulted in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937. Despite there being more legal provision for women seeking divorce, the suggestion of it remained shocking, providing the central focus for Young's novel.

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Death in White Pyjamas: A theatre-owner, a ‘slightly sinister’ producer, a burgeoning playwright and a cast of ego-driven actors have gathered at a country home to read through the promising script for Pigs in Porcelain. Before the production ever reaches the stage, one of their number is found murdered in the grounds wearing what mysteriously seems to be somebody else’s white pyjamas. Enter Inspector Harting and Sergeant Dane to unravel this curious plot. Death Knows No Calendar: Investigating a deadly shooting with no shooter in a locked artist’s studio, detective fiction enthusiast Major Tom Boddy has a long day ahead of him. With four colourful suspects to scrutinise, and not one but two ‘impossible’ elements of the crime to solve, this extremely rare and thoroughly entertaining mystery is long overdue its return to print.

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The Tree of Heaven follows the fortunes of the Harrison family as the children grow up in the shadow of the First World War and Dorothy's brothers go off, one by one, to the trenches, while she becomes involved with the suffrage movement, and later joins a version of the Women's Social and Political Union. Published at a time when women still did not have the right to vote, Sinclair - passionately in favour of women's enfranchisement - asks not if the vote should be won, but how. Her reflection on the war is of course limited by having not yet seen its end (The Tree of Heaven was published in 1917), yet Sinclair provides an excellent snapshot of the views and experiences of a family in the face of such great uncertainty.

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In this specially-commissioned anthology, sixty accomplished authors share secrets and insights into their writing lives: on their inspirations, methods, wild ideas and daily routines; on the pleasure and the pain in achieving their literary goals; on how they started out and how they hope to continue. They outline some golden rules for staying on track and talk candidly about what goes wrong as well as right. We hear from novelists, poets, biographers, and children's writers; illustrators, campaigners, teachers, mothers, husbands, an entrepreneur turned surfboard shaper, a quantum physicist, an opera librettist, and a Laureate who loves dragons. All writers. We have emerging talents in our team alongside much-loved authors whose books have sold in millions. Each reflects in their own way on the creative process and the compulsion to write. How to find inspiration? How to get the words right? How to cope with writer's block? How to handle bad reviews? How to become a better reader? Pencil or computer? Inside or out? And where do the good ideas really come from? Swallowed by a Whale includes contributions from: Kwame Alexander, Anthony Browne, Cressida Cowell, Isabelle Dupuy, Inua Ellams, Lev Grossman, Joanne Harris, Catherine Johnson, Thomas Keneally, Neal Layton, David Mitchell, Beverley Naidoo, Chibundu Onuzo, Chris Riddell, Francesca Simon, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Raynor Winn and many more.

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The detective's role is simple: to catch the culprit. Yet behind each casual observation lies a learned mind, trained on finding the key to the mystery. Crimes, whatever their form, are often best solved through deliberations of logic - preferably amid complicated gadgetry and a pile of hefty scientific volumes. The detectives in this collection are masters of scientific deduction, whether they are identifying the perpetrator from a single scrap of fabric, or picking out the poison from a sinister line-up. Containing stories by R Austin Freeman, J J Connington and the master of logical reasoning, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Measure of Malice collects tales of rational thinking to prove the power of the human brain over villainous deeds.

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Discover the world through the eyes of the greatest explorers in history. Find out how the world was first circumnavigated by a slave and how travellers overcame the challenge of not having enough to eat and drink whilst travelling through unknown territory. Experience the excitement of seeing a new land for the first time, tasting new fruits and discovering new animals. From Marco Polo and Magellan to Shackleton and Armstrong, Great Voyages takes the reader on the most exhilarating and heroic journeys ever made.

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When a brilliant scientist believes that a cutting edge replication process offers the solution to an excruciating love triangle, the limits of the new technology are tested - and impossible questions of identity and originality threaten to tear apart the best-laid plans of paradise.

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Michael Katakis has spent his life travelling with a camera and writing a journal. This is the resulting book. For the past 25 years he has collaborated with the social anthropologist Kris Hardin in work spanning continents and cultures. Their initial project was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, photographing and interviewing veterans and civilians alike, the result of which was a moving portrait of America's strengths, sacrifices and errors during a profoundly divisive time in the nation's history. A different and disturbing portrait of the country emerges in 'Troubled Land: Twelve Days Across America' where Michael Katakis sought to have a dialogue with ordinary people right after September 11 2001. In between these projects were two periods of fieldwork in Sierra Leone documenting the people of a village before their bloody civil war began. His fine photographs were given an added, unintended significance by the awful events that followed. From Michael Palin's Introduction: 'Michael Katakis is an indefatigable traveller. Driven by a restless curiosity and a belief in the importance of the individual against the system he puts his humane and enquiring ear to the ground and picks up signals that are salutary, precise and stimulating. His thoughtful words and pictures confer dignity and provoke indignation in equal measure. He guides our eye and our conscience without ever having to resort to hustle or harangue. There is a peacefulness at the heart of his work which gives us time to think.'

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'Powerful and impressive ...there is a fine inevitability in the plot structure which gives it true tragic quality' - Dorothy L. SayersAdrian Gray was born in May 1862 and met his death through violence, at the hands of one of his own children, at Christmas, 1931. Thus begins a classic crime novel published in 1933, a riveting portrait of the psychology of a murderer. Each December, Adrian Gray invites his extended family to stay at his lonely house, Kings Poplars. None of Gray's six surviving children is fond of him; several have cause to wish him dead. The family gathers on Christmas Eve - and by the following morning, their wish has been granted. This fascinating and unusual novel tells the story of what happened that dark Christmas night; and what the murderer did next.

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“Cara!” Mr. Wilkinson stood on the jetty looking out at the long, low shadow of the island, dark against the setting sun. “A beautiful place, and a beautiful name.” “It’s the Gaelic word for a corpse.” From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities and remote islands in wild seas, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have enthralled and shaped generations of mystery writers. This new collection presents seventeen classic stories, spanning a period from the 1880s to the 1970s, by a host of Scottish authors alongside writers from south of the border inspired by the history and majesty of the storied country. Featuring vintage tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Baroness Orczy together with mid-twentieth-century mini-masterpieces by Margot Bennett, Michael Innes and Cyril Hare, this anthology also includes a rare Josephine Tey short story, reprinted for the first time since 1930.

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'The true pioneer of civilization is not the newspaper, not religion, not the railroad but Whiskey!' – Mark Twain From illicit distillation to worldwide export, whisky has a powerful and multi-faceted history. Writers including Robert Burns, James Joyce and Haruki Murakami have all mused on it, and there are strong opinions on every aspect, even down to how the word itself should be spelled. A staple of the classic cocktail, whisky is at the heart of diverse cultures around the globe, both in the established whisky traditions of Scotland and Ireland and in newer practices, such as the first Swedish malt whisky distillery, Mackmyra, opened in 1999. This book will take you to whisky landmarks all over the world, including the record-breaking Karuizawa distillery in Japan and Kavalan, the distillery that put Taiwanese whisky on the map. Get to grips with the four key ingredients – grain, wood, yeast and time – then learn how to taste whisky like a pro, from glassware to cocktails, and become a part of the international whisky family.

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'Suddenly he tripped and fell his length over a prostrate body... he marvelled that so rough an impact should not have kicked a groan out of the drunkard...' With a stiff measure of the supernatural, a dram of melodrama and a chaser of the cautionary kind, tales of drink and drunkenness can be found in a well- stocked cabinet of Victorian and early twentieth-century fiction, reflecting an anxiety about the impact of alcohol and intoxicants in society, as well as an acknowledgment of their influence on humans' perception of reality. Featuring drink-fuelled classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Body Snatcher' alongside obscurities from periodicals such as Blackwood's Magazine, this new collection offers a (somewhat poisoned) chalice of dark and stormy short fiction, brimming with the weird, the grotesque, the entertaining and the outlandish.

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'From the point of view of the nation, it's a good thing that he died.' Great Barwick's least popular man is murdered on a train. Twelve jurors sit in court. Four suspects are identified – but which of them is on trial? This novel has all the makings of a classic murder mystery, but with a twist: as Attorney-General Anstruther Blayton leads the court through prosecution and defence, Inspector Fenby carries out his investigation. All this occurs while the identity of the figure in the dock is kept tantalisingly out of reach. Excellent Intentions is a classic crime novel laced with irreverent wit, first published in 1939.

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On a dark November evening, Sir Wilfred Saxonby is travelling alone in the 5 o'clock train from Cannon Street, in a locked compartment. The train slows and stops inside a tunnel; and by the time it emerges again minutes later, Sir Wilfred has been shot dead, his heart pierced by a single bullet.Suicide seems to be the answer, even though no motive can be found. Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard thinks again when he learns that a mysterious red light in the tunnel caused the train to slow down. Finding himself stumped by the puzzle, Arnold consults his friend Desmond Merrion, a wealthy amateur expert in criminology. Merrion quickly comes up with an 'essential brainwave' and helps to establish how Sir Wilfred met his end, but although it seems that the dead man fell victim to a complex conspiracy, the investigators are puzzled about the conspirators' motives, as well as their identities. Can there be a connection with Sir Wilfred's seemingly untroubled family life, his highly successful business, or his high-handed and unforgiving personality? And what is the significance of the wallet found on the corpse, and the bank notes that it contained?

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"But something odd does happen here at Christmas time. When I first heard the story, I thought it was an old wives' tale, but-well, these old houses-you hear strange things-" He lifted his shoulders and stared into the fire..." From the troves of the British Library collections comes a new volume for Christmas nights-when the boundary between the mundane and the unearthly is ever so thin-ushering in a new throng of revenants, demons, spectres and shades drawn to the glow of the hearth. Included within are eighteen classic stories ranging from 1864 to 1974, with vintage Victorian chillers nestled alongside unsettling modern pieces from L. P. Hartley and Mildred Clingerman; lost tales from rare anthologies and periodicals; weird episodes from unexpected authors such as Winston Graham and D. H. Lawrence; stories simmering with a twisted humour from Elizabeth Bowen and Celia Fremlin and many more haunting seasonal treats.

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John Dickson Carr lays on the macabre atmosphere again in this follow-up to It Walks by Night, in which Inspector Bencolin attempts to piece together a puzzle involving a disappearing street, a set of gallows which mysteriously reveals itself to a number of figures traipsing through the London fog, and the bizarre suggestion that a kind of fictional bogeyman, Jack Ketch, may be afoot and in the business of wanton execution. An early gem from one of the great writers of the classic crime genre. This edition also includes the rare Inspector Bencolin short story ‘The Ends of Justice’.

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The fact that humanity is not alone in the universe has long preoccupied our thoughts. In this compelling new collection of short stories from SF’s classic age our visions of `other’ are shown in a myriad of forms - beings from other worlds, corrupted lifeforms from our own planet and entities from unimaginable dimensions. Amongst these tales, the humble ant becomes humanity’s greatest foe, a sailor awakes in a hellish landscape terrified by a monstrous creature from the deep, an extra-terrestrial apocalypse devastates our world but also brings us together, and our race becomes the unwitting agent of another species’ survival. Be prepared to face your greatest fears and relinquish your hold on reality as you confront the menace of the monster.

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Time travel has long been a staple of science fiction. Removing the bonds of time on a story allows for many interesting possibilities, but it also presents complicated problems and paradoxes. In this collection, featuring stories from the 1880s to the 1960s, we are taken to the remote future and back to the distant past. We are trapped in an eternal loop and met with visitors and objects from the future. We come face to face with our past selves, and experience the chaos of living out of sync with everyone else in the universe. These are just some of the thrilling narratives to discover as we unwind the constraints of time.

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Immerse yourself in some truly festive magic with this brand-new collection of the finest Christmas stories, prose, songs and poetry from some of the greatest writers in the English language. Inspired by the approach and style of the British Library's 2018 bestseller A Literary Christmas, this carefully chosen anthology moves its focus to those most deeply involved in the wonders of Christmas, the Christmas girls and Christmas boys. Twenty-four seasonal chapters allow the excitement to build as parents and grandparents can share pages of unforgettable adventures, festive traditions, tales of elves, snowmen and reindeer, fairytales, folklore and family fun. Age-old pleasures from those essential Christmas favourites, including Dickens, Kenneth Grahame, George Mackay Brown, Robert L. May and Ezra Jack Keats, are presented alongside charming, but often more edgy, award-wining contemporary voices. This treasure trove of stories is brought to life by an equally beautiful selection of seasonal illustrations from the collections of the Library and the artwork of some of the great modern book illustrators.

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Patrick McGuigan is a British food journalist and cheese writer, who contributes to The Telegraph, Delicious and The Financial Times, among many other titles. He has travelled the world, from the Swiss Alps to the hipster cheese bars of New York, to write about cheese makers, maturers and retailers. A senior judge at the World Cheese Awards, Patrick also teaches cheese courses at the School of Fine Food and is a co-founder of the British Cheese Weekender and London Cheese Project festivals. He is particularly partial to a slice of Kirkham's Lancashire. www.patrickmcguigan.com

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Artworks, manuscripts, printed works and wildlife sound recordings come together in this major compendium of the greatest and strangest representations of animals on record. Eighty detailed case studies highlight celebrated works, including John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, Matthew Paris’s Liber additamentorum, Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis (1705), Mark Catesby’s The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, as well as letters from Charles Darwin, the Baburnama, translated by Mīrzā ‘Abd al-Rahīm Khān, Japanese printed works by Hirase Yoichirō (1914–1915), Arabic hippiatric texts and the work of contemporary artists including Levon Biss and Jethro Buck. Rich, newly photographed, illustrations bring these works to life, while interactive QR technology will allow readers to listen to recordings of the sound exhibits as they read. Expertly edited, this powerful collection of objects prompt us to consider the increasing importance of technology and data to our understanding of humanity’s impact on the world’s faunal inhabitants.

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Join Mike Ashley on a characterful tour of the most ingenious and often forgotten books from the rich history of classic British science fiction. From the enrapturing tales of H. G. Wells to the punishing dystopian visions of 1984 and beyond, the evolution of science fiction from the 1890s to the 1960s is a fascinating journey into the hopes and fears of those years. Establishing this period as what we can now appreciate as the 'classic' age of the genre, which for most of this time had no name, Mike Ashley takes us on a tour of the stars, utopian and post-apocalyptic futures, worlds of AI and techno-thriller masterpieces asking piercing questions of the present. Though not seeking to be exhaustive, this book offers an accessible view of the impressive spectrum of imaginative writing which the genre's classic period has to offer. Towering science fiction greats such as Ballard and Aldiss run alongside the, perhaps unexpected, likes of G. K. Chesterton and J. B. Priestley and celebrate a side of science fiction beyond the stereotypes of space opera and bug-eyed monsters; the side of science fiction which proves why it must continue to be written and read, so long as any of us remain in uncertain times.

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Sound the sirens! The end is here, and it comes in many forms in this new collection of apocalyptic short stories from the classic age of science fiction. Join humanity on the brink of destruction in 13 doom-laden visions from the 1890s to the 1960s, featuring rare tales from the Library’s vaults. Tales of plague seizing an over-polluted capital, a world engulfed in absolute darkness by some cosmic disaster, and of poignant dreams of a silent planet after the last echoes of humanity have died away. Extreme climate change, nuclear annihilation, comet strike; calamities self-inflicted and from beyond the steer of humankind vie to deal the last blow in this countdown from the first whisper of possible extinction to the Earth’s final sunrise.

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The Anglo-Saxon period stretches from the arrival of Germanic groups on British shores in the early 5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. During these centuries, the English language was used and written down for the first time, pagan populations were converted to Christianity, and the foundations of the kingdom of England were laid. This richly illustrated new book - which accompanies a landmark British Library exhibition - presents Anglo-Saxon England as the home of a highly sophisticated artistic and political culture, deeply connected with its continental neighbours. Leading specialists in early medieval history, literature and culture engage with the unique, original evidence from which we can piece together the story of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, examining outstanding and beautiful objects such as highlights from the Staffordshire hoard and the Sutton Hoo burial. At the heart of the book is the British Library's outstanding collection of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, the richest source of evidence about Old English language and literature, including Beowulf and other poetry; the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of Britain's greatest artistic and religious treasures; the St Cuthbert Gospel, the earliest intact European book; and historical manuscripts such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. These national treasures are discussed alongside other, internationally important literary and historical manuscripts held in major collections in Britain and Europe. This book, and the exhibition it accompanies, chart a fascinating and dynamic period in early medieval history, and will bring to life our understanding of these formative centuries.

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'…and then the music was so loud, so beautiful that I couldn’t think of anything else. I was completely lost to the music, enveloped by melody which was part of Pan.' In 1894, Arthur Machen’s landmark novella The Great God Pan was published, sparking the sinister resurgence of the pagan goat god. Writers of the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, such as Oscar Wilde, E. M. Forster and Margery Lawrence, took the god’s rebellious influence as inspiration to spin beguiling tales of social norms turned upside down and ancient ecological forces compelling their protagonists to ecstatic heights or bizarre dooms. Assembling ten tales and six poems – along with Machen’s novella – from the boom years of Pan-centric literature, this new collection revels in themes of queer awakening, transgression against societal bonds and the bewitching power of the wild as it explores a rapturous and culturally significant chapter in the history of weird fiction.

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'The red robe concealed the blood until it made my hand sticky. Father Christmas had been stabbed in the back, and he was certainly dead.' The murder of Father Christmas at one of London's great toy shops is just one of many yuletide disasters in this new collection of stories from the Golden Age of crime writing and beyond. Masters of the genre such as Patricia Moyes and John Dickson Carr present perfectly packaged short pieces, and Martin Edwards delivers a sackful of rarities from authors such as Ellis Peters, Gwyn Evans and Michael Innes. The answer to any classic crime fiction fan's Christmas wish - and the only way for you to answer Who Killed Father Christmas? - this new anthology is set to muddle, befuddle, surprise and delight.

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Accompanying the first ever exhibition on the storytelling around Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, this book charts the evolution of a legend that continues to captivate audiences today. Alexander the Great acceded to the throne at the age of 20, as king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. By his death in 323 BC, he had created one of the largest empires in the world – but myth proved more powerful than historical truth, and Alexander’s life remains lost in legend. These stories permeate western and eastern cultures and religions, and have endured for more than 2,000 years. Even now, Alexander continues to appeal to new generations and his image persists today in film, theatre, literature and even video games. This book explores the stories that began shortly after Alexander’s mysterious death, and that by the Middle Ages had developed into a narrative of Alexander as the all-conquering hero who fought mythical beasts and explored the unknown using submarines and flying chariots. These incredible legends are brought to life here with exquisite original illustrations in books and manuscripts from around the globe.

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The British Library Women Writers series is a curated collection of novels by female authors who enjoyed broad, popular appeal in their day. In a century during which the role of women in society changed radically, their fictional heroines highlight women's experience of life inside and outside the home through the decades in these rich, insightful and evocative stories. The Women Writers Christmas Collection of Short Stories explores the joys and disappointments, pressures and preparations of this time of year from a female perspective. In keeping with the spirit of the series, the stories are plucked from different decades of the twentieth century and penned by familiar as well as forgotten authors writing for both books and popular magazines. The selection includes the festive run-up as well as post-Christmas traditions. From the delightful consequences of decorating the tree by Stella Gibbons, to an interesting encounter set at 30,000 feet on a Christmas Day flight by Muriel Spark, and a pantomime with a twist by Margery Sharpe, these stories are sure to fortify you over the Christmas period.

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"I confess I have a particular dislike to remain in a church after dusk; it recalls to my mind the most painful story I ever heard." A festering evil lurks in the grotesque carvings of a cathedral's hallowed inner sanctum; sheltering in an Alpine chapel, a young libertine confronts his eerie monastic doppelganger; locked in a Spanish cathedral, a honeymooning couple bears witness to a fatal procession. Churches and other sacred sites have inspired writers of the weird and uncanny for centuries as spaces in which death and the afterlife are within touching distance - where ghosts, demons and possessed effigies remain to haunt the living. Through eleven stories published between 1851 and 1935, this new anthology revives a throng of undying spirits from a host of unsung and classic authors including Elizabeth Gaskell, M. R. James, John Wyndham, and Edith Wharton.

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It is too often accepted that during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was the male writers who developed and pushed the boundaries of the weird tale, with women writers following in their wake - but this is far from the truth. This new anthology follows the instrumental contributions made by women writers to the weird tale, and revives the lost authors of the early pulp magazines along with the often overlooked work of more familiar authors. See the darker side of The Secret Garden author Frances Hodgson Burnett and the sensitively-drawn nightmares of Marie Corelli and Violet Quirk. Hear the captivating voices of Weird Tales magazine contributors Sophie Wenzel Ellis, Greye La Spina and Margaret St Clair, and bow down to the sensational, surreal and challenging writers who broke down the barriers of the day. Featuring material never before republished, from the abyssal depths of the British Library vaults.

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“All I can tell you is that I think it was pig’s meat.” “You mean you’re not sure?” “One can never be sure.” A brush with the mushroom devil whets the appetite. The meat at the werewolf’s table is a dish to relish. Dessert with London’s cannibal club may be the cherry on top. From fairy tales and folklore focused on magical foods and strange eating came an enduring tradition of writers playing with food and the uncanny. In the fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this tradition thrived, with themes of supernatural consumption, weird transformation and sensual euphoria as key ingredients. Raiding this dark pantry of writing, this new collection presents a feast of sixteen classic tales, two poems and one essay, with choice morsels by masters of the macabre including Shirley Jackson, Franz Kafka, Angela Carter and Roald Dahl.

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'Should detectives go to parties? Was it consistent with the dignity of the Yard? The inspector tossed for it-and went.' Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. Despite a handful of misgivings, the inspector joins a guestlist of novelists and thriller writers disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found dead in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances. Amidst the confusion of too many fake names, clues, ciphers and convoluted alibis, Macdonald and his allies in the CID must unravel a truly tangled case in this metafictional masterpiece, which returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1937.

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A strange figure fortells tragedy on the railway tracks. A plague threatens to encroach upon an isolated castle. The daughter of an eccentric scientist falls victim to a poisonous curse. The stories in this anthology depict the haunting moment when characters come face-to-face with their own mortality. Spanning two centuries, Mortal Echoes features some of the finest writers in the English language - including Edgar Allan Poe, Graham Greene, May Sinclair and H. G. Wells. Intriguing, unsettling and often strangely amusing, this collection explores humanity's transient existence, and what it means to be alive.

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The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon - renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing geese and renovating the cottage. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life. On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband is a Japanese POW. June's presence attracts fashionable visitors of dubious character, and threatens to spoil Vaughan's Prized seclusion. When Little Thatch is destroyed in a blaze, all Vaughan's work goes up in smoke - and Inspector Macdonald is drafted in to uncover a motive for murder.

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Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) `killer plant' in fiction, film and video games. Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's giant wistaria and H. G. Wells' hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood, and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit's wandering creepers... Every strain of vegetable threat (and one deadly fungus) can be found within this new collection, representing the very best tales from the undergrowth of Gothic fiction.

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How did Shakespeare sound to the audiences of his day? For the first time this disc offers listeners the chance to hear England's greatest playwright performed by a company of actors using the pronunciation of his time. Under the guidance of Ben Crystal, actor, author of Shakespeare on Toast and an expert in original Shakespearian pronunciation, the company performs some of Shakespeare's best-known poems, solo speeches and scenes from the plays. Hear new meanings uncovered, new jokes revealed, poetic effects enhanced. The CD is accompanied by an introductory essay by Professor David Crystal. An essential purchase for every student and lover of Shakespeare.

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This is a book of book lists. Not of the '1,001 Books You MUST Read Before You Die' variety but lists that tell stories. Lists that make you smile, make you wonder, and see titles together in entirely new ways. From Bin Laden's bookshelf to the books most frequently left in hotels, from prisoners' favourite books to MPs' most borrowed books, these lists are proof that a person's bookcase tells you everything you need to know about them, and sometimes more besides.

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Presents an hour-long recording that captures the magical awakening of bird-life at daybreak in the British countryside. This CD offers a selection of British woodland recordings taken from the collection of the wildlife section of the British Library sound archive.

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Howling down the tunnels comes a new collection showcasing the greatest stories of strange happenings on the tracks, many of which are republished here for the first time since their original departure. Waiting beyond the barrier are ghostly travelling companions bent on disturbing the commutes of the living, a subway car disappearing into a different dimension without a trace, and a man's greatest fears realized on the ghost train of a carnival. An express ticket to unforgettable journeys into the supernatural, from the open railways of Europe and America to the pressing dark of the tube.

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'Never, even in his most optimistic moments, had he visualised a scene of this nature - himself in one arm-chair, a police officer in another, and between them - a mystery.' The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish. But the vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, a secretive and ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head. The local police inspector is baffled by the complete absence of clues. Suspicion seems to fall on Tregarthan's niece, Ruth - but surely that young woman lacks the motive to shoot her uncle dead in cold blood? Luckily for Inspector Bigswell, the Reverend Dodd is on hand, and ready to put his keen understanding of the criminal mind to the test. This classic mystery novel of the golden age of British crime fiction is set against the vividly described backdrop of a fishing village on Cornwall's Atlantic coast . It is now republished for the first time since the 1930s.

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If you centre a globe on Kiritimati (Christmas Island), all you see around it is a vast expanse of ocean. Islands of various sizes float in view while glimpses of continents encroach on the fringes, but this is a view dominated by water. The immense stretch of the Pacific Ocean is inhabited by a diverse array of peoples and cultures bound by a common thread: their relationship with the sea. The rich history of the Pacific is explored through specific objects, each one beautifully illustrated, from the earliest human engagement with the Pacific through to the modern day. With entries covering mapping, trade, whaling, flora and fauna, and the myriad vessels used to traverse the ocean, Pacific builds on recent interest in the voyages of James Cook to tell a broader history. This visually stunning publication highlights the importance of an ocean that covers very nearly a third of the surface of the globe, and which has dramatically shaped the world and people around it.

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In the summer of 1923 Virginia Woolf's nephews, Quentin and Julian Bell, started a family newspaper, The Charleston Bulletin. Quentin decided to ask his aunt Virginia for a contribution: 'it seemed stupid to have a real author so close at hand and not have her contribute.' These Supplements are the result.

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