Search results for ""Author David Stuart""

One of the most celebrated works of classic literature for children, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame remains a timeless tale of camaraderie, loyalty and bravery more than a hundred years after its first publication. Mole and Rat have a pleasant life by the river, where they talk, boat and wile away the days. The wise and private Mr Badger lives sedately in the Wild Woods, content in his solitude. Then there's Mr Toad - wealthy, impulsive and utterly obsessed with motor cars, he's always getting into scrapes and can't survive without the help of his friends.With sixteen gorgeous colour illustrations by the celebrated Arthur Rackham, and an afterword by author David Stuart Davies.

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The richness of Oscar Wilde's way with words and ideas is given full range in this sparkling collection of short stories written between 1887 and 1891. From the comic tales of The Canterville Ghost and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime to the marvelous fairy stories and fantasies of The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince and The Star Child, we are treated to the extravagance and dexterity of Wilde's exceptional wit, in stories that will appeal to both adults and children. Beautifully illustrated by Charles Robinson and Walter Crane, this Macmillan Collector's Library edition of The Happy Prince & Other Stories also features an afterword by author David Stuart Davies.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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Three adventurers set out to kill a sea monster, but all is not as it seems. Out in the vast expanse of the Pacific they find not a beast but a submarine - the Nautilus, an advanced craft captained by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Captured and hauled aboard, they accompany him through coral reefs, shipwrecks, and ancient ruins. There they hunt sharks, and battle giant squid, not realising that the greatest danger is Nemo himself, who will stop at nothing in his quest for vengeance.Beautifully illustrated by the French painter Édouard Riou, who worked with Jules Verne on six of his novels, this Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea also includes an afterword by author David Stuart Davies.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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A visit from the distraught Ronald Temple sets SHERLOCK HOLMES and Dr Watson on the hunt for a kidnapped child. With no ransom note and a sinister connection to the highest echelons of Victorian society, it becomes clear that it is no ordinary kidnapping, and soon the companions' lives are in danger. What is the child's true heritage? And what is the connection with the Whitechapel murders of a decade before?

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A brilliant, hilarious, and ultimately devastating debut novel about how racial discord grows in America In the rural Ohio of the late 1980s, social outcast Barry Nadler begins his freshman year of high school with low expectations. He resolves to go unnoticed as much as possible, until his world is upended by the arrival of Gurbaksh Singh, Gary for short, a Sikh teenager. Charismatic and wildly conspicuous, Gurbaksh befriends Barry and pulls him into a series of startling and uncharacteristic exploits.But as Barry becomes popular-adjacent at school, the rest of his world starts to unravel. His mom’s trips for her job with Marriott seem to keep her away longer. His philosophy professor dad is dealing with something. And soon his classmates and neighbors begin to react to the presence of the Singhs, a family so different from theirs. Through bitingly comic asides and wry observations, Barry becomes increasingly tuned into the seeds of xenophobia and racism finding fertile soil in this insular community, until tragedy unfolds.In bracing prose that captures the authentic voice of a heartrending awakening, David Stuart MacLean’s How I Learned to Hate in Ohio shines an uncomfortable light on the roots of white middle-American discontent. At once darkly funny and surprisingly moving, this is a humane, provocative, and undeniably resonant debut novel for our divided world.

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Practical Ontologies for Information Professionals provides an accessible introduction and exploration of ontologies and demonstrates their value to information professionals. More data and information is being created than ever before. Ontologies, formal representations of knowledge with rich semantic relationships, have become increasingly important in the context of today’s information overload and data deluge. The publishing and sharing of explicit explanations for a wide variety of conceptualizations, in a machine readable format, has the power to both improve information retrieval and discover new knowledge. Information professionals are key contributors to the development of new, and increasingly useful, ontologies. Practical Ontologies for Information Professionals provides an accessible introduction to the following: defining the concept of ontologies and why they are increasingly important to information professionals ontologies and the semantic web existing ontologies, such as RDF, RDFS, SKOS, and OWL2 adopting and building ontologies, showing how to avoid repetition of work and how to build a simple ontology interrogating ontologies for reuse the future of ontologies and the role of the information professional in their development and use. This book will be useful reading for information professionals in libraries and other cultural heritage institutions who work with digitalization projects, cataloguing and classification and information retrieval. It will also be useful to LIS students who are new to the field.

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Library and information professionals increasingly need to create, manage, and monitor a wide range of online content, from a library’s social media account and web sites to the new and traditional research outputs that funders expect to be made available openly online. It is important that they understand the new opportunities that web metrics provide for measuring the impact of an individual or an organization’s content. This book provides an up-to-date introduction to a wide range of web metrics, with practical examples of how they can b best put to use. The book will begin with a wider discussion on the role of metrics, and how web metrics overlap with associated concepts with a longer library and information science history such as scientometrics and bibliometrics. It will explore the latest tools that are available, many of which have changed since the publication of the first edition, as well as how we can expect the field to change in the future with machine intelligence and artificial intelligence becoming more widely available. This new edition has been extended and updated throughout to reflect the rapidly changing nature of the field, and has been modified to incorporate important changes that have taken place in the information ecosystem since the first edition: increased use (and misuse) of metrics within institutions, the rapid growth of interest in altmetrics; the expanding potential of artificial intelligence; and the restrictions imposed by increased legislation in the data realm are all covered. As well as updates to the user-friendly tools and resources that are available, there is also a greater emphasis on the programming libraries that are available, as library and information professionals are increasingly willing to start engaging with data that is available programmatically. After reading the book the information professional will not only be better placed to adopt web metrics in their workplace, but also be critical of the misuse of web metrics.

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Ogden Nash was a rare poet. He celebrated the ordinary with delight and curiosity: husbands and wives at work, children at play, a society in motion. He studied popular culture with a penetrating eye and wrote about America, its icons, habits, and affectations with humor and levity. He struggled with comparisons to “serious” poets, those heroes of the canon who abandoned the rhyme and meter that Nash found crucial to his style of writing. His witty, insightful, and graceful vignettes captured those moments in life that defy heavy-handed treatment. Nash did not live out the stereotype of the aloof poet-recluse. In addition to his writing, Nash pursued publishing, screenwriting, and a rigorous lecture circuit. This self-styled poet of wide appeal appeared in newspapers and magazines found in homes across the country, accessible publications such as Life, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated, Reader’s Digest, and McCall’s. At a time when children’s literature meant Winnie-the-Pooh, Nash produced verses for and about young people that amused, educated, and more important, didn’t pander or lecture. These poems and collections, including Custard the Dragon, The New Nutcracker Suite and Other Innocent Verses, A Boy Is a Boy, and Girls Are Silly, were classics of the genre. Nash left behind an invaluable body of work: charming, clever, and utterly unique.

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Practical Data Science for Information Professionals provides an accessible introduction to a potentially complex field, providing readers with an overview of data science and a framework for its application. It provides detailed examples and analysis on real data sets to explore the basics of the subject in three principle areas: clustering and social network analysis; predictions and forecasts; and text analysis and mining.As well as highlighting a wealth of user-friendly data science tools, the book also includes some example code in two of the most popular programming languages (R and Python) to demonstrate the ease with which the information professional can move beyond the graphical user interface and achieve significant analysis with just a few lines of code. After reading, readers will understand:· the growing importance of data science · the role of the information professional in data science · some of the most important tools and methods that information professionals can use.Bringing together the growing importance of data science and the increasing role of information professionals in the management and use of data, Practical Data Science for Information Professionals will provide a practical introduction to the topic specifically designed for the information community. It will appeal to librarians and information professionals all around the world, from large academic libraries to small research libraries. By focusing on the application of open source software, it aims to reduce barriers for readers to use the lessons learned within.

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Sherlock Holmes has just uncovered the truth about the theft of a priceless ruby. The wealthy Lady Damury staged the theft and tried to frame her husband - but just as Holmes reveals the truth, Lady Damury is found murdered. Holmes deduces that this is no crime of passion, but the work of a ruthless killer with no connection to the jewel. With reports of a man in a strange, trance-like state, Holmes finds himself entangled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the sinister Dr Caligari...

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A gorgeous anthology to dip into and savour the rich literary heritage of Yorkshire, Britain’s largest county. Yorkshire is renowned for its landscapes: the magical wilderness of the moors and the dales, its cities built on industry and mining, and its varied coastline.All these places, as well as its people, have been portrayed and dramatized in literature through the centuries; by poets from Andrew Marvell to Simon Armitage, by novelists such as Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Bram Stoker, and of course the Brontës, all of whom are represented here. Then there are novelists such as David Storey and Barry Hines, who wrote about working-class lives in the mining towns in the 1950s and 60s. And finally some favourite characters to enjoy, such as James Herriot and the Yorkshire Shepherdess.Yorkshire: A Literary Landscape is edited by David Stuart Davies.

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Blend the wild and fevered Irish imagination with a wonderful facility for recounting a dark, compelling tale, add a dash of the supernatural, and you have a potent brew of spine-tingling tales. This anthology of the best ghost stories from Ireland and Irish writers includes contributions from such masters as Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats and Rosa Mulholland. Within these pages you will find strange accounts of haunted houses, death warnings from beyond the grave, and revengeful spirits, all guaranteed to stir the imagination and chill the blood.The haunting tales featured in this beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Irish Ghost Stories have been selected and introduced by David Stuart Davies.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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Featuring private investigator Johnny (One Eye) Hawke, and his one-time colleague in the police force Detective David Llewellyn. Llewellyn is investigating the chilling crimes of a top psychiatrist and his scheming patient who the doctor believes has knuckled under his authority. In the meantime, Hawke is on the case of a mysterious suicide in Edgware Road... soon discovered as not your average suicide. The guts and insight of the two investigators bring both cases to a head - though you won't even begin to see how until you have turned the last pages.

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Classic Locked-Room Mysteries is a fascinating collection of ingenious mysteries which all pose the question 'howdunnit?'Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.Locked-room mysteries reached their height of popularity in the Victorian and Edwardian eras; this collection, edited and introduced by David Stuart Davies, brings together stories from such masters of the genre as Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton. In each story the reader is invited to play detective and is presented with a challenge: can you solve the mystery before the solution is revealed?

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Scottish Football: Souvenirs from the Golden Years - 1946 to 1986 takes a nostalgic look at Scottish football and mementoes from four decades when the game was at its (almost) egalitarian and entertaining best. It was a period with a wide spread of trophy winners: eight different league champions, 14 clubs sharing the two main domestic cup competitions, plus trophy successes in Europe for Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen, and semi-final near-misses for Dundee, Dundee United, Dunfermline Athletic, Hibs and Kilmarnock. This fascinating book also spotlights the British Championship, the Summer, Drybrough and Texaco Cups plus a host of cult heroes, lost stadia - and Quiz Ball! Alongside this colourful history are collectable treasures. It was a time when programmes were succinct sought-after souvenirs and not bloated corporate catalogues, when trading cards were useful and informative. Annuals, magazines and club handbooks also added to our wisdom. We'll never see an era like '46 to '86 again, so here's your chance to savour it once more.

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Scotland - Glory, Tears & Souvenirs is an offbeat collection of memories, mementos, rants and aspirations relating to Scotland's national football team. A 'look back in hunger' on the post-war era, with emphasis on the 1970s to date. A reminder of the way football was, the way it is now and the way we'd like it to be! There's Switzerland 54, Denis Law, trading cards, match programmes, Archie Gemmill, Argentina 78, beermats, Kenny Dalglish, vinyl records, Spain 82, Ally McCoist, the Tartan Army, Italia 90, the Kirin Cup, Jimmy Hill, France 98, Panini stickers and James McFadden. Nostalgia and a warped sense of humour are what gets Scotland supporters through in a nightmare world where all our near-neighbours now get to 'go to the ball' - France 2016, at least - while we await the arrival of a Fairy Godmother and a defence that doesn't leak goals. There's no room for wallowing in self-pity, though. Read this therapeutic comfort blanket of a book, cheer at the good bits and laugh at the bad. We shall overcome...

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Scotland: Club, Country, Collectables continues the authors' offbeat look at the issues and idiosyncrasies associated with Scottish international football. It's a celebration of the good, the bad and the mementoes treasured by fans irrespective of results. There's a flavour of the contributions made by our clubs - the players who became legends, those who tried hard, and others who merely tried our patience. A sideways look at Scottish football culture includes opposition teams and past tournaments, statistical overviews and memories full of typical Scottish weltschmerz and schadenfreude. The Road to Euro 2020 is covered, with clues offered as to whether Scotland can qualify for our first 'finals' in over 20 years - or will we achieve the rare distinction of being a host that fails to make it to our own party? While some Scotland supporters may only have tears for souvenirs, Club, Country, Collectables has everything from match programmes and trading cards to badges and beer labels, postcards, postage stamps and replica jerseys.

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The growing importance of data science, and the increasing role of information professionals in the management and use of data, are brought together in Practical Data Science for Information Professionals to provide a practical introduction specifically designed for information professionals.Data science has a wide range of applications within the information profession, from working alongside researchers in the discovery of new knowledge, to the application of business analytics for the smoother running of a library or library services. Practical Data Science for Information Professionals provides an accessible introduction to data science, using detailed examples and analysis on real data sets to explore the basics of the subject.This book will be of interest to all types of libraries around the world, from large academic libraries to small research libraries. By focusing on the application of open source software, the book aims to reduce barriers for readers to use the lessons learned within.

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For fans of true crime and of classic crime fiction, The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey is a gripping thriller featuring detective Alan Grant and a masterful exposé of the powerful connections between media, the establishment and what people choose to believe. Based on a true story.Complete and unabridged. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by writer David Stuart Davies.Fifteen-year-old Betty Kane has never put a foot wrong. Naturally, everyone is shocked and horrified to hear her story – that she was kidnapped, tortured and held prisoner by Marion Sharpe and her elderly mother, owners of the mysterious old house, The Franchise. But are the two women really guilty of such a horrendous crime? Every page resonates with tension as the story unfolds – did they or didn’t they take a young girl prisoner? And whose story can you trust?

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Editedand with an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. ‘Have you ever heard of the fascination of terror?’ This is a unique collection of strange stories from the cunning pen of Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone. The star attraction is the novella The Haunted Hotel, a clever combination of detective and ghost story set in Venice, a city of grim waterways, dark shadows and death. The action takes place in an ancient palazzo coverted into a modern hotel that houses a grisly secret. The supernatural horror, relentless pace, tight narrative, and a doomed countess characterise and distinguish this powerful tale. The other stories present equally disturbing scenarios, which include ghosts, corpses that move, family curses and perhaps the most unusual of all, the Devil's spectacles, which bring a clarity of vision that can lead to madness.

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Horrific, horrendous, unspeakable, The Whitechapel Murderer, Jack the Ripper, stalked the streets of East London in 1888, slaughtering prostitutes and bewildering the police who were hunting him. They never succeeded in apprehending him, and to this day the mystery of his identity remains an enigma. But he did leave clues to his identity, and numerous theories have been entertained throughout the one hundred and twenty years since he held London's East End in his grip of terror. This book looks at the evidence left by the murderer and the reports and investigative papers which recorded the atrocities that the Ripper performed. It takes time to analyse the existing information and evaluate the letters sent to the police. It is the strongest and most powerful book ever written on the murders. It dispels a lot of myths attached to the Ripper, and eliminates a lot of the previously conjectured perpetrators, leaving only those who realistically could have been…Jack the Ripper.

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M.R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M.R. James, ‘Stories I Have Tried To Write’, which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are ‘Casting the Runes’, ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll come to you, My Lad’, ‘The Tractate Middoth’, ‘The Ash Tree’ and ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’. ‘There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have the joy of reading them for the first time. For me, M.R. James is one of these’. Ruth Rendell

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A brilliant, hilarious, and ultimately devastating debut novel about how racial discord grows in America In late-1980s rural Ohio, bright but mostly friendless Barry Nadler begins his freshman year of high school with the goal of going unnoticed as much as possible. But his world is upended by the arrival of Gurbaksh, Gary for short, a Sikh teenager who moves to his small town and instantly befriends Barry and, in Gatsby-esque fashion, pulls him into a series of increasingly unlikely adventures. As their friendship deepens, Barry’s world begins to unravel, and his classmates and neighbors react to the presence of a family so different from theirs. Through darkly comic and bitingly intelligent asides and wry observations, Barry reveals how the seeds of xenophobia and racism find fertile soil in this insular community, and in an easy, graceless, unintentional slide, tragedy unfolds. How I Learned to Hate in Ohio shines an uncomfortable light on the roots of white middle-American discontent and the beginnings of the current cultural war. It is at once bracingly funny, dark, and surprisingly moving, an undeniably resonant debut novel for our divided world.

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Based on the translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. ‘… the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death’s-head, which darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes. I felt as if I were face to face with Satan…’ Erik, the Phantom of the Paris Opera House, is one of the great icons of horror literature. This tormented and disfigured creature has made his home in the labyrinthine cellars of this opulent building where he can indulge in his great passion for music, which is a substitute for the love and emotion denied him because of his ghastly appearance. It is in the Opera House that he encounters Christine Daaé whom he trains in secret to become a great singer. Erik’s passionate obsession with a beautiful woman beyond his reach is doomed and leads to the dramatic tragic finale. Gaston Leroux’s novel is a marvellous blend of detective story, romance and spine-tingling terror which has fascinated readers ever since the work was first published.

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With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. 'In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked fearful self, so like me my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of body it belonged'. Elizabeth Gaskell is better known today for her pioneering social novels such as Mary Barton (1848) but she also wrote some fascinating tales of the supernatural and the macabre, which are collected here in this volume. The real charm of this dark anthology is its variety. Unlike so many writers of this kind of material, Gaskell allows the story to fit the style rather than the other way around and as result there is a charming freshness to each tale. This remarkable author uses different voices, tones and topics to engage her readers and as you turn from one story to the next you cannot be quite sure what to expect.

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Selected and Introduced by David Stuart Davies. Short Stories from the Nineteenth Century is a wonderful collection of classic stories specially selected and introduced by David Stuart Davies. These are tales from the golden age of the great storytellers presenting evocative snapshots from that bygone era while at the same time providing engaging entertainment and stimulation for the modern reader. All emotions are catered for in the offerings by Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, H.G.Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Mrs Gaskell, O Henry, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Wilkie Collins, Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Charlotte Perkins Gillman and Charles Lamb. Through their words the rich pageant of yesterday springs to vibrant life. Each story has its own introduction and there is a set of informative notes. This volume is ideal reading for the student as well as those who relish a good tale well told.

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With an Introduction by Kathryn White. Prepare to be shocked. This novel, written in 1796, is a Gothic festival of sex, magic and ghastly, ghostly violence rarely seen in literature. The Monk is remarkably modern in style and tells a breathless tale of temptation, imprisonment and betrayal. Matthew Lewis recounts the downfall of Ambrosio, the holier-than-thou monk seduced within the walls of a Madrid abbey until he heads for the utter corruption of the soul. Meanwhile, two sets of young lovers are thwarted and the reader thrills to pursuits through the woods by bandits and is chilled by the spectre of nuns imprisoned in vermin-ridden and skeleton-crowded vaults. Late Eighteenth Century audiences were polarised in opinion as to the novel's merits. Lord Byron and the Marquis de Sade were impressed by Lewis's daring, while Coleridge warned parents against The Monk's suitability for their sons or daughters, describing the novel as 'poison for youth. If you want a novel that still terrifies, over two hundred years after it was written, there is none finer than The Monk.

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Voted the top crime novel of all time by the UK Crime Writers’ Association, The Daughter of Time is Josephine Tey’s last and most successful book.Complete and unabridged. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by writer David Stuart Davies.Inspector Alan Grant is laid up in hospital with a spinal injury and he’s bored. Renowned for his ability to read a face, he passes the time looking at old portraits and one which particularly grabs his attention is of Richard III, the supposed arch villain who killed his own nephews, ‘the princes in the tower’. But Grant doesn’t accept the face in the portrait is the face of a villain so he sets out to investigate what really happened. An unusual premise for a crime novel perhaps, but nevertheless an extremely clever and engrossing one, brilliantly plotted and written with enormous charm and erudition.

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The art of telling a ghost story is a refined one, and Montague Rhodes James was a master of the genre. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful hardbacks make perfect gifts for book lovers, or wonderful additions to your own collection. This edition features an afterword by author and playwright David Stuart Davies.M.R. James draws the reader into narratives which, seeming innocuous, become darker and darker in gentle turns – until confronting the reader with some of the most unforgettably frightening images in British literature. Complete Ghost Stories contains every timeless masterpiece from each of his four collections: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925).

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With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was one of the great masters of Victorian of mystery and horror fiction, and can be regarded as the father of the modern ghost story. In a Glass Darkly (1872), one of his most celebrated volumes, purports to be the casebook of Dr Hesselius, a pioneer psychologist. These five tales represent some of Le Fanu's most accomplished work, which rises above the staid conventions of the age. Although drawing on Gothic conventions - the book features both ghosts and vampires - Le Fanu redefined the parameters of supernatural fiction. He had little interest in the crude depiction of other worldly phenomena in order to provide the reader with a pleasurable frisson of fear. Le Fanu concern rather lay in the examination of the results of supernatural experience on the psyche of his protagonist, in this he paved the way for the work of Henry James and M. R. James. This volume is an indispensable cornerstone of modern horror and remains one of the finest collections of unsettling fiction in the language.

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In 1888 Henry James wrote 'There was the customary novel by Mr Le Fanu for the bedside; the ideal reading in a country house for the hours after midnight'. Madam Crowl's Ghost & Other Stories are tales selected from Le Fanu's stories which mostly appeared in The Dublin University Magazine and other periodicals, and their haunting, sinister qualities still have an enormous appeal for the modern reader. The great M.R. James, who collected and introduces the stories in this book, considered that Le Fanu 'stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories.'

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‘The thing came abruptly and unannounced; a demon, rat-like, scurrying from pits remote and unimaginable, a hellish panting and stifled grunting, and then from that opening beneath the chimney a burst of multitudinous and leprous life - a loathsome night-spawned flood of organic corruption more devastatingly hideous than the blackest conjurations of mortal madness and morbidity.’ Only the expansive imagination of H.P. Lovecraft could conceive the delicious and spine-tingling horrors you will find within the pages of this unique collection. In addition to such classics as The Picture in the House, The Music of Erich Zann and The Rats in the Walls, this volume contains some fascinating rarities: examples of Lovecraft's earliest weird fiction and material unpublished during his lifetime. H.P. Lovecraft's creation of the Cthulhu Mythos has influenced many modern authors, and still remains at the forefront of supernatural literature.

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With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G.K. Chesterton's kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths. This complete collection contains all the favourite Father Brown stories, showing a quiet wit and compassion that has endeared him to many, whilst solving his mysteries by a mixture of imagination and a sympathetic worldliness in a totally believable manner.

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'A well written book, astutely organized.' Development and Change Local Forest Management is built around careful and illuminating case studies of the effects of devolution policies on the management of forests in several Asian countries. The studies demonstrate that devolution policies - contrary to the claims of governments - actually increased governmental control over the management of local resources and did so at lower cost. The controversial findings show that if local forest users are to exercise genuine control over forest management, they must be better represented in the processes of forming, implementing and evaluating devolution policies. In addition, the guiding principle for policy discussions should be to create sustainable livelihoods for local resource users, especially the poorest among them, rather than reducing the cost of government forest administration. This book is essential reading for forest and other natural resource managers, policy makers, development economists and forestry professionals and researchers.

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With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. 'I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with horror which at all times assails me yet'. With its strange, imaginative blend of horror, science fiction, romance and lyrical prose, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a classic masterpiece of weird fiction. This series of vaguely connected stories is linked by the presence of a monstrous and suppressed book which brings fright, madness and spectral tragedy to all those who read it. An air of futility and doom pervade these pages like a sweet insidious poison. Dare you read it? This collection has been called the most important book in American supernatural fiction between Poe and the moderns. H. P. Lovecraft, creator of the famed Cthulu mythos, whose own fiction was greatly influenced by this book stated that The King in Yellow 'achieves notable heights of cosmic fear'.

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This is a book to be read by a blazing fire on a winter's night, with the curtains drawn close and the doors securely locked. The unquiet souls of the dead, both as fictional creations and as 'real' apparitions, roam the pages of this haunting selection of ghost stories by Rex Collings.Some of these stories are classics while others are lesser-known gems unearthed from this vintage era of tales of the supernatural. There are stories from distant lands - 'Fisher's Ghost' by John Lang is set in Australia and 'A Ghostly Manifestation' by 'A Clergyman' is set in Calcutta. In this selection, Sir Walter Scott (a Victorian in spirit if not in fact), keeps company with Edgar Allen Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu and other illustrious masters of the genre.

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Selected & Introduced by David Stuart Davies. Traumatised by ghost stories in her youth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton (1862 -1937) channelled her fear and obsession into creating a series of spine-tingling tales filled with spirits beyond the grave and other supernatural phenomena. While claiming not to believe in ghosts, paradoxically she did confess that she was frightened of them. Wharton imbues this potent irrational and imaginative fear into her ghostly fiction to great effect. In this unique collection of finely wrought tales Wharton demonstrates her mastery of the ghost story genre. Amongst the many supernatural treats within these pages you will encounter a married farmer bewitched by a dead girl; a ghostly bell which saves a woman's reputation; the weird spectral eyes which terrorise the midnight hours of an elderly aesthete; the haunted man who receives letters from his dead wife; and the frightening power of a doppelganger which foreshadows a terrible tragedy. Compelling, rich and strange, the ghost stories of Edith Wharton, like vintage wine, have matured and grown more potent with the passing years.

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‘His body was pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, and the face was a mask of agonised horror and fruitless entreaty. But the eyes were already glazed in death, and before Francis could reach the bed the body had toppled over and lay inert and lifeless. Even as he looked, he heard a limping step go down the passage outside.’ E. F. Benson was a master of the ghost story and now all his rich, imaginative, spine-tingling and beautifully written tales are presented together in this bumper collection. The range and variety of these spooky narratives is far broader and more adventurous than those of any other writer of supernatural fiction. Within the covers of this volume you will encounter revengeful spectres, vampires, homicidal spirits, monstrous spectral worms and slugs and other entities of nameless dread. This is a classic collection that cannot fail to charm and chill.

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An ideal gift for mystery lovers.A Taste for Blood, set in and around London, by the acclaimed Sherlock Holmes expert David Stuart Davies.Ellipsis, set in London, a psychological thriller by Nikki Dudley.Lynnwood, by Thomas Brown, set in the New Forest, was listed for the 2014 People's Book Prize.Three great reads, for those who like to wrap their minds round unusual plots, presented as one omnibus print edition.

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Learn about the world's greatest detective in The Sherlock Holmes Book.Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Sherlock Holmes in this overview guide to the subject, brilliant for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Sherlock Holmes Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Sherlock Holmes, with:- Includes all four novels and 56 short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts- A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout- Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understandingThe Sherlock Holmes Book is a captivating introduction to every case investigated by Holmes and Dr Watson in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, aimed at adult fans of the books, movies, or TV shows and want to know more. Exciting text and bold graphics explain elements of each plot and shows how Holmes reaches his conclusions through deductive reasoning.Your Sherlock Holmes Questions, Simply ExplainedFrom the first novel, A Study in Scarlet, to the masterpiece that is The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Conan Doyle's final Holmes tale, The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place, this guide explores every facet of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective, his world, and his enduring appeal. If you thought it was difficult to untangle his razor-sharp wit, The Sherlock Holmes Book presents key information about Sherlock in a clear layout. The Big Ideas SeriesWith millions of copies sold worldwide, The Sherlock Holmes Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

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All of human experience flows from bodies that feel, express emotion, and think about what such experiences mean. But is it possible for us, embodied as we are in a particular time and place, to know how people of long ago thought about the body and its experiences? In this groundbreaking book, three leading experts on the Classic Maya (ca. AD 250 to 850) marshal a vast array of evidence from Maya iconography and hieroglyphic writing, as well as archaeological findings, to argue that the Classic Maya developed a coherent approach to the human body that we can recover and understand today.The authors open with a cartography of the Maya body, its parts and their meanings, as depicted in imagery and texts. They go on to explore such issues as how the body was replicated in portraiture; how it experienced the world through ingestion, the senses, and the emotions; how the body experienced war and sacrifice and the pain and sexuality that were intimately bound up in these domains; how words, often heaven-sent, could be embodied; and how bodies could be blurred through spirit possession.From these investigations, the authors convincingly demonstrate that the Maya conceptualized the body in varying roles, as a metaphor of time, as a gendered, sexualized being, in distinct stages of life, as an instrument of honor and dishonor, as a vehicle for communication and consumption, as an exemplification of beauty and ugliness, and as a dancer and song-maker. Their findings open a new avenue for empathetically understanding the ancient Maya as living human beings who experienced the world as we do, through the body.

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Lord Peter Wimsey, wealthy, charming and charismatic, is one of the most famous amateur detectives of the golden age of crime. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Lord Peter Wimsey Investigates is introduced and edited by crime writer David Stuart Davies.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. The fifteen short stories in this lively and witty collection, Dorothy L. Sayers’s very best, celebrate the breadth of Peter Wimsey’s career as London’s most celebrated amateur sleuth. From the foppish man about town of 'In the Teeth of the Evidence', to the happily married man in 'The Haunted Policeman', to the father of three in 'Talboys', Wimsey kept that twinkle in his eye and the brilliance of mind that helped him spot a clue a mile off.

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With an Introduction and Notes by Scott Brewster, University of Central Lancashire. Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery, and The Woman in White is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in north London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast, from the peevish invalid Mr Fairlie to the corpulent villain Count Fosco and the enigmatic woman herself.

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Dracula: Introduction and Notes by Dr David Rogers, Kingston University. 'There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey, the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst the swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.' Thus Bram Stoker, one of the greatest exponents of the supernatural narrative, describes the demonic subject of his chilling masterpiece Dracula, a truly iconic and unsettling tale of vampirism. Dracula's Guest & Other Stories: Edited and Introduced by David Stuart Davies. The above is followed with a rich collection of Stoker's macabre tales including Dracula's Guest (which was omitted from the final version of Dracula); a devilishly dangerous haunted room in The Judge's House; a fatalistic tragedy in The Burial of the Rats; a terror of revenge from beyond the grave in The Secret of Growing Gold, and a surprising twist in the tail in The Gypsy's Prophecy. Other strange and frightening episodes provide a feast of terror for those readers who like to be unnerved as well as entertained.

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Complete and unabridged.Three Men in a Boat remains one of the best-loved and most entertaining comic novels. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, unabridged, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features illustrations by A. Frederics and an afterword by David Stuart Davies.Join our young heroes J., George and Harris (not forgetting Montmorency, the mischievous, irascible fox terrier) as they take a boating holiday along the Thames. Their aim is to escape the weary workaday world and improve their health, but they are ill prepared for the various escapades, difficulties and vicissitudes that they encounter along the watery way. The adventures of these incompetent innocents abroad are magnified to epic proportions by the storyteller, J. His narration gives the book not only a wonderful endearing freshness but also a series of hilarious moments of timeless comedy.

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Complete and unabridged. Bleak House is not only a love story and a tightly plotted murder mystery, but also a condemnation of the corruption at the heart of English society. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has an afterword by David Stuart Davies and original illustrations by H. K. Browne.The inheritance case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been going on for generations involving myriad characters from all walks of life. There’s Esther Summerson, Dickens' feisty heroine; Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, cocooned in their stately home in Lincolnshire; and Jo, the penniless crossing sweeper. We are drawn in and fascinated by the complex relationships. Indeed in none of Charles Dickens’ other novels is the canvas broader, the sweep more inclusive, the linguistic texture richer and the gallery of comic grotesques more extraordinary.

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