Résultats lu par "Richard Mitchley" dans Toutes les catégories

Silence is rare in Nature. When we really listen, Nature is conducting symphonies of sound as her world goes about the day and night. Her invisible heartbeat is everywhere, for everyone. Our eyes are constantly bathed in the wonder of her ways, the soft drizzle of rain from soft grey clouds, the bleached harsh desert sand of a noon day, a wave caressing the shore, to the ravenous colours of a departing sunset. Indeed, whenever we look and listen to the vastness of our world Nature’s beauty is always there for us. In these 60 minutes Nature takes us through her world of wonder.

Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism. The Empty House is one of his most famous ghost stories. A man accompanies his adventurous aunt to a notorious haunted house. As the two exploring its dark, empty rooms, it becomes apparent that the house has not forgotten the earlier tragedy.

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862, in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms, including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her short story ‘The Coach’ is an excellent example of her black comedy writing. This cramped setting turns into a macabre tour de force delivering literary punch and emotional heft.

Aleksander Głowacki, who wrote under the nom de plume Boleslaw Prus, was born on 20th August 1847 at Hrubieszów in the Kingdom of Poland, at that time, controlled by the Russian Empire. It seems he had doubts as to the scale of his talents and early on adopted the name ‘Boleslaw Prus’, for both his journalistic and literary offerings. His work as a short-story writer met with much acclaim. He wrote several dozen of them, originally published in newspapers and ranging in length from micro-story to novella. His keen observation of everyday life and sense of humor are evident in them.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860, in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia. Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories, which included many, many classics, including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’. His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26. He was also a major playwright beginning with the huge success of ‘Ivanov’ in 1887.

David Herbert Lawrence was born on the 11th September 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, a coal mining town where the reality of a harsh life was only useful as experiences for future literary works. Lawrence’s first efforts were poems, short stories and a draft of ‘The White Peacock’. Moving to London and a teaching position in Croydon his writing attracted the attention of Ford Madox Ford, editor of The English Review, and he commissioned him to write ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’.

Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator. Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism. In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s stories to plays and long novels is clearly seen.

Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters, are with us every day. Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas seem amplified; we seem more tender to their touch, their words. In this volume we take the verse and poems of our classic poets and put them alongside our short story masters to reveal a Christmas that everyone remembers and that everyone wants to be part of.

During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers. Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’.

During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers. Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’.

The creation of a human hybrid with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, has not been ruled out as an impossibility, but would any laboratory want to be involved? Why invite global condemnation and raise social, moral, and legal storms? It was certainly not the intention of the Strickland family, who are innocently involved with research and a veterinary practice in rural England.

Love whether fleeting or of the ages, expressed with a look, a touch, or a thought is wanted by us all. Our classic poets did not surrender to the logic of the group or seek advice from others quick to blame but slow to embrace. Their legacy remains because it is true, because in that look, that touch, that thought, that display of words the heart remembers us and treasures us. Here are words and verse of love. For your ears, your loved one’s ears and hearts everywhere.

Whilst writer Charles Dickens needs no introduction, his Haunted House anthology might, not least because in his role as editor he introduces a formidable array of known and lesser-known literary talents.

Between then and now poets have written verse, both serious and humorous, in attempts to keep a poetic track both of feelings and as a tribute to our four-legged friends and their adventures.

Henry James was born 15th April 1843 in New York City. His youth was spent travelling with his family receiving what was an "extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous" education as they journeyed through London, Paris, Geneva, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Newport, Rhode Island, according to the father's current interests and publishing ventures. James studied primarily with tutors and only briefly attended schools. Undoubtedly the quality of his writing has ensured his name is enshrined in the American literary tradition.

AD 1294. Caernarfon has fallen to Madog, and the Welsh uprising spreads like a wildfire. The four main warlords of Wales join forces to wreak havoc amongst the English settlers and rampage across the country in a frenzy of aggression born of a lifetime of servitude. One by one, Edward’s castles fall before the Welsh onslaught, but though there seems to be little reaction from the king, across the border, he musters his armies and plans the re-taking of his famed Ring of Steel.

AD 1136. Across a barren battlefield in the shadows of Kidwelly Castle, the bodies of a defeated army lay abandoned, left to rot as a warning to all who dare rebel against the authority of the English crown. Throughout the kingdom, the people are subjected to a renewed campaign of brutality from the victorious castellans, and any thoughts of freedom are abandoned as they struggle simply to survive each passing day. However, deep beneath the Cathedral of Saint David, in a cold and damp cell that has been his home for many years, an old monk kneels in prayer.

In 1274, Edward the First ruled England having inherited the crown from his father, Henry the Third. Across the border to the west, the smaller country of Wales was ruled by Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, a direct descendant of Llewellyn the Great. Tensions were strained between the two countries and minor conflicts were commonplace between the lesser nobles, but when Edward found out about Llewellyn’s proposed marriage to Eleanor du Montfort, he was incensed, and in 1275, arranged for her ship to be intercepted as she travelled from France to be with the Welsh prince.

King Henry is dead, and his son, Edward Longshanks, is on his way back from crusade to claim the crown and impose his iron will on a weakened country. The nobles of north Wales are nervous and grow frustrated at the inaction of their own leader, and make a daring pact to replace him with a figurehead to unite the warring factions against the English prince. In the south, two young men attempt to rebuild their lives after a terrifying ordeal in Acre.

Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881, he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University.