Folsom fables: Pieces of the past : people, landmarks, events & bits of the past from Folsom, California

Silver, Sue

Victorian Secrets

Professor Aldwyn wakes from a nap to discover that he is actually dead. During life he was a rational man of science, but he has now entered the spirit world and is forced to account for his actions on earth. In this novella Florence Marryat presents the reader with a sometimes playful, but ultimately engaging, challenge to the wider scientific community and its skepticism of the spiritual other. This new edition, edited by Dr Greta Depledge, features an introduction, contextual notes and additional material on contemporary debates.

The Dead Man's Message

Literature & Fiction

MARRYAT, FLORENCE

Genre Fiction

A collection of short ghost stories by Victorian writer Rhoda Broughton. Includes: 'The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth', 'The Man with the Nose', 'Behold, it was a Dream!', 'Poor Pretty Bobby', and 'Under the Cloak'. Broughton uses the tales to comment on taboo subjects such as female sexuality and women's attitudes to money, as well as developing her interest in psychology and otherness, whilst consolidating her reputation as a sensational writer who never failed to tell a gripping tale.

Twilight Stories

Broughton, Rhoda

Literary

A collection of short ghost stories by Victorian writer Charlotte Riddell. Includes: Walnut-Tree House, The Open Door, Nut Bush Farm, Sandy the Tinker, and Old Mrs Jones. With their monstrous women and uncanny children, their tales of dissolution, greed and murder behind the facade of splendid houses, these stories will appeal to the modern aficionado of supernatural fiction.

Weird Stories

Riddell, Charlotte

When he is eight years old Arthur Golding watches his gifted but dissolute father die in poverty and squalor. Aided by a series of brilliantly-drawn characters, Arthur escapes slum life, gains an education, falls in love, and looks set to launch his career in London as an artist. But when he meets a beautiful young prostitute he embarks on a liaison that plunges him into a dark world of passion, threatening to destroy everything he has worked for and holds dear.
In this powerful and largely autobiographical first novel George Gissing establishes the hallmarks of his life-long literary obsession with class, money and sex. Against the turbulent background of London in the late nineteenth century, in Workers in the Dawn, Gissing explores the daunting challenges that face men of education, intelligence and talent, who strive to escape from the lower working class into which they are born.
The Gissing Journal thought the edition “attractively presented” and praised Debbie Harrison’s “wide-ranging introduction” and good balance of explanatory notes.
The text is that of the first edition published by Remington &amp; Co in 1880, and also includes:
<ul>
<li>preface by leading Gissing expert Pierre Coustillas</li>
<li>a critical introduction</li>
<li>unique map of Arthur Golding’s London by Richard Dennis</li>
<li>suggestions for further reading</li>
<li>George Gissing chronology</li>
<li>explanatory notes</li>
</ul>
Debbie Harrison is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London, where she is currently working on her monograph, A Victorian Hangover: Narratives of Addiction 1830-1900. Her research focuses on the interface between literature, medicine and social science in the nineteenth century.
“… a fascinating addition to the shelf of late Victorian radical fiction.” Christine Ferguson, TLS

Workers in the Dawn

GISSING, GEORGE

First published in 1864, Henry Dunbar includes all the classic ingredients of a sensation novel, including murder, fraud, mistaken identity, and a train accident. This modern edition features a critical introduction, suggestions for further reading, explanatory footnotes, and additional contextual material.

Henry Dunbar

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth

Classics

Harriet Brandt is the daughter of a mad scientist and a mixed-race voodoo priestess. Brought up on her parents' Jamaican plantation, she is forced to flee to Europe after the slaves revolt. Although everyone is initially attracted to Harriet, people who get close to her seem to sicken and die. Marryat's "psychic vampire" represents both the racial "other" and the New Woman of the period, both of whom were perceived as a threat to fin-de-siecle society. This curious novel engages with key debates, such as race, women's rights, heredity, syphilophobia and the occult.

The Blood of the Vampire

Against the vivid background of the political and social upheavals of the mid-1880s, in 'Demos' Gissing weaves an electrifying story of ambition, betrayal, love and loss. The novel offers one of the most penetrating analyses of London's poor and working classes in late-Victorian fiction and delivers an unsettling critique of the English socialist movement at a pivotal point in its history. Gissing's rage against the social and economic system that creates appalling poverty is palpable, and he depicts human suffering with exquisite poignancy in scenes that are among the most beautiful in the English language. This new scholarly edition includes: preface by Pierre Coustillas, critical introduction by Debbie Harrison, suggestions for further reading, George Gissing chronology, explanatory notes, appendix on the politics of 'Demos'.

Demos

Originally published in 1901, 'East of Suez' was Alice Perrin's first collection of short stories. Her fascinating and thought-provoking tales of Anglo-Indian life rival the best work of Kipling, and were hugely successful in their day. Perrin tells stories of illicit love against a beautifully-drawn backdrop of the mystical east, interweaving the supernatural with exquisite details of her characters' lives. This scholarly edition includes: a critical introduction; author biography; suggestions for further reading; explanatory notes; contextual material on representations of the British Raj; illustrations from 'The Illustrated London News' and 'The Windsor Magazine'.

East of Suez - Annotated Edition

Perrin, Alice

Originally published in 1891, The Light that Failed is Rudyard Kipling’s semi-autobiographical first novel. Critics who had praised him for Plain Tales from the Hills were shocked at the unhappy ending and deviation from his usual style, but none could deny the power of Kipling’s writing.The Light that Failed tells the story of war artist Dick Heldar, his doomed love for childhood sweetheart Maisie, and his descent into blindness. Through Dick, Kipling considers the relationship between Art and Life, espousing his belief that the artist has a duty to paint only what he knows to be true.The reality pursued by Kipling is vividly portrayed in his descriptions of the battlefields of the Sudan and the fleshpits of Port Said. These near-Naturalistic depictions led to comparisons with Zola and show a very different Kipling from the one famous for his Anglo-Indian tales.This edition includes: * critical introduction * biography of Kipling * suggestions for further reading * explanatory footnotes * alternative “happy ending” from the serialised version in Lippincott’s Magazine * contemporary reviews * extracts from The City of Dreadful Night, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Vitaï Lampada, and The Picture of Dorian Gray* Dürer’s Melencolia I

The Light that Failed

Kipling., Rudyard

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