The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is J J Bell.

Ferguson Wright Hume was born in Powick, Worcestershire on the 8th July 1859.When he was three the family emigrated to Dunedin in New Zealand. Here he started his education at the Otago Boys' High School before studying law at the University of Otago. Hume was admitted to the New Zealand bar in 1885.He moved to become a barrister’s clerk to Melbourne and once there also began writing plays. The local theatres were not interested in his works, and it was only after one was s...

Edith Nesbit was born on the 15th August 1858 in Kennington, then part of Surrey.Due to the health issues and tuberculosis of her sister Mary, Nesbit’s early life was one of constant changes of house both in England and on the continent.At age 17, Nesbit met Hubert Bland and they married three years later―whilst she was 7 months pregnant. Bland also kept his affair with another woman going throughout their marriage and the two children of that relationship were raised by Ne...

Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire.He was educated at Malvern College, Tonbridge School, Eastbourne College and finally Trinity College, Cambridge where he focused on his passions of mountaineering and poetry and published several volumes.Life for Crowley was to abandon his parents’ Christian faith and instead to inject himself into Western esotericism. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Or...

The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is M McD Bodkin.

George Robert Sims was born on the 2nd September 1847 in Kennington, London, the eldest of six children.His initial forays into literature were humorous pieces in ‘Fun’ magazine and ‘The Referee’, but then he applied his skills and hard work to the plight of the poor and social reform. On these subjects he wrote seriously and extensively though perhaps his ballad ‘Christmas Day in the Workhouse’ is both his best remembered contribution and a scathing introduction of his views....

There is something about the number 3.The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore them...

John Donne was born on the 22nd January 1572 in London, into a Roman Catholic family when Catholicism was illegal in England, and there was turbulence and unrest with both state and church throughout much of Europe.His father, also named John, died when he was four, and his mother, Elizabeth Haywood, married a wealthy widower, ensuring the family were looked after. He received a good education at both Oxford and Cambridge but was unable to obtain a degree without taking the oath of...

Karl Hans Strӧbl was born in Jihlava, Moravia in the Czech Republic, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the 18th of January 1877.His education finished with his studies at the University of Prague, where he became involved in nationalist student politics, a precursor to his later right-wing and anti-semitic viewpoints.In 1910 he wrote an apocalyptic novel ‘Eleagabal Kuperus’, which was later adapted into a silent film.His literary output was prolific and r...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?The theme ...

In the annual celebration of faith many things are not quite as they seem. Words in the hands of authors such as Anton Chekhov, Hugh Walpole, Ethel Lina White, Lucy Maud Montgomery and many others weave narratives that all become a little on the dark side.1 - A Strange Christmas - Tales from the Dark Side - An Introduction2 - At Christmas Time by Anton Chekhov3 - The Christmas Banquet by Nathaniel Hawthorne4 - The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson...

Walter Lionel George was born to British parents on the 20th March 1882 in Paris, France.It was not until he was a young man of 20 that he learned English. In 1905 he moved to London to work in an office but soon found himself working as a journalist, and as a foreign correspondent, for various London newspapers.By 1911, with the publication of his first novel ‘A Bed of Roses’, which portrayed the fall of a penniless young woman into prostitution, his efforts were rewarded,...