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 ...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses. Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place. Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War. He was commended for h...

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 Ralph Plummer.

Charles Dickens was born on the 7th February 1812, in Portsmouth, England, the second of eight children. The family endured many financial struggles and, when he was just 12, his father was sent to Marshalsea debtors' prison, the result of which was Dickens finished his education and went to work in a rat-infested boot-blacking factory to help pay off the debt. These experiences of neglect and hardship were to later provide themes in his books such as ‘Little Dorrit’ and ‘David Copperfield...

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,...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are sudden...

Writing can be a lonely art. Distractions and writers block are just two of the many impediments to a burnished stream of prose. But sometimes two heads really can be better than one. When one author decides to team up with another, either occasionally or full time, their new creations seem to amplify and encourage the words and ideas of each writer, helping to create narratives that are both new, and perhaps beyond the scope of just one of them. Collaborating and sounding off of one anoth...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...