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Mayer André Marcel Schwob was born in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, France on 23rd August 1867 into a cultivated Jewish family. As a child he devoured the works of Poe and Stevenson in French and then again in English. His attachment to the bizarre and dark was already forming. Schwob was regarded as a symbolist writer and a ‘precursor of Surrealism’. He wrote over a hundred short stories, journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays.

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. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

Mayer André Marcel Schwob was born in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, France on 23rd August 1867 into a cultivated Jewish family. As a child he devoured the works of Poe and Stevenson in French and then again in English. His attachment to the bizarre and dark was already forming. Schwob was regarded as a symbolist writer and a ‘precursor of Surrealism’. He wrote over a hundred short stories, journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays.

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was born in Valencia, Spain on 29th January 1867. At university, he studied law and graduated in 1888 but never felt the urgency to practice - he was more interested in politics, journalism, literature and women. Ironically his fame in the English-speaking world has come not as a novelist but as the stories behind some of Hollywood’s greatest silent movies.

Mayer André Marcel Schwob was born in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, France on 23rd August 1867 into a cultivated Jewish family. As a child he devoured the works of Poe and Stevenson in French and then again in English. His attachment to the bizarre and dark was already forming. Schwob was regarded as a symbolist writer and a ‘precursor of Surrealism’. He wrote over a hundred short stories, journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays.

Mayer André Marcel Schwob was born in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, France on 23rd August 1867 into a cultivated Jewish family. As a child he devoured the works of Poe and Stevenson in French and then again in English. His attachment to the bizarre and dark was already forming. Schwob was regarded as a symbolist writer and a ‘precursor of Surrealism’. He wrote over a hundred short stories, journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays.

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was born in Valencia, Spain on 29th January 1867. At university, he studied law and graduated in 1888 but never felt the urgency to practice - he was more interested in politics, journalism, literature and women. Ironically his fame in the English-speaking world has come not as a novelist but as the stories behind some of Hollywood’s greatest silent movies.

Móric Jókay de Ásva was born on the 18th February 1825 in Komárom, then in the Kingdom of Hungary but now part of Slovakia. Due to his timid and delicate constitution he was educated at home until the age of 10 and then sent away to complete his studies at the Calvinist college at Pápa. In 1848 he married the actress, Róza Laborfalvi. That same year Europe was awash with revolutions and Jókai, a moderate Liberal, enthusiastically supported the nationalist cause and its decision to depose the Habsburg dynasty. The attempt failed. Mór Jókai died in Budapest on the 5th May 1904. He was 79.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. The Russian Literary Tradition has justly earned a magnificent reputation. The Russian Empire of the Czars was a huge and disparate patchwork of peoples ruled by an overbearing elite that employed a middle-class bureaucracy to keep the working class firmly underfoot. Within its vaulted ranks are a role call of many of the greatest literary talents of the ages.

Lucy Gertrude Moberly was born in 1861 at Winchester in Hampshire, England, one of eight children. Details of her life are scant, but it is known that she trained as a nurse before returning to the family home, a vicarage where her father worked, to begin a full-time career as a writer. During her lifetime she published as L G Moberly and was the author of over 60 novels, and many short stories which were published in the very popular periodicals of the day. Lucy Gertrude Moberly died on the 20th March 1931 at her home in London England.

Richard Garnett C.B. was born on the 27th February 1835. As an author he wrote several volumes of verse, a book of short stories and several biographies and history books. In 1901, Garnett was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. Richard Garnett died on the 13th April 1906. He was 71.

William Pett Ridge was born at Chartham, near Canterbury, Kent, on 22 April 1859. His family’s resources were certainly limited. His father was a Railway Porter, and the young Pett Ridge, after schooling in Marden, Kent became a Clerk in a railway clearing-house. The hours were long and arduous, but self-improvement was Pett Ridge’s goal. After working from nine until seven o’clock he would attend evening classes at Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institute to follow his passion: the ambition to write.

Whilst Europe endured the Dark Ages in the 6th & 7th Centuries, devotees of Shiva and Vishnu in Southern India were creating the Bhakti Movement. Some of these exponents, as in our volume, were bestowed with the title of saint but some had the additional title of sant, swami or goswami. Broadly speaking, Bhakti poetry, as in Hinduism itself, is divided into ‘Nirguna’, the idea that the divine is formless as exampled by Kabir and ‘Saguna’, which interprets the divine as having physical form as captured by Mirabai.

Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family. Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father. His literary works are few in number but towering in influence. His masterpieces include ‘The Trial’, ‘The Metamorphosis’ as well as a number of short stories which reveal facets of humankind that truthfully could only be born from Kafka’s brain and pen.

Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family. Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father. His literary works are few in number but towering in influence. His masterpieces include ‘The Trial’, ‘The Metamorphosis’ as well as a number of short stories which reveal facets of humankind that truthfully could only be born from Kafka’s brain and pen.

Ivan Minchov Vazov was born on the 9th July 1850 (although that date is disputed) in the town of Sopot, in Bulgaria, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. After primary education at the local school he was sent to Kalofer to continue his studies and work as an assistant teacher. He later spent a short time in Plodiv where he began to write poetry. Fascinated by literature he abandoned work as an apprentice to move to Brăila, in Romania, where he lived with exiled revolutionaries and befriended the poet Hristo Botev.

Richard Barham Middleton was born on the 28th October 1882 in Staines, Middlesex. His education was primarily at Cranbrook School in Kent before he began work as a clerk, in 1901, at the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation in London. Middleton moved into rooms in Blackfriars and joined the New Bohemians club where his literary contacts grew. As an author he is most remembered for his short ghost stories.

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? In this volume the once forgotten literary backwaters of Scandinavia, and its hinterland, reveal the storied works of their own literature. Some names are familiar, some decidedly not. But each has literary talents and compelling narratives.

In this volume our classic authors turn their words to the religion of Christianity. It’s a fascinating subject for our authors who can explore faith and belief in ways that we rarely subject ourselves to. Whatever your faith these stories raise questions and that are of interest to us all.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that are difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this volume we examine one of the great names from the past whose works invite life, rituals and the spirit world together to fashion dramatic and chilling unforeseen happenings.