Showing results for "Mary, Mary" in Short Stories

It was with her stories that Mary Morris first won attention and acclaim: her first collection, Vanishing Animals, received the prestigious Rome Prize, and her second, The Bus of Dreams, was widely hailed. In this new collection, Mary Morris once again shows her great sensitivity to men and...

An ancient alchemist drags out his weary life in search of the elixir of immortality. But, when his vengeful assistant quaffs the mixture, he discovers that the effects of the draft of immortality may never wear off. Mary Shelley explores the concept of immortality, following a character that never ages through a ponderous and thought provoking life.

This is a reissue of National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill's debut collection, Bad Behavior - powerful stories about dislocation, longing, and desire that depict a disenchanted and rebellious urban-fringe generation as it searches for human connection. Now a classic, Bad Behavior made critical waves when it was first published, heralding Gaitskill's arrival on the literary scene and her establishment as a sharp, erotically charged, and audaciously funny writer of contemporary literature.

Mary and O'Neil frequently marveled at how, of all the lives they might have led, they had somehow found this one together. When they met at the Philadelphia high school where they'd come to teach, each had suffered a profound loss that had not healed. How likely was it that they could learn to...

Guido has lost it all. At rock bottom and wandering the shore, Guido spies a misshapen creature floating toward him in the water, riding on a huge chest. The creature offers Guido a path of revenge – switching bodies for three days in exchange for the untold riches in the chest. Guido unfortunately fails to see a potential downside. Through skillful handling of the gothic motif of the doppelgänger, Shelley’s tale explores concepts that would eventually culminate into her masterpiece – Frankenstein.

 It starts out in a library and then is moved, with some assistance, to a “used” book store. All the while, having adventures trying to find a “home!” It dislikes “dog earing,” and being placed by scary books and books that have chaos and mayhem in them. It loves being read and having readers write in its’ margins. It has adventures and fun and meeting new books. And, hopefully it will find friends along the way in its quest to find a home. 

The characters in Mary Miller's debut short story collection, Big World, are at once autonomous and lonesome, possessing both a longing to connect with those around them and a cynicism. Her writing is unapologetically honest and efficient, and the gut-wrenching directness of her prose is reminiscent of Mary Gaitskill and Courtney Eldridge - if Gaitskill's and Eldridge's stories were set in the South and reeked of spilled beer and cigarette smoke.

Like "Wuthering Heights", the center of this story is a dramatic love triangle, the setting is a huge English manor. Olivia Marchmont has always "done her duty." However, when she falls in love and her beloved is in love with another woman, the malice of her heart is released in full view. In this dramatic tale, the vivid description of the country is also important- as if nature has a part in it. Unlike many novels, nobody gets what they deserve at the end. Or do they? Read and decide for yourself.

This newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman’s rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life. Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952...

Born in 1797, her mother died when she was only 11 days old. Mary was then raised by her father, who remarried when she was four, with a liberal but informal upbringing. At 17 she began a relationship with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which was the bedrock of her life, although society viewed the unmarrieds somewhat differently. It was in this relationship that she nurtured and edited Shelley’s verse and wrote, at 21, her signature work, Frankenstein, for which she is so well known.

“A culturally layered and gripping collection of stories that are also a testament to their resilience.”—Vanessa Walters, the author of The Lagos Wife ?In this stunning collection, nine Nigerian women discover what it means to confront traditional expectations that have held them hostage...

In "College Town 1980", young people adrift in Ann Arbor, Michigan, debate the meaning of personal strength at the start of the Reagan era; in the urban fairy tale "Mirror Ball", a young man steals a girl's soul during a one-night stand; and in "The Little Boy", a woman haunted by the death of her husband is finally able to grieve through a mysterious encounter with a needy child.

Mary Shelley is of course known because of her short novel Frankenstein. Still, she was always writing and these tales and mysteries written on her extended travels show how interested she was in the strangeness of people. Perhaps she wanted to make her mark in a tribute to her famous mother...

Brought to you by Penguin. Mary Lavin is the great unsung voice of Irish fiction. Here are her very best, most electric stories: illuminating, moving, arrows in flight. SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY COLM TÓIBÍN Mary Lavin’s stories feature ordinary people in the tight confines of ordinary life...

Mark is the accused rapist. Miss P. is the victim, his former teacher. Moira M. is an apathetic juror. As the trial unfolds in this intense short story, three personal histories emerge, along with three alarmingly different points of view: Obsessed and angry. Menaced and disillusioned. Disaffected and searching through an unexamined life for moral conviction.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of William and Mary by Roald Dahl, read by Juliet Stevenson and Adrian Scarborough. In William and Mary, Roald Dahl tells a sinister story about the darker side of human nature. Here, a wronged woman takes revenge on her dead husband . . . William and Mary...

Always Happy Hour weaves tales of young women who are deeply flawed, intensely real, and who struggle to get out of their own way. These women love to drink and have sex; they make bad decisions with men who love them too much or too little; they haunt gas stations, public pools, and dive bars, seeking understanding in the most unlikely of places; and, although each shoulders the weight of different baggage, they all suspect they deserve better.

There are so many kinds of love: romantic, filial, spiritual … The following stories by Mary Roberts Rinehart present all sorts of love: “Twenty-two” “Jane” “In the Pavilion” “God’s Fool” “The Miracle” “Are We Downhearted? No!” “The Game” Many of the stories take...

This collection follows on from Australian Christmas Yarns Volume I and consists of 10 stories by notable Australian author Mary Grant Bruce (1878-1958). These stories sketch challenges of landscape, relationship, loss and hope.

This century is crammed full of talents that showcase an enviable array of stories and genres. Across a hundred years the short story develops, becomes yet more emboldened, more accessible to a wider audience as these female authors challenge the literary bastions.