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In this collection of short stories some of our most popular and well-known authors are grouped together with an unfortunate tag: dead at 44. These authors are not run-of-the-mill or ten a penny; they are literary leviathans who left enduring works of literature and sadly may have left us many more had they lived. We will never know.

Louisa May Alcott was born on 29th November 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Well-loved for her classic ‘Little Women’, she was a superb writer in difficult times for any woman, a strong advocate of women’s issues, the anti-slavery movement, temperance and social reform. Her work often reflects on the rich experiences in her life and these poignant short stories are a fine testament to this. One of Alcott’s most startling stories is the ‘The Brothers’, a tale of two brothers during the Civil War and the after-effects.

Zona Gale was born on 26th August 1874, in Portage, Wisconsin. Her first novel ‘Romance Island’ was published in 1906 and she also began the popular ‘Friendship Village’ series of stories. In 1920 came ‘Miss Lulu Bett’, which depicts life in the Midwest. Adapted into a play it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921. It was a stellar achievement.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on 24th June 1842 at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio. His parents were poor but they introduced him to literature at an early age, instilling in him a deep appreciation of books, the written word and the elegance of language. In 1891 Bierce wrote and published the collection of 26 short stories which included ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’. Success and further works including poetry followed.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on 24th June 1842 at Horse Cave Creek in Meigs County, Ohio. His parents were poor but they introduced him to literature at an early age, instilling in him a deep appreciation of books, the written word and the elegance of language. In 1891 Bierce wrote and published the collection of 26 short stories which included ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’. Success and further works including poetry followed.

Susan Keating Glaspell was born on July 1st, 1876 in Davenport, Iowa. Glaspell, a precocious child, was an active student at Davenport High School. By 18 she was earning a salary at the local newspaper as a journalist, and by 20 she was the author of a weekly 'Society' column. With her husband Glaspell founded the Provincetown Playhouse for plays that reflected contemporary issues. Her first play, ‘Trifles’ (1916), was based on the murder trial she covered as a young reporter and later adapted as the short story ‘A Jury of Her Peers’. S

Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson was born on 22nd September 1847 in Barnes, London. In 1876 she married Wilfred Meynell, the newspaper publisher and editor, and together they set up and published a number of magazines as well as publishing the initial works of several poets including Francis Thompson. As the new century dawned, she along with many other artists began to question the colonial needs of Empire with its segregation and oppression. In particular she sought and gained a role in the Women’s Suffrage movement as it attempted to obtain greater equality for women.

"My darling girls. You were once so happy in this house. Now I’m gone, all I ask is that you spend one last summer here together on Dune Island. And please forgive me, your Nana, for the secret I’m about to tell you..." Arriving at the honeysuckle-covered beach house inherited from her beloved grandmother, recently heartbroken Jill hopes to convince her two feuding sisters not to sell a place so full of happy childhood memories. But the envelope waiting on the driftwood table changes everything.

Summer 1941. War rages in Europe. The Germans march towards Ukraine. Halya, Liliya and Vika are no strangers to sorrow. They lost family during the Holodomor, loved ones in Stalin's purges, and war looms once more on the horizon. These daughters of Ukraine will face devastation and loss as they fight to survive and protect the ones they love.

Between then and now poets have written verse, both serious and humorous, in attempts to keep a poetic track both of feelings and as a tribute to our four-legged friends and their adventures.

High-flier Natalie Collins isn't the worrying type. Unlike her younger sister, Kit - who can't seem to settle on anything. But when Kit insists on joining Wisewood, a self-help retreat on a secluded Maine island, Natalie has concern. Why does it forbid contact with the outside world? Is it a cult? Then, after six months of silence, she receives a message: We know what you did. Would you like to come and tell your sister - or should we? Who is digging into the Collins' past? How did they discover Natalie's secret? She will have to go to Wisewood to find out.

Disney Theatrical Productions: Producing Broadway Musicals the Disney Way is the first work of scholarship to comprehensively examine the history and production practices of Disney Theatrical Productions (DTP), the theatrical producing arm of the studio branch of the Walt Disney Corporation. This book uncovers how DTP has forged a new model for producing large-scale musicals on Broadway by functioning as an independent theatrical producer under the umbrella of a large entertainment corporation. 

In this concise book, feminist thought is made accessible and relevant to both students and management practitioners. An empowering introduction to an often-overlooked key idea, this book illuminates how feminist thinking can liberate our understanding of work and management. 

In 1887, young Nellie Bly sets out for New York and a career in journalism, determined to make her way as a serious reporter, whatever that may take. But life in the city is tougher than she imagined. Down to her last dime and desperate to prove her worth, she comes up with a dangerous plan: to fake insanity and have herself committed to the asylum that looms on Blackwell's Island. There, she will work undercover to document—and expose—the wretched conditions faced by the patients.

In 2006, Julia Lerner is recruited by Russia's largest intelligence agency. By 2018, she's in Silicon Valley as COO of Tangerine, one of America's most famous technology companies. She funnels intelligence back to the motherland, but now Russia's asking for more, and Julia's getting nervous. Alice Lu is a first generation Chinese American whose parents are delighted she's working at Tangerine. One afternoon, while performing a server check, Alice discovers some unusual activity, and now she's burdened with two suspicions.

In the last years of his life, the writer Amos Oz talked regularly with Shira Hadad, who worked closely with him as the editor of his final novel, Judas. These candid, uninhibited dialogues show a side of Oz that few ever saw. What Makes an Apple? presents the most revealing of these conversations in English for the first time, painting an illuminating and disarmingly intimate portrait of a towering literary figure. 

Emily was in a restaurant, having lunch with her father – the next thing she remembers is waking up, naked, in a strange hotel room, next to a man she did not know. She suspected she had been drugged and raped. She later found out she had been filmed without her consent. What happened to her that night could have happened to anyone. What came next happens to far too many victims, as failures by the police, CPS and other parts of the system, led to Emily doubting she would ever find justice.

The Straight State is the most expansive study of the federal regulation of homosexuality yet written. Unearthing startling new evidence from the National Archives, Margot Canaday shows how the state systematically came to penalize homosexuality, giving rise to a regime of second-class citizenship that sexual minorities still live under today.

Workplaces have traditionally been viewed as “straight spaces” in which queer people passed. As a result, historians have directed limited attention to the experiences of queer people on the job. Queer Career rectifies this, offering an expansive historical look at sexual minorities in the modern American workforce. Arguing that queer workers were more visible than hidden and, against the backdrop of state aggression, vulnerable to employer exploitation, Margot Canaday positions employment and fear of job loss as central to gay life in postwar America.

Jerry Larkin discovers an age-old secret buried beneath the foundation of the house that he and his wife Jane, an avid reader of ghost stories, bought six months ago in the idyllic town of Old Orange in Southern California. Jane Larkin, whose MacArthur grant led to the creation of public gardens and a farmers market in the town's central park, works against time to save what she has built as a 100-year storm moves in off the coast.