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Mystery And Imagination
''Mystery and Imagination'' is a British television anthology series of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 by the ITV network and produced by ABC and (later) Thames Television. Outline The series featured television plays based on the works of well-known authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, M. R. James, and Edgar Allan Poe. All bar one of the first two ABC series starred David Buck as Richard Beckett, originally a character from Sheridan Le Fanu's story "The Flying Dragon", as narrator. Beckett was made the central character of the series, taking the roles of various characters from some of the original stories. The first two series, although transmitted as two separate runs, were recorded in a single production block. The episode without Buck as the lead ("The Open Door") features Jack Hawkins. Unlike BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BAL ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Fiction
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. Prevalent elements of the genre include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, extraterrestrials, dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, cults, dark magic, satanism, the macabre, gore and torture. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Body Snatcher
"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). First published in ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' in December 1884, its characters were based on criminals in the employ of real-life surgeon Robert Knox (1791–1862) around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders (1828). Plot A group of friends share a few drinks, when an eminent doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, enters. One of the friends, Fettes, recognizes the name and angrily confronts the new arrival. Although his friends all find this behaviour suspicious, none of them can understand what might lie behind it. It turns out that Macfarlane and Fettes had attended medical school together, under anatomy professor Mr. K. Their duties included taking receipt of bodies for dissection, and paying the pair of shifty and suspicious men who supplied them. On one occasion, Fettes identifies a body as that of a woman he knew, and is convinced she has been murdered. But Macfarlane talks him ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is related by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy pale blue "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering the body in the bathtub and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's actions result in hearing a thumping sound, which the narrator interprets as the dead man's beating heart. The story was first published in James Russell Lowell's ''The Pioneer'' in January 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is often considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and is one of Poe's best known short stories. The specific motivation for murder (aside from the narrator's hatred of the old man's eye), the relationship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (novel), Rob Roy'', ''Waverley (novel), Waverley'', ''Old Mortality'', ''The Heart of Mid-Lothian'' and ''The Bride of Lammermoor'', and the narrative poems ''The Lady of the Lake (poem), The Lady of the Lake'' and ''Marmion (poem), Marmion''. He had a major impact on European and American literature. As an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff court, Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory (political faction), Tory establishment, active in the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, Highland Society, long a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osbert Sitwell
Sir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet CH CBE (6 December 1892 – 4 May 1969) was an English writer. His elder sister was Edith Sitwell and his younger brother was Sacheverell Sitwell. Like them, he devoted his life to art and literature. Early life Sitwell was born on 6 December 1892 at 3 Arlington Street, St James's, London. His parents were Sir George Reresby Sitwell, fourth baronet, genealogist and antiquarian, and Lady Ida Emily Augusta (''née'' Denison). He grew up in the family seat at Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire, and at family mansions in the region of Scarborough, and went to Ludgrove School, then Eton College from 1906 to 1909. For many years his entry in ''Who's Who'' contained the phrase "Educted during the holidays from Eton." In 1911 he joined the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry but, not cut out to be a cavalry officer, transferred to the Grenadier Guards at the Tower of London from where, in his off-duty time, he could frequent theatres and art galler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's." and that his short story collection '' Incredible Adventures'' (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century". Life and work Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (now part of south-east London, then part of north-west Kent). Between 1871 and 1880, he lived at Crayford Manor House, Crayford and he was educated at Wellington College. His father, Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, was a Post Office administrator; his mother, Harriet Dobbs, was the widow of the 6th Duke of Manchester. According to Peter Penzoldt, his father, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious id ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casting The Runes
"Casting the Runes" is a short story written by the English writer M.R. James. It was first published in 1911 as the fourth story in ''More Ghost Stories'', which was James' second collection of ghost story, ghost stories. Plot summary Mr. Edward Dunning is a researcher for the British Museum. At the beginning of the story he has recently reviewed ''The Truth of Alchemy'' by a Mr. Karswell, an alchemist and occultist. Afterwards he begins seeing the name John Harrington displayed wherever he goes. He learns that Harrington also reviewed Karswell's work and died in a freak accident not long after. Harrington's brother helps Dunning to discover that Karswell cursed both men by slipping them a piece of paper with some runes on it. They deduce that the curse, once cast, will cause the bearer to die in three months. They track down Karswell a day before the curse is set to kill Dunning and manage to return the runes to him. Karswell dies the next day, killed by a stone that falls from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vernon Lee
Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (14 October 1856 – 13 February 1935). She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel. Biography Violet Paget was born in France on 14 October 1856, at Château St Leonard, Boulogne, to British expatriate parents, Henry Ferguson Paget and Matilda Lee-Hamilton (née Abadam). Violet Paget was the half-sister of Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton (1845–1907) by her mother's first marriage, and from whose surname she adapted her own pseudonym. Although she primarily wrote for an English readership and made many visits to London, she spent the majority of her life on the continent, particularly in Italy. Her longest residence was just outside Florence in the Palmerino villa from 1889 until her death at San Gervasio, with a brief interruption during World War I. Her library ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmilla
''Carmilla'' is an 1872 Gothic fiction, Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' (1897) by 26 years. First published as a Serial (literature), serial in ''The Dark Blue'' (1871–72), the story is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Mircalla, Countess Karnstein (Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla). The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. The novella notably never acknowledges homosexuality as an antagonistic trait, leaving it subtle and morally ambiguous. The story is often Anthology, anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media. Publication ''Carmilla'', serialised in the literary magazine ''The Dark Blue'' in late 1871 and early 1872, was reprinted in Le Fanu's short-story collection ''In a Glass Darkly'' (1872). Comparing the work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlotte Riddell
Charlotte Eliza Lawson Riddell (nee Cowan; 30 September 1832 – 24 September 1906), known also as Mrs J. H. Riddell, was a popular and influential Irish-born writer in the Victorian period. She was the author of 56 books, novels and short stories, and also became part-owner and editor of ''St. James's Magazine'', a prominent London literary journal in the 1860s. Biography Born Charlotte Eliza Lawson Cowan in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Ireland, on 30 September 1832, Riddell was the youngest daughter of James Cowan of Carrickfergus, High Sheriff for the County of Antrim, and Ellen Kilshaw of Liverpool, England. In the winter of 1855, four years after her father's death, she and her mother moved to London. Charlotte was visited by death again the following year when her mother died. In 1857, she married Joseph Hadley Riddell, a civil engineer, originally from Staffordshire but resident in London. It is known that they moved to live in St John's Lodge between Harringay and W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Literae Humaniores#Greats, Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional Classics, classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Canterville Ghost
"The Canterville Ghost" is a humorous short story by Oscar Wilde. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in two parts in '' The Court and Society Review'', 23 February and 2 March 1887. The story is about an American family who moved to a castle haunted by the ghost of a dead English nobleman, who killed his wife and was then walled in and starved to death by his wife's brothers. It has been adapted for the stage and screen several times. Summary The American Minister to the Court of St James's, Hiram B. Otis and his family move into Canterville Chase, an English country house, despite warnings from Lord Canterville that the house is haunted. Mr. Otis says that he will take the furniture as well as the ghost at valuation. The Otis family includes Mr. and Mrs. Otis, their eldest son Washington, their daughter Virginia and the Otis twins. At first, none of the Otis family believes in ghosts but shortly after they move in, none of them can deny the presenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
