From a simple, brilliant premiseto create comics from the weirdest and funniest tweets aroundartist Mike Rosenthal (@VectorBelly) has crafted a hilariously surreal world that has attracted over a million followers to his blog Twitter: The Comic. Each carefully curated tweet delivers concentrated humor in the language of the Internet, reproduced in the comics with typos and all. As envisioned by Rosenthal, each comes to life through a bizarrely recognizable cast of bassoon-playing cops, sarcastic teens, bear MDs, clueless dads, potential insect overlords, and more. Featuring more than 120 of these comics, including dozens unique to this book, Twitter: The Comic (The Book) is a dementedly funny vision of our strange online age.

Ninjas are awesomestealthy, cunning experts of infiltration and close combat. But like us all, they must sometimes grapple with the small but significant problems of everyday life. For instance, ninjas have issues with squirrels. They also have trouble with chimneys, pigeons, blow darts, and mimes. They really like hiding, going undercover, and piatas, but have MAJOR issues with samurai, giant fighting robots, and unicorns. Through it all, they secretly long for just one thing. Author of the breakout hit Zombies Hate Stuff, Greg Stones turns his popular, playfully absurd illustration style to the badass but surprisingly issue-fraught world of ninjas, detailing their inner lives and mortal combat with a subversive sense of the absurd.

Susan Keating Glaspell was born on July 1st, 1876 in Davenport.Glaspell, a precocious child was an active student at Davenport High School where she took an advanced course of study. By age eighteen she was earning a regular salary at the local newspaper as a journalist, and by twenty she was the author of a weekly 'Society' column.At twenty-one Glaspell enrolled at Drake University. A philosophy major, she also excelled in debate competitions, and represented Drake at the state tournament in her senior year.The day after her graduation, Glaspell again worked as a reporter, still a rare position for a woman. She was assigned to cover the state legislature and murder cases.At twenty-four, after covering the conviction of a woman accused of murdering her abusive husband, Glaspell abruptly resigned and moved back to Davenport, and with it, a hoped for career writing fiction.Her stories were published by many periodicals, including Harper's and Munsey's.Moving to Chicago she wrote her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, in 1909. It was a best-seller.As was Glaspell's second novel, The Visioning, published in 1911 and her third, Fidelity in 1915. Each novel also received glowing reviews.With her husband Glaspell founded the Provincetown Playhouse devoted to plays that were more able to reflect contemporary American issues. Her first play, Trifles (1916), was based on the murder trial she covered as a young reporter in Des Moines. She wrote twelve groundbreaking plays over seven years for the company. By 1918 Glaspell was considered one of America's most significant new playwrights.However, the impact and critical success of Glaspell's theatre work did not unfortunately make financial sense. Therefore she continued to submit short stories in order to support her and her husband during their years with the theater.In 1931 she wrote the excellent play, Alison's House, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize.In 1936 Glaspell moved to Chicago as the Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. When that finished she returned to Cape Cod using the Mid-West experience in her last three novels which were increasingly focused on the region, on family life, and on theistic questions; The Morning is Near Us (1939), Norma Ashe (1942), and Judd Rankin's Daughter (1945).Susan Keating Glaspell died of viral pneumonia in Provincetown on July 28, 1948.

If ever a writer needed an introduction Arthur Conan Doyle would not be considered that man. After all, Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the foremost literary detective of any age. Add to this canon his stories of science fiction and his poems, his historical novels, his plays, his political campaigning, his efforts in establishing a Court of Appeal and there is little room for anything else. Except he was also an exceptional writer of short stories of the horrific and macabre. Something very different from what you might expect. Born in Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1876 - 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh following which he was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880 and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast in 1881. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than GBP10 (GBP700 today) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novel The Mystery of Cloomber. Although he continued to study and practice medicine his career was now firmly set as a writer. And thereafter great works continued to pour out of him.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24th 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family. His early years in Buffalo, New York showed him to be a boy of high intelligence and drive with a thirst for literature. In 1908, his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, and the family returned to Minnesota. Here Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy, in St. Paul, until 1911. At 13 he was published in the school newspaper, it was, of all things, a detective story. In 1911, aged 15, he was sent to the prestigious Newman School, in Hackensack, New Jersey.And, after graduating in 1913, he decided to continue at Princeton University. Here he firmly dedicated himself to writing. Unfortunately his writing pursuits came at the expense of his coursework. In 1917 he dropped out to join the U.S. Army. However this service to his country came with the very real fear that he might perish in the trenches of Western Europe with his literary dreams not yet begun. So he spent the weeks before reporting for duty at work on a novel entitled The Romantic Egotist. Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan, in Alabama. It was there that Fitzgerald met the love of his life; Zelda Sayre, the "e;golden girl,"e; of Montgomery youth society.The war ended before Fitzgerald could be deployed, and he moved to New York City hoping to start a career in advertising that would be lucrative enough to convince Zelda to marry him. Unable to convince her that his means were enough to support her she broke off the engagement.Fitzgerald returned to his parents in St. Paul, to revise The Romantic Egoist, now recast as This Side of Paradise. His revised novel was accepted by Scribner's and published in 1920 becoming an instant success. It launched Fitzgerald's career as a writer and provided a steady income suitable for Zelda's ambitions. The engagement resumed and they married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.Frances Scott "e;Scottie"e; Fitzgerald, their only child, was born on October 26, 1921. Inspired by the parties he had attended visiting Long Island's north shore Fitzgerald began planning the greatest of his novels, The Great Gatsby, in 1923, wanting to produce "e;something new-something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned."e; Published in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and but sold 20,000 in its first year. Today, it is one of a small circle vying for the title "e;Great American Novel"e;. Fitzgerald continued to supplement his income by writing short stories for magazines and to sell his stories and novels to Hollywood. He called this 'whoring'. In February 1932, Zelda was hospitalized with schizophrenia. Fitzgerald's heavy and excessive drinking had now developed into alcoholism and with recurring financial difficulties, the emotional toll of Zelda's mental illness, this meant several difficult years. In 1937, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood. His income improved but he found movies beneath his talents.He spent the second half of the 1930s in Hollywood, working on short stories, scripts for MGM, and his final novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon. In 1939, MGM ended the contract, and Fitzgerald became a writer for hire. Still an alcoholic, he now became estranged from Zelda and developed a relationship with Sheilah Graham, the Hollywood gossip columnist. In this last period of his life his alcoholism had left him physically wrecked. After suffering a heart attack, in Schwab's Drug Store, he was ordered to avoid strenuous exertion. On the night of December 20, 1940, Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham attended the premiere of This Thing Called Love. As they left Fitzgerald went dizzy; upset, he said to Graham, "e;They think I am drunk, don't they?"e; The following day, Graham saw him jump from his armchair, grab the mantelpiece, gasp, and fall to the floor. Francis Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21st, 1940.

James Elroy Flecker was born on 5th November 1884, in Lewisham, London.Flecker does not seem to have enjoyed academic study and achieved only a Third-Class Honours in Greats in 1906. This did not set him up for a job in either government service or the academic world.After some frustrating forays at school teaching he attempted to join the Levant Consular Service and entered Cambridge to study for two years. After a poor first year he pushed forward in the second and achieved First-Class honours. His reward was a posting to Constantinople at the British consulate.However, Flecker's poetry career was making better progress and he was beginning to garner praise for his poems including The Bridge of Fire. Unfortunately, he was also showing the first symptoms of contracting tuberculosis. Bouts of ill health were to now alternate with periods of physical well-being woven with mental euphoria and creativity.Before his early death he managed to complete several volumes of poetry, which he continually revised, together with some prose works and plays. It was a small canon of work but on his death on 3rd January 1915, of tuberculosis, in Davos, Switzerland he was described as "e;unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of Keats"e;.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. His early career was unremarkable. After failing to enter West Point he enlisted in the 7th Calvary but was discharged after heart problems were diagnosed. A series of short term jobs gave no indication as to a career path but finally, in 1911, married and with two young children, he turned his hand to writing. He aimed his works squarely at the very popular pulp serial magazines. His first effort 'Under The Moons Of Mars' ran in Munsey's Magazine in 1912 under the pseudonym Norman Bean. With its success he began writing full time. A continuing theme of his work was to develop series so that each character had ample opportunities to return in sequels. John Carter was in the Mars series and there was another on Venus and one on Pellucidar among others. But perhaps the best known is Tarzan. Indeed Burroughs wanted so much to capitalise upon the brand that he introduced a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. He purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "e;Tarzana."e; The surrounding communities outside the ranch voted in 1927 to adopt the name as their own. By 1932 Burroughs set up his own company to print his own books. Here we publish the first of his Tarzan books 'Tarzan of the Apes'. A cultural classic.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. His early career was unremarkable. After failing to enter West Point he enlisted in the 7th Calvary but was discharged after heart problems were diagnosed. A series of short term jobs gave no indication as to a career path but finally, in 1911, married and with two young children, he turned his hand to writing. He aimed his works squarely at the very popular pulp serial magazines. His first effort 'Under The Moons Of Mars' ran in Munsey's Magazine in 1912 under the pseudonym Norman Bean. With its success he began writing full time. A continuing theme of his work was to develop series so that each character had ample opportunities to return in sequels. John Carter was in the Mars series and there was another on Venus and one on Pellucidar among others. But perhaps the best known is Tarzan. Indeed Burroughs wanted so much to capitalise upon the brand that he introduced a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. He purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "e;Tarzana."e; The surrounding communities outside the ranch voted in 1927 to adopt the name as their own. By 1932 Burroughs set up his own company to print his own books. Here we publish 'The Cave Man' a tale that shows just what Burroughs can do when his talents and craft are unleashed.

The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy. Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of gina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens. His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight. His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights. His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.

John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar. Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year. Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden. The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death. With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670). This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event. John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. His early career was unremarkable. After failing to enter West Point he enlisted in the 7th Calvary but was discharged after heart problems were diagnosed. A series of short term jobs gave no indication as to a career path but finally, in 1911, married and with two young children, he turned his hand to writing. He aimed his works squarely at the very popular pulp serial magazines. His first effort 'Under The Moons Of Mars' ran in Munsey's Magazine in 1912 under the pseudonym Norman Bean. With its success he began writing full time. A continuing theme of his work was to develop series so that each character had ample opportunities to return in sequels. John Carter was in the Mars series and there was another on Venus and one on Pellucidar among others. But perhaps the best known is Tarzan. Indeed Burroughs wanted so much to capitalise upon the brand that he introduced a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. He purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "e;Tarzana."e; The surrounding communities outside the ranch voted in 1927 to adopt the name as their own. By 1932 Burroughs set up his own company to print his own books. Here we publish 'The Eternal Lover' in the hands of Edgar Rice Burroughs the title is just the beginning.....just the start of a journey......

The Dark Lady of the Sonnets is a one-act play by the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw which centers around the character of the "e;Dark Lady"e; described in William Shakespeare's sonnets. In the preface to the play, Shaw introduces his own audience to the different theories about the actual person to whom the sonnets were devoted, but also if Shakespeare is the actual writer of his works. Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth themselves are characters in Shaw's rather witty, comic play. Generally, the Dark Lady of the Sonnets is supposed to be an unconventionally-beautiful woman with whom young Shakespeare falls madly in love. When one day he introduces the Lady to one of his favorite friends, a handsome young man of a high social rank, they both betray him by going to bed together. The feeling of being doubly betrayed has greatly affected the English playwright and marked a considerable transformation in his writing career. By and large, Bernard Shaw's work, with its relatively long explanatory preface, touches the interesting mystery of Shakespeare's person and plays which has been much debated by numerous critics throughout the centuries.

Philip Massinger was baptized at St. Thomas's in Salisbury on November 24th, 1583.Massinger is described in his matriculation entry at St. Alban Hall, Oxford (1602), as the son of a gentleman. His father, who had also been educated there, was a member of parliament, and attached to the household of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Earl was later seen as a potential patron for Massinger.He left Oxford in 1606 without a degree. His father had died in 1603, and accounts suggest that Massinger was left with no financial support this, together with rumours that he had converted to Catholicism, meant the next stage of his career needed to provide an income.Massinger went to London to make his living as a dramatist, but he is only recorded as author some fifteen years later, when The Virgin Martyr (1621) is given as the work of Massinger and Thomas Dekker.During those early years as a playwright he wrote for the Elizabethan stage entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe. It was a difficult existence. Poverty was always close and there was constant pleading for advance payments on forthcoming works merely to survive.After Henslowe died in 1616 Massinger and John Fletcher began to write primarily for the King's Men and Massinger would write regularly for them until his death.The tone of the dedications in later plays suggests evidence of his continued poverty. In the preface of The Maid of Honour (1632) he wrote, addressing Sir Francis Foljambe and Sir Thomas Bland: "e;I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours."e;The prologue to The Guardian (1633) refers to two unsuccessful plays and two years of silence, when the author feared he had lost popular favour although, from the little evidence that survives, it also seems he had involved some of his plays with political characters which would have cast shadows upon England's alliances.Philip Massinger died suddenly at his house near the Globe Theatre on March 17th, 1640. He was buried the next day in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark, on March 18th, 1640. In the entry in the parish register he is described as a "e;stranger,"e; which, however, implies nothing more than that he belonged to another parish.

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, but more commonly known as just Byron was a leading English poet in the Romantic Movement along with Keats and Shelley. Byron was born on January 22nd, 1788. He was a great traveller across Europe, spending many years in Italy and much time in Greece. With his aristocratic indulgences, flamboyant style along with his debts, and a string of lovers he was the constant talk of society. In 1823 he joined the Greeks in their war of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, both helping to fund and advise on the war's conduct. It was an extraordinary adventure, even by his own standards. But, for us, it is his poetry for which he is mainly remembered even though it is difficult to see where he had time to write his works of immense beauty. But write them he did. He died on April 19th 1824 after having contracted a cold which, on the advice of his doctors, was treated with blood-letting. This cause complications and a violent fever set in. Byron died like his fellow romantics, tragically young and on some foreign field.

Thomas Middleton was born in London in April 1580 and baptised on 18th April. Middleton was aged only five when his father died. His mother remarried but this unfortunately fell apart into a fifteen year legal dispute regarding the inheritance due Thomas and his younger sister. By the time he left Oxford, at the turn of the Century, Middleton had and published Microcynicon: Six Snarling Satirese which was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and publicly burned. In the early years of the 17th century, Middleton wrote topical pamphlets. One - Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets was reprinted several times and the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. These early years writing plays continued to attract controversy. His writing partnership with Thomas Dekker brought him into conflict with Ben Jonson and George Chapman in the so-called War of the Theatres. His finest work with Dekker was undoubtedly The Roaring Girl, a biography of the notorious Mary Frith. In the 1610s, Middleton began another playwriting partnership, this time with the actor William Rowley, producing another slew of plays including Wit at Several Weapons and A Fair Quarrel. The ever adaptable Middleton seemed at ease working with others or by himself. His solo writing credits include the comic masterpiece, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1613. In 1620 he was officially appointed as chronologer of the City of London, a post he held until his death. The 1620s saw the production of his and Rowley's tragedy, and continual favourite, The Changeling, and of several other tragicomedies. However in 1624, he reached a peak of notoriety when his dramatic allegory A Game at Chess was staged by the King's Men. Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council silenced the play after only nine performances at the Globe theatre, having received a complaint from the Spanish ambassador. What happened next is a mystery. It is the last play recorded as having being written by Middleton. Thomas Middleton died at his home at Newington Butts in Southwark in the summer of 1627, and was buried on July 4th, in St Mary's churchyard which today survives as a public park in Elephant and Castle.

Anna Sewell's only published novel, Black Beauty, is an extraordinary classic that deals with animal life and focuses on the importance of good animal treatment. The idea of writing a book about animal rights has been inspired by Sewell's own physical disability which has made her dependent on horse-drawn transportation. The narrator in Black Beauty is himself a personified horse who tells his life story and describes the world through his own lenses. Sewell says that the objective of writing the novel is to sensitize people to the sufferings of "e;working animals"e; and she has actually succeeded in fostering legislation protecting horses and in influencing public attitudes towards animal pain. Black Beauty's life crucially changes when he is taken from a country farm to pull cabs in the city of London. The different ordeals that he has to go through often contain a moral lesson that teaches kindness and sympathy not only for the poor animals, but also between human beings themselves. Indeed, the novel does not miss to cover the hardships of London taxi drivers either. Generally, Sewell's seminal classic has had a great influence on other writers of animal stories and has opened up new windows of discovering animal life.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. His early career was unremarkable. After failing to enter West Point he enlisted in the 7th Calvary but was discharged after heart problems were diagnosed. A series of short term jobs gave no indication as to a career path but finally, in 1911, married and with two young children, he turned his hand to writing. He aimed his works squarely at the very popular pulp serial magazines. His first effort 'Under The Moons Of Mars' ran in Munsey's Magazine in 1912 under the pseudonym Norman Bean. With its success he began writing full time. A continuing theme of his work was to develop series so that each character had ample opportunities to return in sequels. John Carter was in the Mars series and there was another on Venus and one on Pellucidar among others. But perhaps the best known is Tarzan. Indeed Burroughs wanted so much to capitalise upon the brand that he introduced a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. He purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "e;Tarzana."e; The surrounding communities outside the ranch voted in 1927 to adopt the name as their own. By 1932 Burroughs set up his own company to print his own books. Here we publish 'The Mad King' somewhat different to what you think Burroughs would write but an engaging and crafted work that shows why Burroughs was able to weave his talents into so many stories.

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888 in a hotel bedroom in what is now Times Square, New York. Much of his childhood was spent in the comfort of books at boarding schools whilst his actor father was on the road and his Mother contended with her own demons. He spent only a year at University - Princeton - and various reasons have been given for his departure. However whatever his background and education denied or added to his development it is agreed amongst all that he was a playwright of the first rank and possibly America's greatest. His introduction of realism into American drama was instrumental in its development and paved a path for many talents thereafter. Of course his winning of both the Pulitzer Prize (4 times) and the Nobel Prize are indicative of his status. His more famous and later works do side with the disillusionment and personal tragedy of those on the fringes of society but continue to build upon ideas and structures he incorporated in his early one act plays. Eugene O'Neill suffered from various health problems, mainly depression and alcoholism. In the last decade he also faced a Parkinson's like tremor in his hands which made writing increasingly difficult. But out of such difficulties came plays of the calibre of The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Eugene O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "e;I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."e;

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

If ever a writer needed an introduction Arthur Conan Doyle would not be considered that man. After all, Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the foremost literary detective of any age. Add to this canon his stories of science fiction and his poems, his historical novels, his plays, his political campaigning, his efforts in establishing a Court of Appeal and there is little room for anything else. Except he was also an exceptional writer of short stories of the horrific and macabre. Something very different from what you might expect. Born in Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1876 - 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh following which he was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880 and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast in 1881. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than GBP10 (GBP700 today) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novel The Mystery of Cloomber. Although he continued to study and practice medicine his career was now firmly set as a writer. And thereafter great works continued to pour out of him.