Thomas Otway was born on March 3rd, 1652 at Trotton near Midhurst. He was educated at Winchester College before entering Christ Church, Oxford, in 1669 as a commoner. For reasons unknown he left without a degree in 1672 but what is known is that Oxford create a passion in him for books. Travelling to London that same year he met and obtained work as an actor from the playwright Aphra Behn. He was cast as the old king in her play, Forc'd Marriage but on his debut he had such a severe attack of stage fright that his acting career finished there and then. His career now turned to writing plays and it was a career that was to prove of immense worth to the literary canon of England. In 1675, Otway's first play, Alcibiades was first performed. It is a tragedy, written in heroic verse, saved from absolute failure only by the actors. In his play Don Carlos, Prince of Spain (1676) Otway made the leap to the front rank of playwrights and quickly followed it in 1677 with two plays adapted from French sources; Titus and Berenice, and the Cheats of Scapin followed in 1678 Otway by an original comedy, Friendship in Fashion, which continued his run of very successful plays. In February 1680, the first of Otway's two tragic masterpieces, The Orphan, or The Unhappy Marriage, was performed followed by an indifferent comedy, The Soldier's Fortune (1681), and 1682 perhaps his best work, Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd. The play won instant success. However, in the last few years of his life poverty ensnared Otway. The success of his earlier plays had finished with Venice Preserv'd and the downward slope was both precipitous and destructive. Thomas Otway, aged 33, died in the most awful poverty on April 14th, 1685 and was buried two days later on April 16th, in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes.

The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. 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 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[13]) 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. Many of these stories are also available as an audiobook from our sister company Word Of Mouth. Many samples are at our youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/PortablePoetry?feature=mhee The full volume can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.

The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. 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 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[13]) 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. Many of these stories are also available as an audiobook from our sister company Word Of Mouth. Many samples are at our youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/PortablePoetry?feature=mhee The full volume can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.

James Elroy Flecker was born on November 5th 1884 in London. He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, where his father was headmaster, and Uppingham School then on to Trinity College, Oxford, and Caius College, Cambridge. At Oxford he was much influenced by the vestiges of the Aesthetic movement there. In 1910 he was in the consular service, in the Eastern Mediterranean. On a ship to Athens he met Helle Skiadaressi and married her in 1911. Perhaps his best known work is "e;To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence"e;. Here we publish his five act play Hassan The Story Of Hassan Of Bagdad And How He Came To Make The Golden Journey To Samarkand. Tragically James was to die at age 30 on January 3rd 1915, in Davos, Switzerland of tuberculosis. An immense loss to English Poetry - he had already been measured against the work of Keats.

John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, England, on August 14th 1867 to a wealthy and well established family. His schooling was at Harrow and New College, Oxford before training as a barrister and being called to the bar in 1890. However, Law was not attractive to him and he travelled abroad becoming great friends with the novelist Joseph Conrad, then a first mate on a sailing ship. In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. The affair was kept a secret for 10 years till she at last divorced and they married on 23rd September 1905. Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled "e;The Four Winds"e;. For the next 7 years he published these and all works under his pen name John Sinjohn. It was only upon the death of his father and the publication of "e;The Island Pharisees"e; in 1904 that he published as John Galsworthy. His first play, The Silver Box in 1906 was a success and was followed by "e;The Man of Property"e; later that same year and was the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Whilst today he is far more well know as a Nobel Prize winning novelist then he was considered a playwright dealing with social issues and the class system. Here we publish Villa Rubein, a very fine story that captures Galsworthy's unique narrative and take on life of the time. He is now far better known for his novels, particularly The Forsyte Saga, his trilogy about the eponymous family of the same name. These books, as with many of his other works, deal with social class, upper-middle class lives in particular. Although always sympathetic to his characters, he reveals their insular, snobbish, and somewhat greedy attitudes and suffocating moral codes. He is now viewed as one of the first from the Edwardian era to challenge some of the ideals of society depicted in the literature of Victorian England. In his writings he campaigns for a variety of causes, including prison reform, women's rights, animal welfare, and the opposition of censorship as well as a recurring theme of an unhappy marriage from the women's side. During World War I he worked in a hospital in France as an orderly after being passed over for military service. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend. John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

Robert Browning is one of the most significant Victorian Poets and, of course, English Poetry.Much of his reputation is based upon his mastery of the dramatic monologue although his talents encompassed verse plays and even a well-regarded essay on Shelley during a long and prolific career. He was born on May 7th, 1812 in Walmouth, London. Much of his education was home based and Browning was an eclectic and studious student, learning several languages and much else across a myriad of subjects, interests and passions. Browning's early career began promisingly. The fragment from his intended long poem Pauline brought him to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was followed by Paracelsus, which was praised by both William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. In 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as willfully obscure, brought his career almost to a standstill. Despite these artistic and professional difficulties his personal life was about to become immensely fulfilling. He began a relationship with, and then married, the older and better known Elizabeth Barrett. This new foundation served to energise his writings, his life and his career. During their time in Italy they both wrote much of their best work. With her untimely death in 1861 he returned to London and thereafter began several further major projects. The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-69) were published and well received; his reputation as a venerated English poet now assured. Robert Browning died in Venice on December 12th, 1889.

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The third of three digital-only short story collections from Claire Needell, teacher and frequent contributor to the New York Times, about coming of age in contemporary America. These original stories are refreshingly honest, poignant, and humorous.This outstanding third digital-only collection of short stories from Claire Needell includes the memorable stories "Just Tom Kelly," "The Theory of Reward," "Gone for Good," and "Sugarbabies." Each tells a unique and candid story of teenagers looking for love—from others, and from themselves.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

The first of three digital-only short story collections from teacher and frequent contributor to the New York Times Claire Needell, about coming of age in contemporary America. These refreshing stories are written with humor, honesty, and without judgment.This outstanding first digital-only collection includes the memorable stories "Nothing Real," "Change Your Life," "The Bubblemen," and "My Name is Adam." Each story is told from a unique perspective and tells of teenagers looking for love—from others, and from themselves.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

From Walter Dean Myers, the New York Times bestselling author of Monster, comes this 20-page one-act play. Tags is a look at life and death in New York City, complete with a shocking end.Four New York City teens are shot down in the prime of life. They move through limbo, re-creating their distinctive tags in a Harlem walk-up so that they can "live" forever. But what's the pointHow can you think of living forever if you're already dead?Walter Dean Myers was the New York Times bestselling author of Monster, the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award; a former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature; and an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree. Myers received every single major award in the field of children's literature. He was the author of two Newbery Honor Books and six Coretta Scott King Awardees. He was the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, a three-time National Book Award Finalist, as well as the first-ever recipient of the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

Sweet Evil author Wendy Higgins captivates with this fresh romance filled with alluring chemistry and coming-of-age tension. This 96-page novella of unrequited love between sophomore Ryan "The Kid" McPhearson, who makes the varsity baseball team and finds himself immersed in the life of upperclassmen, and the untouchable senior Brooke Bennet is rife with emotion. Maybe to the outside world a two-year age difference doesn't matter, but this is high school. Everything matters. Higgins's deeply felt characters are tested with romantic highs and lows that are powerful, poignant, and keep us wanting more. Includes a hot teaser chapter from Sweet Peril, the second book in Higgins's paranormal Sweet Evil series.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

Returning to the atmospheric and mysterious Jazz Age world of Born of Illusion, Teri Brown's Born of Corruption is a 64-page companion digital novella about what happens when New York City's most notorious socialites, mobsters, and bootleggers get together for a larger-than-life scavenger hunt . . . and someone gets killed.Cynthia Gaylord, a vivacious blonde flapper and the niece of one of the most infamous mob bosses in New York City, loves scavenger hunts, and the one she's putting together for her best friend Anna's going-away party is going to be the swankiest one ever. But then, Anna Van Housen is no ordinary friend. She is reputed to be Harry Houdini's illegitimate daughter and a magician of the first order—and she possesses psychic powers.Before Anna leaves for a European tour with her vaudeville company, Cynthia throws open the doors of her Gramercy Park mansion for a giant bash, but when one of the guests turns up dead, Cynthia and Anna must join forces to discover the truth. Who is the mysterious dead manAnd which of Cynthia's guests could have killed himCynthia's relatives in the mobOr someone related to the Society for Psychical Research, a shadowy group with a dangerous historyCynthia and Anna have to find out who done it before the coppers are called in . . . something both Cynthia and Anna are eager to avoid.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

Can one down-to-earth girl plus a very famous boy and a whole lot of paparazzi ever add up to a perfect Hollywood ending?Seventeen-year-old Annie Shelton isn't sure why her mom thinks moving to Hollywood will allow them to escape the drama of their small-time life in Georgia, but she's along for the ride. When Annie's mom snags a gig as makeup artist to a teen movie idol and finagles a spot for Annie to accompany her on his European promotional tour, Annie's pretty sure she'll be fangirling over architectural sights rather than teen heartthrob Graham Cabot.But then of course she actually meets him. As Graham and Annie fall for each other in the most romantic cities in the world, Annie realizes that this turn of events may not be quite as glamorous as she thought. Instead of red carpets and celebrity couple names, they are navigating a minefield of keeping secrets from Graham's fans, overprotective assistant, stage "momager," and beefy bodyguard. And when the paparazzi make an appearance, Annie has to decide whether their love is worth the harsh glare of the flashbulb.Author Jen Malone draws on her real-life experiences as a movie studio publicist to bring you an insider peek at love, Hollywood-style.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a true classic of American literature, and now it is strikingly repackaged for a modern teen audience! This must-have edition of the beloved, timeless classic also features previews of No Place Like Oz and Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige—edgy, reimagined sequels to L. Frank Baum's original story that are perfect for fans of Cinder by Marissa Meyer, Beastly by Alex Flinn, and Wicked by Gregory Maguire.Dorothy Gale found life as dull as the gray prairies that surrounded her Kansas home—until a cyclone transported her to a strange fairy-tale land known as Oz. There, Dorothy discovers a wondrous place filled with Munchkins, flying monkeys, witches, and magic. The only way for her and her dog, Toto, to return home to dear Uncle Henry and Aunt Em is to travel along the road of yellow brick to the Emerald City, where the all-powerful Wizard of Oz may be able to help her. Along the way, Dorothy befriends the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, who also need the Wizard's help. But while Dorothy desperately tries to find her way back home, the Wicked Witch of the West will do whatever it takes to stop her.

In this 50-page digital original novella, Suzanne Young extends the dazzling world of A Need So Beautiful and A Want So Wicked.Eighteen-year-old Claire Becks leads a charmed life surrounded by her loving family, great friends, and sexy boyfriend, Ezra. Claire is known for her great advice—and for how easily she puts others at ease. And although she feels occasional bouts of sadness she can't quite place, she is otherwise happy.Then one day a mysterious stranger walks into her family's bakery. Claire immediately senses something about Harlin—something tortured and dark. Even after he leaves, she can't stop thinking about him, inexplicably feeling like there is unfinished business between them.When Lucy, the new girl in town, starts to draw Claire into her world of darkness, Harlin realizes who Claire really is. But Claire will have to realize it too if she hopes to escape the fate of the Shadows.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

A digital-only prequel novella from Romily Bernard, author of the Find Me trilogy.Griff wasn't always the knight in shining armor Wick Tate thinks he is. He had a whole life before he met her, and even though it's grittier than Wick could have imagined, it also made him into the guy she loves.This prequel novella grants readers access to Griff's story from his point-of-view—and it includes some scenes from Find Me, which Jay Asher called "a thriller that keeps picking up speed" and Sophie Jordan hailed as "fast-paced and full of twists," and is told from Griff's alternate perspective!Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

From a breakthrough voice in YA fiction comes a captivating digital-original 50-page short story starring a supporting character from the novel You Look Different in Real Life.The premise was simple: Five kids living their real lives, with a new movie about them every five years. But that was before Keira's mother walked out and the cameras captured every heartbreaking detail for the world to see. Now Keira doesn't even know what "real life" means—she only knows how to pretend to be herself.Then she meets Garrett on a bus to New York City. At first, Keira creates a fictional identity and enjoys the freedom of being someone totally different. But as their brief connection turns into something more, Keira starts to see what life could be like if she just stopped pretending and accepted the person she really is.Jennifer Castle's pitch-perfect teen voices and sharp insights—together with a teaser to You Look Different in Real Life—make this story a must-read, especially for fans of Sarah Dessen.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

The second of three digital-only short story collections from teacher and writer for The New Yorker Claire Needell, about coming of age in contemporary America. These original stories are refreshingly honest, poignant, and humorous.This outstanding second digital-only collection of short stories from Claire Needell includes the memorable stories "Frank and Me," "Nothing Personal," "The Switch," and "Mom and Ginger Pete, A Love Story." Each story tells a unique and candid story of teenagers looking for love—from others, and from themselves.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

The heroine of Where I Belong is back in The Art of Goodbye, a romantic digital original novella about first loves and second chances.It's Corrinne Corcoran's last night in town before heading off to college, and she's determined it'll be the most epic night ever. She's planned every detail of each hour of the night, from what dresses she'll wear, to what parties she'll hit, to which of her best friends will be with her. But Corrinne's perfect plan for her last night in New York goes awry when she runs into a ghost from her past, and the boy she's never been able to forget—her ex-boyfriend, Bubby, from Broken Spoke. And Corrinne starts to wonder if her expertly planned goodbye to New York City was as perfect as it seemed. . . . Set over the twelve-hour period before Corrinne sets off for college, The Art of Goodbye will make you believe that true love can find you when you're least expecting it . . . again.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

Rising Sun is a stand-alone novella, a prequel to David Macinnis Gill's acclaimed Black Hole Sun, of which Suzanne Collins said, "Black Hole Sun rockets readers to new frontiers . . . action-packed."Jacob Stringfellow, aka Durango, once had a promising career in the elite armed forces. That was before. Before his father betrayed him and his unit. Before he almost died and had an artificial intelligence flash-cloned to his brain. Now Durango and Mimi (the AI) are figuring out how to get along and figuring out how to stay in the game. Set on a violent and unforgettable dystopian Mars, this is a must read for fans of the author's Black Hole Sun trilogy and for anyone who loves intense, action-packed science fiction.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.