Oxford Bookworms Library 3: As the Inspector Said and Other Stories John Escott Oxford University Press

Put on a play in the Middle Ages, find out what happens to Floppy in Ancient Egypt and join Nadim and Anneena as they help invent a flying machine! • This collection contains four Read with Oxford Stage 5 stories that are ideal for children who are beginning to read independently. There are tips for parents and fun activities throughout the book for you and your child to enjoy together • Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy the dog are the well-loved characters from Oxford Reading Tree, used in schools around the world. With exciting stories, humorous illustrations, tips for parents and after-reading activities, this series is the perfect companion from your child’s very first steps in phonics all the way to reading independence • Featuring much-loved characters, great authors, engaging storylines and fun activities, Read with Oxford offers an exciting range of carefully-levelled reading books to build your child’s reading confidence

Howard Lovecraft (1890—1937) was an American writer who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Despite the fact that he was virtually unknown before he died, today he is known as the most influential author in his genre. "The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories" is a collection of wonderful short stories such as "The Rats in the Walls", "The Strange High House in the Mist" and others. These stories, full of mystery and fantastic creatures, have captured the minds of readers all over the world

Таинственный город Каркоза, полный древних проклятий и тёмной магии. Ужасная пьеса «Король в жёлтом», сводящая своих читателей с ума. Полубог из другого измерения, жаждущий захватить мир • Приводящие в ужас и наполненные потусторонними кошмарами рассказы Роберта Чамберса оказали большое влияние на становление жанра хоррор. Они вдохновили поколения писателей, среди которых Роберт Ирвин Говард, Карл Эдвард Вагнер и Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт, а также Ник Пиццолатто – создатель сериала «Настоящий детектив» • В сборнике «The Yellow Sign and Other Stories» ценители жанра хоррор найдут рассказы «Восстановитель репутаций», «Маска», «Во дворе дракона», «Создатель Лун», «The Harbour-Master» и др • Книга на английском языке • A mysterious city called Carcosa filled with ancient curses and dark magics

A young Harvard graduate with bright prospects, Bill Frothington is invited on board a steamer hosting a high-school dance, where he meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Mae. As the match is not considered socially advantageous enough, Bill moves on, marries and has a career, but he remains painfully nostalgic for that episode on the river • A poignant tale which touches on the themes of yearning and lost youth that are central to many of Fitzgerald’s novels and stories, ‘The Love Boat’ is here presented with other lesser-known pieces which he wrote in the 1920s and explore the many facets of his creative talents • Contains: ‘The Smilers’, ‘Myra Meets His Family’, ‘Two for a Cent’, ‘Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar’, ‘Diamond Dick and the First Law of Woman’, ‘The Third Casket’, ‘The Unspeakable Egg’, ‘John Jackson’s Arcady’, ‘The Pusher-in-the-Face’, ‘One of My Oldest Friends’, ‘Not in the Guidebook’, ‘Presumption’, ‘The Adolescent Marriage’, ‘Your Way and Mine’ and ‘The Love Boat’

When the Americans Mr and Mrs Otis and their four children move into Canterville Chase, its previous occupant Lord Canterville warns them that the ghost of his ancestor still haunts the house. Their disbelief is soon shattered by the nightly sound of rattling chains in the hallways and the appearance of mysterious bloodstains in the living room. However, the ghost struggles to intimidate his new victims, as they counter his ghoulish behaviour with typically transatlantic pragmatism, offering lubricator for his chains and cleaning up the stains with detergent. As the spirit is deserted by his capacity to scare, Virginia, the Otises’ daughter, gets to know him and learns the tragic tale behind his sad fate • Sparkling with his trademark wit, this classic tale is one of Oscar Wilde’s finest stories and is presented here with three other comic mystery stories, ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’, ‘The Sphinx without a Secret’ and ‘The Model Millionaire’, all of which were first published together in 1891

When the young and sensitive Auguste Saint-Clair notices an Etruscan vase on the mantelpiece of his beloved Mathilde, he becomes gradually consumed by jealousy at the thought that it could be the gift of another man, and the situation escalates dramatically as he demands proof from her that she loves only him • A classic piece of French short fiction, ‘The Etruscan Vase’ is here presented alongside three other stories: ‘The Vision of Charles XI’, a dark tale of premonition set in the Swedish royal palace, ‘Tamango’, an account of a slave-ship revolt, and ‘The Blue Room’, a supernatural farce and one of Merimee’s final works; as well as two non-fiction pieces: ‘A Hanging’, a description of a real-life public execution, and ‘H.B.’, a tribute to Stendhal

Sara, the American wife of a French aristocrat, has had two encounters with her compatriot Cedric Killian, one a youthful idyll in North Carolina and the other during the First World War, when he was a soldier about to go to battle. When, years later and after the death of her husband, Cedric contacts her out of the blue, Sara finds herself eager to see him again – against the wishes of her in-laws – and to find out the secret of this man she loves yet knows so little about • A poignant tale of thwarted love, ‘The Intimate Strangers’ explores many of Fitzgerald’s favourite themes, such as the constraints of society on romance and the American fascination for Old Europe. This volume also includes other lesser-known stories he wrote from the mid-1930s until the end of his life, revealing new facets to the author of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night

Fifteen exquisite tales from one of the world'd greatest writers of the short story • Innovative, startlingly perceptive and aglow with colour, these stories were written towards the end of Katherine Mansfield's tragically short life. Many are set in the author's native New Zealand, others in England and the French Riviera. All are revelations of the unspoken, half-understood emotions that make up everyday experience - from the blackly comic 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel', and the short, sharp sketch 'Miss Brill', in which a lonely woman's precarious sense of self is brutally destroyed, to the vivid impressionistic evocation of family life in 'At the Bay'. 'All that I write,' Mansfield said, 'all that I am - is on the borders of the sea. It is a kind of playing.'

W.W. Jacobs delighted in finding unlikely humour in everyday situations and observations, and these tales succeed in raising a laugh from the most mundane of scenarios. In 'The Grey Parrot', a sailor buys a parrot for his wife, whom he suspects isn't faithful in his absence, hoping that the bird will inadvertently repeat anything untoward it hears. Unfortunately for him, the parrot exceeds his expectations, and it's not only his wife who is left blushing • This volume contains a careful selection of the very best stories from Jacobs's 150-strong repertory, and includes well-known standalone pieces such as 'The Monkey's Paw', as well as accounts of raucous dockside dalliances and tightly woven tales of poacher Bob Petty's crimes against the unlikely cast of an Essex village

In Sweden, refugee children fall asleep for months and years at a time. In upstate New York, high school students develop contagious seizures. In the US Embassy in Cuba, employees complain of headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises in the night • These disparate cases are some of the most remarkable diagnostic mysteries of the twenty-first century, as both doctors and scientists have struggled to explain them within the boundaries of medical science and – more crucially – to treat them. What unites them is that they are all examples of a particular type of psychosomatic illness: medical disorders that are influenced as much by the idiosyncratic aspects of individual cultures as they are by human biology • Inspired by a poignant encounter with the sleeping refugee children of Sweden, Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan travels the world to visit other communities who have also been subject to outbreaks of so-called ‘mystery’ illnesses

This collection features several disturbing tales from one of horror's true masters. Including such terrifying tales as 'The Great God Pan', 'The Bowmen' and the uncanny atmosphere of 'The Black Seal', these stories are filled with eldritch relics, supernatural horrors and occult corruptions • At the heart of all these stories are the fascinating characters brought face to face with these primeval terrors. Whether eccentric academics or men filled with hubris, their encounters with the supernatural uncover the consequences of delving too deep into the forgotten mysteries of the world • Machen's evocative writing is sure to send a chill down every reader's spine