Showing results by narrator "Peter Coates" in Literature & Fiction

The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James is an omnibus collection of ghost stories. Many of these stories are time-tested classics. Montague Rhodes James is best remembered for his ghost stories, which some consider among the best in the genre. He redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, his protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests.

What is art? A mere imitation of life or something far greater—an act of creation that reveals the soul of the universe? Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher-poet of American transcendentalism, elevates art beyond the canvas, beyond words, beyond form itself. In this essay, he explores the divine spark within creativity, arguing that true art is not bound by technique or tradition but flows from the spirit of the artist, a force both mysterious and essential.

Emerson's Nature is not just an essay—it's a rebellion against confinement, an argument against secondhand wisdom. He strips away artifice, forcing us to confront the raw, untamed presence of the world. To walk through the woods, he suggests, is to be undressed of civilization, to shed the weight of customs, history, and ego. Nature demands no commentary, no theory—it simply is. This is not the sentimental nature of poets, nor the docile landscape of painters. Emerson's nature is unsettling, absolute.

In Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, we are not talking about revolutionary personalities, a secret struggle for some ideas Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a man who is "too conscious." The man, whose name we never learn is so aware of his own thoughts and feelings as to cause him to be indecisive and overly self-critical. Add in his belief that societal expectations are shaping his actions. Notes From Underground is one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's most well renowned novels. It is thought to be one of the first existentialist Russian works.

With his sense of humor and ability to observe, Nikolai Gogol presents the world with stories of little people: the weak and fragile people who try to hold on to life in the gloomy cities of Russia. The Mantle, which is listed among his masterpieces, describes how Russian bureaucracy turns everyone into a ghost of each other. It tells the tragicomic story of a poor low-ranking official named Akakiy Akakiyevich Bashmachkin, a faint character living on the margins of society who spends all his time diligently copying documents.

Anthology of Christmas Stories is a unique collection of Christmas tales, reflections, and poems from beloved authors across the centuries and makes the perfect gift for the reader in your life. This beautiful treasury will take you back to firesides, simple gifts, and warm family moments of Christmases past as you cherish the timeless truths and joys of the season.

The Problem of Cell 13 is a short story by Jacques Futrelle. It was first published in 1905 and later collected in The Thinking Machine (1907), which was featured in crime writer H. R. F. Keating's list of the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. Like Futrelle's other short stories, The Problem of Cell 13 features Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen as the main character, although most of the story is seen through the perspective of a prison warden.

Konstantin Paustovsky was a Russian writer nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 1965, 1966,1967,1968. Paustovsky began writing while still in Gymnasium. His first works were imitative poetry but he restricted his writing to prose after Ivan Bunin wrote in a letter to him: "I think that your sphere, your real poetry, is prose. It is here, if you are determined enough, that I am sure you can achieve something significant."

There are stories that strike like a bullet—swift, precise, and inescapable. Mateo Falcone is one of them. In the sun-scorched Corsican wilderness, where honor is measured in blood and a man's word is as unyielding as the mountains, a moment of hesitation can seal one's fate. A fugitive seeking refuge, a child faced with an impossible choice, a father whose sense of justice knows no mercy—Mérimée paints a world where tradition rules with an iron grip, and betrayal, no matter how small, does not go unanswered.

The ancient Greeks revered Homer and Hesiod and often cited their names together in theological and theological works. While the two could have been contemporaries, some estimate that Hesiod lived up to 100 years after Homer. Sappho was an ancient Greek poetess and musician. She pioneered song lyrics and the ancient Greeks included her in the canon of nine lyric poets. Plato even numbered her among the Parnassian goddesses, referring to her as the tenth muse.

In a world that has moved on, two men sit in the shadows of the past. One, frail and forgetful, speaks of things best left unsaid. The other, powerful yet unknowingly adrift, listens—and feels something crack beneath his carefully preserved sense of control. The war took their sons, but time has taken something else, something harder to name. In the quiet of an office where authority once meant everything, grief lingers like dust on old furniture. A casual visit, a few words spoken in passing, and suddenly, the weight of loss is too heavy to ignore.