Ghost Stories features ten ghostly tales of the Gilded Age from one of America’s finest writers — Edith Wharton (1862-1937), author of The Age of Innocence, winner of the 1920 Pulitzer Prize. “Wharton’s graceful sentences create dramatic, populous tableaux and peel back layer after layer of artifice and pretense, of what we say and how […]
Author Archives: sugarskullpress
September
21
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
posted by sugarskullpress
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such […]
September
21
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
posted by sugarskullpress
“…Stevenson’s short novel, written in 1885, is one of the ancestors of the modern mystery story…not only a good ‘bogey story,’ as Stevenson exclaimed when awakening from a dream in which he had visualized it…It is also, and more importantly, a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction, and therefore belongs […]
September
18
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
posted by sugarskullpress
“I busied myself to think of a story…one which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.” MARY SHELLEY (introduction to the 1831 edition) “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a […]
September
15
Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories by P.G. Wodehouse
posted by sugarskullpress
The title story, “Death at the Excelsior,” introduces readers to British private detective Elliot Oaks and his more experienced boss Paul Snyder in P.G. Wodehouse’s only attempt at a detective story, which he pulls off with his signature comic twists and turns. The collection also offers a selection of other classic Wodehouse tales, including those […]
September
14
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
posted by sugarskullpress
“…one of the three best mystery stories of all time.” ALEXANDER WOLCOTT “…an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks.” RAYMOND CHANDLER ”This droll whodunit from the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh sparkles with witty dialogue, deft plotting, and an amusing cast. In […]
September
11
WINDY CITY SINNERS, a magic realism crime novel by Melanie Villines
posted by sugarskullpress
Part crime caper à la Donald Westlake, part magic realism tale in the spirit of Gabriel García Márquez, part John Kennedy Toolesque hijinks and high comedy, Windy City Sinners offers mystery and mayhem with fun and froth mixed in for good measure. The story takes place on the Far Northwest Side of Chicago, right on the edge […]
September
11
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
posted by sugarskullpress
“Wilde is one of the happy few who do not need the approval of the critic, nor even, sometimes, the approval of the reader for the pleasure he gives us is constant and irresistible.” JORGE LUIS BORGES “[Wilde] was a great artist…he wrote to please his own wild intellect.” G.K. CHESTERTON “Wilde was the greatest […]
September
11
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
posted by sugarskullpress
“It is hard to conceive of a more extreme character than Sherlock Holmes…with his monomaniacal focus on crime, fits of depression, cocaine injections, clouds of tobacco smoke, melancholic violin-playing, and bursts of furious energy once the game is afoot. Holmes is a brilliant creation, but he is excessive in every way. And Holmes’ cases are […]
September
11
Father Brown Mysteries (Volume 1): The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
posted by sugarskullpress
Mystery stories set in pre-WWI London, featuring Father Brown, a Roman Catholic priest with deep insight into criminals and crime — the Lt. Columbo of his day. “[Father Brown] is one of the greatest of all great detective figures…His field of knowledge is human nature, and his skills are observation, reason, and common sense.” KINGSLEY […]
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