Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright born in Dublin Ireland in 1854 and died in Paris, France in 1900 at the age of 46.

He wrote The Happy Prince in 1888.

What is wrong with reading a children’s story if you are an adult? They are simple and refreshing while being entertaining and often have a message that we, as adults, may have forgotten. Some of them are classics and there is a reason why generations of children grow up having read them. They are a part of our culture; an important part. And children’s stories take us back to when we were children. It’s good for the soul to make that visit back in time once in a while.

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde is one of those classics. It is about a swallow and a statue. It is about friendship and love.

I think that had Saki not had such cruel and unforgiving guardians as the 2 aunts who raised him, we would not have the gems that he wrote later on in life. Saki is the pen name of Hector Hugh Monroe born in Burma in 1871. While visiting England in 1872, his mother Mary was charged by a cow. She was so shocked that she miscarried and died days later. Because of this, his father shipped their 3 children back to England. He was only 2 years old when he was sent to live with his grandmother and two unmarried aunts on his father’s side.

He published The Rise of the Russian Empire in 1900; his only serious historical work. He is regarded as a master of the short story and was influenced by Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carroll. He was killed by a German sniper in November of 1916 during the Great War. Apparently, his last words were: “Put that bloody cigarette out!”

The Interlopers is a very dark story about retribution. Two men quarrel over land and accuse the other of interloping. In the end, who are the real interlopers? And who will pay?

Désirée's Baby is a tragedy written in 1893. It takes place in rural Louisiana before the abolition of slavery. It is about inter-racial marriage, but not in the way one might think of it today.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, until you find out the truth, but by then it’s too late.

Sherwood Anderson was an American writer born in Camden, Ohio in 1876 and died in Colon, Panama in 1941. He swallowed a toothpick while on a cruise. He was 64 years old. His influences were Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and the Russian writer, Ivan Turgenev. His writing is personal and almost autobiographical. He talks from the heart without much embellishment or sentimentality.

Some of us might feel as if we lead lives of quiet desperation. Maybe there are even times when a person feels trapped by circumstance. When they think they made a mistake and are not living the life they wanted to live, were meant to live. Somehow they feel cheated. 'The Untold Lie' looks at this predicament and asks, “Is that really true? Or is it a lie?”

Chapter two of "In the Wrinkle of the Old Cliff". Julia arrives in Moscow.

Edward Frederic Benson was born in Berkshire, England in 1867, and died from throat cancer on February 29, 1940 at the age of 72 in London, England. His father, Edward White Benson, was Archbishop of Canterbury. His parents had 6 children and no grandchildren.

Benson was homosexual and never married. He was a very prolific writer and known for his memoirs and biographies, including one of Charlotte Bronte.

The Face is about a young woman who has it all. She lives in a beautiful home with a loving husband and two adorable children. The only thing that has marred her otherwise fairy tale life is a nightmare she has had since childhood. And now the dream has changed. It has become more threatening. She seeks help from a doctor and he prescribes time away by herself, a rest at the beach. And so she goes. Whether you believe in providence or not, this story makes one think about fate and how it is impossible to escape it. There is also a note of sexual violence which makes the whole story very creepy and horrifying to think about.

Mark Twain was an American writer, publisher, humorist and entrepreneur. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and its sequel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” are his most famous stories as well as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” William Faulkner called him “The Father of American literature”.

A Ghost Story is about a ghost who makes an embarrassing mistake. We all make mistakes and ghosts are human too, aren’t they? Well, at least they were human at one point. Only Mark Twain could conjure up such a mortified ghost and make us laugh.

Because we are now in the scary season of October, I have for you some horror and ghost stories that are absolute classics. The first one is written by William Wymark Jacobs born in London, England in 1863. Even though W.W. Jacobs is best known for this one horror story, The Monkey’s Paw, he was actually a prolific writer of humorous stories. He wrote mostly about sailors and their misadventures on land.

The Monkey’s Paw has been adapted for film, radio, and tv, in more than 25 shows and movies, and was even made into an American opera in 2017.

As for the theme of the story? I will only say this: Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.

Artwork by Gabriel Taylor