Читает книгу: Kenneth Elliot

The Jelly-Bean – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). This is a Southern story, with the setting laid in the small Lily of Tarleton, Georgia. Fitzgerald wrote that he had «a profound affection for Tarleton, but somehow whenever I write a story about it I receive letters from all over the South denouncing me in no uncertain terms.» Written shortly after his first novel was published, the author also collaborated with his wife on certain scenes. The story momentarily follows the life of a…

Tarquin of Cheapside – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). Written almost six years before being added to this collection, this story was written in Fitzgerald’s undergraduate days at Princeton. Considerably revised, it was published in the «Smart Set» in 1921. At the time of its conception Fitzgerald had wanted to be a poet, and was interested in the ring of every phrase. This short story is told in narrative style. As the story opens the invisible narrator and reader are in the home of…

Porcelain and Pink – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). “Porcelain and Pink” is a comic one-act play. The plot involves a young woman in a bathtub and a case of mistaken identity. Originally appearing in the January 1920 issue of The Smart Set, “Porcelain and Pink” was the earliest of the stories Fitzgerald would later reprint in a book-length collection. The story is a bit of a lark, a one-act burlesque that opens with a splendidly droll parody of stage directions, featuring a blue…

Oh Russet Witch! – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). This story was written just after the author completed the first draft of his second novel. However it may seem, the story was supposed to be in the present time/tense. It was published in the «Metropolitan». At the end of the story, Merlin deeply regrets not following his dreams. Caroline represents the life that Merlin always wanted, but he chooses to ignore these dreams. Merlin convinces himself that Caroline is nothing more than a…

Mr. Icky – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). Mr. Icky is a whimsical and lighthearted play written by F. Scott Fitzgerald centered around a man named Mr. Icky. In a quick and droll manner, interactions between the cast summarize several pivotal moments in Mr. Icky’s life. The story starts with Mr. Icky beginning to converse with a young boy, and shortly after, a suitor searching for Mr. Icky’s daughter arrives on the scene desiring her hand in marriage. The play continues to show…

May Day – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). Published as a novelette in The Smart Set in July, 1920, «May Day» relates a series of events which took place in the spring of the previous year, during the «general hysteria» which inaugurated the Jazz Age. The story uses the May Day Riots of 1919 as historical backdrop. During these events, as the lower-class is fighting for certain causes, a group of privileged Yale alumni meet for a dance. The story is noteworthy for its length, the familiar…

Jemina, The Mountain Girl – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). In the story of «Jemina, The Mountain Girl», Jemina Tantrum is a teenage girl who lives on a mountain. She takes care of her ‘pappy’ and ‘mappy’ and basically runs the family business. Thing is, there’s a feud between her family and the family who lives across the stream. A long time ago, one of Jemina’s ancestors and one of the Doldrum’s (the family across the stream) ancestors fought over…

Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) is a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Divided into three separate parts, according to subject matter, it includes one of his better-known short stories, «The Curious Case of Benjamin Button». All of the stories had been published earlier, independently, in either Metropolitan Magazine (New York), Saturday Evening Post, Smart Set, Collier’s, Chicago Sunday Tribune, or Vanity Fair. All of these stories, like his best novels, meld Fitzgerald’s fascination with wealth with an awareness of a larger world, creating a subtle…

The Lees of Happiness – one of the stories, which entered in a collection of eleven short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald «Tales of the Jazz Age» (1922). The Lees of Happiness is a was first published in the «Chicago Tribune,» and first published in book form in. A newlywed young woman named Roxanne and her short story-writing husband Jeffery begin married life in a home of their own, looking forward to many years of happiness and success. However, sudden tragedy strikes when Jeffery becomes blind and paralyzed due to a blood clot in his brain. Roxanne faithfully nurses him to no…

«The Rats in the Walls» is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924. In 1923, an American named Delapore, the last descendant of the De la Poer family, moves to his ancestral estate in England following the death of his only son during World War I. To the dismay of nearby residents, he restores the estate, called Exham Priory. After moving in, Delapore and his cat frequently hear the sounds of rats scurrying behind the walls. Upon investigating further, and through recurring dreams,…

«The Picture in the House» is a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft. It was written on December 12, 1920, and first published in the July issue of The National Amateur—which was published in the summer of 1921. While riding on his bicycle in the Miskatonic Valley of rural New England, a genealogist seeks shelter from an approaching storm in an apparently abandoned house, only to find that it is occupied by a «loathsome old, white-bearded, and ragged man,» speaking in «an extreme form of Yankee dialect…thought long extinct.» The narrator notices that the house is full of…

«The Festival» is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft written in October 1923 and published in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales. The story was inspired by Lovecraft’s first trip to Marblehead, Massachusetts, in December 1922. Lovecraft later called that visit «the most powerful single emotional climax experienced during my nearly forty years of existence.» In a flash all the past of New England—all the past of Old England—all the past of Anglo-Saxondom and the Western World–swept over me and identified me with the stupendous totality of all things in such a way as it…

«The Cats of Ulthar» is a short story written by American fantasy author H.P. Lovecraft in June 1920. In the tale, an unnamed narrator relates the story of how a law forbidding the killing of cats came to be in a town called Ulthar. As the narrative goes, the city is home to an old couple who enjoy capturing and killing the townspeople’s cats. When a caravan of wanderers passes through the city, the kitten of an orphan (Menes) traveling with the band disappears. Upon hearing of the couple’s violent acts towards cats, Menes invokes a prayer before leaving town that causes…

«The Silver Key» is a fantasy short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1926, it is considered part of his Dreamlands series. It was first published in the January 1929 issue of Weird Tales. It is a continuation of «The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath», and was followed by a sequel, «Through the Gates of the Silver Key», co-written with E. Hoffmann Price. The story and its sequel both feature Lovecraft’s recurring character of Randolph Carter as the protagonist. Randolph Carter discovers, at the age of 30, that he has gradually «lost the key to the gate of…

«The Music of Erich Zann» is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in December 1921, it was first published in National Amateur, March 1922. Due to lack of funds, a university student is forced to take up lodging in an almost empty apartment building on a street named «Rue d’Auseil». One of the few other tenants is an old German man named Erich Zann. The old man is mute and plays the viol[a] with a local theater orchestra. He lives alone on the top floor and at night he plays strange melodies the student has never heard before. Despite Zann’s…

«Dagon» is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in July 1917 and is one of the first stories that Lovecraft wrote as an adult. It was first published in the November 1919 edition of The Vagrant. Dagon was later published in Weird Tales. It is considered by many to be one of Lovecraft’s most forward-looking stories. The story is the testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who relates an incident that occurred during his service as an officer during World War I. In the unnamed narrator’s account, his cargo ship is captured by an Imperial…

«The Other Gods» is a fantasy short story written by American author H. P. Lovecraft, on August 14, 1921. It was first published in the November 1933 issue of The Fantasy Fan. Barzai the Wise, a high priest and prophet greatly learned in the lore of the «gods of earth», or Great Ones, attempts to scale the mountain of Hatheg-Kla in order to look upon their faces, accompanied by his young disciple Atal. Upon reaching the peak, Barzai at first seems overjoyed until he finds that the «gods of the earth» are not there alone, but rather are overseen by the «other gods, the gods of…

«The Tomb» is a fictional short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in June 1917 and first published in the March 1922 issue of The Vagrant. It tells the story of Jervas Dudley, who becomes obsessed with a mausoleum near his childhood home. «The Tomb» tells of Jervas Dudley, a confessed daydreamer. While still a child, he discovers the padlocked entrance to a mausoleum belonging to the Hyde family, whose nearby mansion had burnt down many years previously. Jervas attempts to break the padlock, but is unable. Dispirited, he takes to sleeping beside the tomb.…

«The Transition of Juan Romero» is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written on September 16, 1919, and first published in the 1944 Arkham House volume Marginalia. The story involves a mine that uncovers a very deep chasm, too deep for any sounding lines to hit bottom. The night after the discovery of the abyss the narrator and one of the mine’s workers, a Latino called Juan Romero, venture inside the mine, drawn against their will by a mysterious rhythmical throbbing in the ground. Romero reaches the abyss first and is swallowed by it. The…

«The Haunter of the Dark» is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5-9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales. It was the last-written of the author’s known works, and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft’s 1917 poem «Nemesis». In Providence, Rhode Island, Robert Blake, a young writer with an interest in the occult, becomes fascinated by a large disused church on Federal Hill which he can see from his lodgings on the city’s Upper East side.…