Celebrated in their time, forgotten in ours

Read by David Shaw-Parker, Richard Mitchley, Darrell Joe(Unabridged: 10:58mins)

Featuring stories by Ry?nosuke Akutagawa, Grant Allen, Leonid Andreyev, Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev, Stacy Aumonier & many more

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.

In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be published in any great number.

In the 15th Century Gutenberg’s printing press began the revolution to address the second and by the 19th century had gathered pace with startling speed and mass distribution. Education for the many was brought in to help people understand more of their world and, with new skills, how to have a better place within it. Now, if the powers that owned the presses and means of distribution agreed an audience would now be able to avail themselves of your ideas, your printed words.

Whilst male authors were the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries in having their work printed time was their constant enemy. Your work could be immensely talented but if it was not to lure money into the coffers by gaining an audience of readers then your career would be one of pleasing yourself and was soon forgotten.

But the printed word is rarely without someone, somewhere busying themselves through piles of papers and books rediscovering what a good story is, whatever its age.

In this volume we offer up a small selection of talents whose time has now come again.

01 - The Neglected Authors - The Men - Volume 1 - An Introduction

02 - In A Grove by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

03 - My New Year's Eve Among the Mummies by Grant Allen

04 - Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev

05 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev

06 - Where Was Wych Street by Stacy Aumonier

07 - Peter Rugg, The Missing Man - Part 1 by William Austin

08 - Peter Rugg, The Missing Man - Part 2 by William Austin

09 - The Spectre of Tappington by Richard Harris Barham

10 - An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr

11 - The Generous Gambler by Charles Baudelaire

12 - The Miracle by John Davys Beresford

13 - The Coin of Dionysius by Ernest Bramah

14 - The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov

15 - Beryl, The Croucher, And The Rest of England by Thomas Burke

16 - The Secret Cell - Part 1 by William E Burton

17 - The Secret Cell - Part 2 by William E Burton

18 - An Ugly Customer by Bernard Capes

19 - The Wife of His Youth by Charles W Chesnutt

20 - The Horror of Abbot's Grange by Frederick Cowles