Celebrated in their time, forgotten in ours

Read by Ghizela Rowe, David Shaw-Parker, Elliot Fitzpatrick(Unabridged: 12:06mins)

Featuring stories by Hannah More, Arthur Morrison, W C Morrow, Rosa Mulholland, Talbot Mundy, Jan Neruda, Hume Nisbet & 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 - Volume 5 - An Introduction

02 - Betty Brown, the St Giles Orange Girl by Hannah More

03 - Tales of Mean Streets. Lizerunt by Arthur Morrison

04 - His Unconquerable Enemy by W C Morrow

05 - The Ghost at the Rath by Rosa Mulholland

06 - The Soul of a Regiment by Talbot Mundy

07 - The Vampire by Jan Neruda

08 - The Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet

09 - What Was It by Fitz James O'Brien

10 - The Open Door - Part 1 by Margaret Oliphant

11 - The Open Door - Part 2 by Margaret Oliphant

12 - The Awakening by Owen Oliver

13 - The Millionaire's Telegram by Barry Pain

14 - Since I Died by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

15 - Horse in the Moon by Luigi Pirandello

16 - The Vampyre. A Tale - Part 1 by John Willaim Polidori

17 - The Vampyre. A Tale - Part 2 by John Willaim Polidori

18 - Dethroned by I N Potapenko

19 - Mold of the Earth by Boleslaw Prus

20 - Contrairy Mary by Edwin Pugh

21 - The Omnibus by Arthur Quiller-Couch

22 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford

23 - Wake Not the Dead - Part 1 by Ernst Raupach

24 - Wake Not the Dead - Part 2 by Ernst Raupach