Celebrated in their time, forgotten in ours

Read by Mark Rice-Oxley, Elliot Fitzpatrick, David Shaw-Parker(Unabridged: 02:05mins)

Featuring stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Leonid Andreyev, Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev, Stacy Aumonier, John Davys Beresford & 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 - Men Born 1850 - 1899 - An Introduction

02 - In A Grove by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

03 - Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev

04 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev

05 - Where Was Wych Street by Stacy Aumonier

06 - The Miracle by John Davys Beresford

07 - The Coin of Dionysius by Ernest Bramah

08 - The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov

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

10 - An Ugly Customer by Bernard Capes

11 - The Wife of His Youth by Charles W Chesnutt

12 - The Sumach by Ulric Daubeny

13 - The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers

14 - The City of Refuge by Rudolph Fisher

15 - The Silence by John Galsworthy

16 - Coward by Vsevolod Garshin

17 - Perez by W L George

18 - Glahn's Death by Knut Hamsun

19 - A Responsibility by Henry Harland

20 - August Heat by W F Harvey

21 - The Chamomile Drops by Jaroslav Hasek

22 - Of A Promise Broken by Lafcadio Hearn

23 - The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson

24 - Nine Points of the Law by E W Hornung

25 - Rabies by Vicente Blasco Ibanez

26 - Thurnley Abbey by Perceval Landon

27 - The Golden Honeymoon by Ring Lardner

28 - Speed by Sinclair Lewis

29 - Spud Trevor of the Red Hussars by Sapper

30 - The Man in the Bottle by Gustav Meyrink

31 - The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell

32 - Two or Three Witnesses by C E Montague

33 - Tales of Mean Streets. Lizerunt by Arthur Morrison

34 - His Unconquerable Enemy by W C Morrow

35 - The Soul of a Regiment by Talbot Mundy

36 - The Awakening by Owen Oliver

37 - The Millionaire's Telegram by Barry Pain

38 - Horse in the Moon by Luigi Pirandello

39 - Dethroned by I N Potapenko

40 - Contrairy Mary by Edwin Pugh

41 - Freckles by William Pett Ridge

42 - Spurs by Tod Robbins

43 - Young Alf by Clarence Rook. Being a Chapter from the book Hooligan Nights

44 - How a Muzhik Fed Two Officials by Nikolai Schedrin

45 - The Opium Gates by Marcel Schwob

46 - The Servant by S T Semyonov

47 - The Bride by M P Shiel

48 - Hide and Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub

49 - Ariel's Triumph by Booth Tarkington

50 - The Red Mark by Israel Zangwill

51 - Twilight Alley by Stefan Zweig