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The Apple Tree (anthology)
''The Birds and Other Stories'' is a collection of stories by the British author Daphne du Maurier. It was originally published by Gollancz in the United Kingdom in 1952 as ''The Apple Tree: A Short Novel and Several Long Stories'', and was re-issued by Penguin in 1963 under the current title. In the United States an expanded version was published in 1953 under the title ''Kiss Me Again, Stranger: A Collection of Eight Stories, Long and Short '' by Doubleday including two additional stories, "The Split Second" and "No Motive". One of the stories, " The Birds", was made into a film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock in 1963. Stories As first published under the title ''The Apple Tree'' in 1952: * "Monte Verità" tells of an isolated mountain, home to a mysterious sect rumoured to be immortal and feared by the local communities from whom it attracts young women who are never heard of again. It is told from the viewpoint of a nameless mountaineer whose best friend's wife di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daphne Du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather George du Maurier was a writer and cartoonist. Although du Maurier is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but they have since earned an enduring reputation for narrative craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels ''Rebecca (novel), Rebecca'', ''Frenchman's Creek (novel), Frenchman's Creek'', ''My Cousin Rachel'' and ''Jamaica Inn (novel), Jamaica Inn'', and the short stories "The Birds (story), The Birds" and "Not After Midnight, and Other Stories#"Don't Look Now", Don't Look Now". Du Maurier spent much of her life in Cornwall, where most of her w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marquise
A marquess (; ) is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German-language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman with the rank of a marquess or the wife (or widow) of a marquess is a marchioness () or marquise (). These titles are also used to translate equivalent Asian styles, as in Imperial China and Imperial Japan. Etymology The word ''marquess'' entered the English language from the Old French ("ruler of a border area") in the late 13th or early 14th century. The French word was derived from ("frontier"), itself descended from the Middle Latin ("frontier"), from which the modern English word ''March (territory), march'' also descends. The distinction between governors of frontier territories and interior territories was made as early as the founding of the Roman Empire when some provinces were set aside for administration by the senate and more unpacified or vulnerable provinces were adm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1952 Short Story Collections
Year 195 ( CXCV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known in Rome as the Year of the Consulship of Scrapula and Clemens (or, less frequently, year 948 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 195 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus has the Roman Senate deify the previous emperor Commodus, in an attempt to gain favor with the family of Marcus Aurelius. * King Vologases V and other eastern princes support the claims of Pescennius Niger. The Roman province of Mesopotamia rises in revolt with Parthian support. Severus marches to Mesopotamia to battle the Parthians. * The Roman province of Syria is divided and the role of Antioch is diminished. The Romans annex the Syrian cities of Edessa and Nisibis. Severus re-establishes his headquarters and the colonies th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Gray (actor)
Charles Gray (born Donald Marshall Gray; 29 August 1928 – 7 March 2000) was an English actor and voice artist. Appearing in around 140 films and TV series, he was best known as the arch-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film '' Diamonds Are Forever''; Dikko Henderson in a previous Bond film, '' You Only Live Twice''; Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft Holmes in '' The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes''; and The Criminologist in ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'', as well as Judge Oliver Wright in its 1981 sequel '' Shock Treatment''. Early life Gray was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, the son of surveyor Donald Gray (died 1975), who had served as a Captain in the Royal Engineers, and Maude Elizabeth (née Marshall). Gray attended Bournemouth School alongside Benny Hill, whose school had been evacuated to the same buildings, during the Second World War. Some of his friends remember that his bedroom walls were plastered with pictures of film stars. Stage career By ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Birds (story)
"The Birds" is a horror story by the British writer Daphne du Maurier, first published in her 1952 collection ''The Apple Tree''. The story is set in du Maurier's home county of Cornwall shortly after the end of the Second World War. A farmhand, his family and community come under lethal attack from flocks of birds. The story was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same name, released in 1963, the same year that ''The Apple Tree'' was reprinted as ''The Birds and Other Stories''. In 2009, the Irish playwright Conor McPherson adapted the story for the stage at Dublin's Gate Theatre. Plot Nat Hocken, a disabled war veteran, works part time for Mr Trigg at his farm on the Cornish coast. One day in early December, he notices unusually large flocks of birds behaving restlessly, and he muses that they have received a message that winter is coming. That night the weather turns bitterly cold. Nat hears a bird insistently tapping on his bedroom window, and when he op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Boucher
William Anthony Parker White (August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968), better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher (), was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas. Between 1942 and 1947, he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the ''San Francisco Chronicle''. In addition to "Anthony Boucher", White also employed the pseudonym " H. H. Holmes", which was the pseudonym of a late-19th-century American serial killer; Boucher also write light verse which he signed "Herman W. Mudgett" (the murderer's real name). In a 1981 poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel ''Nine Times Nine'' was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery of all time. Background White was born in Oakland, California, and went to college at the University of Southern California. He later received a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After a friend told him that "William ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy fiction magazine, fantasy and science-fiction magazine, first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence E. Spivak, Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. The first issue was titled ''The Magazine of Fantasy'', but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. ''F&SF'' was quite different in presentation from the existing science-fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp magazine, pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single-column format, which in the opinion of science-fiction historian Mike Ashley (writer) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Usher (occupation)
An usher is a person who welcomes and shows people where to sit, especially at a church, theatre or when attending a wedding. History The word comes from the Latin '' ostiarius'' ("porter", "doorman") through Norman French, and is a cognate of the French '' huissier''. Ushers were servants or courtiers who showed or ushered visitors in and out of meetings in large houses or palaces. In the United Kingdom, a variety of titles for courtiers in the Royal Household include the word ''usher''. In England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, from the early sixteenth century until at least the end of the nineteenth century, the term denoted an assistant to a schoolmaster or head-teacher; an under-master, assistant-master. In such use, however, the term is now rare. Duties Ushers assist visitors by formally showing the way in a large building or to their appropriate seats. This may coincide with a security role. At weddings, friends of the groom and bride may be recruited to direct gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, Devon to the east, and the English Channel to the south. The largest urban area is the Redruth and Camborne conurbation. The county is predominantly rural, with an area of and population of 568,210. After the Redruth-Camborne conurbation, the largest settlements are Falmouth, Cornwall, Falmouth, Penzance, Newquay, St Austell, and Truro. For Local government in England, local government purposes most of Cornwall is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, with the Isles of Scilly governed by a Council of the Isles of Scilly, unique local authority. The Cornish nationalism, Cornish nationalist movement disputes the constitutional status of Cornwall and seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom. Cornwall is the weste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Val Biro
Balint Stephen Biro (Budapest, October 6, 1921 – July 4, 2014) was a children's author, artist and illustrator. He received his education in Budapest and London. From about 1955 he lived in Chesham, where he helped to found the Chesham Society, and then moved to Amersham about 1971 until 1985. Writing From an interview in the early 1970s: "My writing is mainly concerned with my vintage car "Gumdrop." It was four years ago that my publishers suggested that it was about time that I wrote a book for children and not merely illustrate one; and I decided on Gumdrop as the main character. "I write so as to give my alter-ego a good chance for drawing pictures, though I find that the story I invent tends to run away with itself, leaving me, the illustrator, behind! Each story tends to be based on personal experience and, equally, each tends to grow out of that into the imagination. Each book seems to take a few months to gestate, and then I write it in one long day (or night)." Il ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Fiction
Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Some early European horror-fiction were the Ancient Greeks and Ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", Hitchcock became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, List of cameo appearances by Alfred Hitchcock, his cameo appearances in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director, despite five nominations. Hitchcock initially trained as a technical clerk and copywriter before entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. His directorial debut was the British–German silent film ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
