"Stella Benson was born on the 6th January 1892 in Easthope, Shropshire to parents who were landed gentry.Her early years involved frequent household moves which was difficult for the child as she suffered from ill-health. Some of her early education was spent at schools in Germany and Switzerland and by 10 she had developed a lifelong habit of keeping a diary.In the following years her parents separated, and she rarely saw her father. When she did, he encouraged to pause her writing until she had further experience and could better make sense of the world. When he died, she learned he had been an alcoholic.A winter spent in the West Indies provided material for her first novel ‘I Pose’ published the following year in 1915.During the War years she became involved in the women's suffrage movement and dedicated time outside of writing to support the troops and help the poor.In 1918 she decided to travel spending much time in California, where she also tutored at the University of California, and continued to write. In China she met her future husband and after marrying in London, journeyed with him to his various Custom postings through Nanning, Beihai, and Hong Kong and the Far East.The works continued to flow novels, short stories, travel essays all helped to build a deserved and burgeoning reputation.Although her works are now in the forgotten and neglected department her writing style, characters, and narratives more than capably demonstrate her obvious talents. Stella Benson died of pneumonia on the 7th December 1933, at Hạ Long in the Vietnamese province of Tonkin. She was 40."
"In this series we turn the pages of classic short stories to put together the literary building blocks of how a particular genre or theme began, how it built its foundations to become the well-loved and well-worn genre that it is today.Do authors have the same ideas at more or less the same time? Or can they sniff out an opportunity as to which way the tastes of an audience are moving. Success undoubtedly builds success and in literary terms we can more politely say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the surest way to reach a hungry readership is to build on the fortune and flair of your literary colleagues. We all fear the world will end badly. Even worse that we might be caught up in it. In this volume our authors summon up stories which illustrate and flavour our thinking and imaginings on just how a society would reach that precipice, how it would ultimately be.01 - Foundations of Fiction - Dystopian - An Introduction2 - A Dream of Armageddon by H G Wells3 - The Park of Kings by Alexander Kuprin4 - Into the Sun by Robert Duncan Milne5 - The Cloud-Men by Owen Oliver6 - The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov7 - The End of the World by Simon Newcomb8 - The World's Last Cataclysm by Robert Duncan Milne9 - Within An Ace of the End of the World by Robert Barr10 - Christmas Formula by Stella Benson11 - The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W Chambers"
"Stella Benson (6 January 1892 - 7 December 1933) was an English feminist, novelist, poet, and travel writer. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal. - 'This is the End' (1917): This is the end, for the moment, of all my thinking, this is my unfinal conclusion. There is no reason in tangible things, and no system in the ordinary ways of the world. Hands were made to grope, and feet to stumble, and the only things you may count on are the unaccountable things. System is a fairy and a dream, you never find system where or when you expect it. There are no reasons except reasons you and I don't know."
"In the spring of 1916, we meet orphaned sister and brother Jay and Kew Martin in London. Jay (real name Jane Elizabeth) has run away from her strange, claustrophobic, interfering, well-heeled family to the simplicities of the Brown Borough (otherwise Hackney), to live amongst its working-class people, to a job as a bus conductor, and to discover her own wild self.
Kew is on recuperative leave from the War, and manages to find Jay in her humble new abode. She begs him to preserve her newfound freedom and not reveal her whereabouts to their family. But nothing can stop their former guardians, the eccentric writer Anonyma Martin and her husband, their dry cousin Gustus, from setting out to try to find her, using clues from Jay’s letters. The problem is, Jay’s letters have been fabricated from her extraordinary dream-filled imagination; she’s set them on a wild goose-chase!"
"Stella Benson (1892-1933) was an English feminist, novelist, poet, and short story and travel writer.
"The Man who fell in Love with the Cooperative Stores" is an amusing allegorical story about mercenary love, the gullibility of those men who keep a mistress and the cycnicism of those women who accept this kind of relationship."
"Some books have plots that drive relentlessly toward a conclusion. Others, like "This Is The End", just meander. It is the story of a Family halfheartedly searching for a missing relation who does not want to be found, while just off-stage, World War I is raging on the continent. It is a story about ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times. The things they do are less important than the ways in which they do them: often comic, occasionally tragic, but always touching and true to life. It reminds us that Poetry and Romance can be found anywhere, hidden beneath the surface of the most commonplace things. (Summary by Peter Eastman)"
"Stella Benson (1892-1933) was an English feminist, novelist, poet, and short story and travel writer.
'The Man Who Missed the Bus' is a creepy horror story about a lonely and eccentric man who finds himself unable to see other human faces. Worse still, .gradually he also loses the ability to see his own reflection in the mirror. But this is only the beginning of the horror story. Far worse is to come...."
"This is not a real book. It does not deal with real people, nor should it be read by real people. But there are in the world so many real books already written for the benefit of real people, and there are still so many to be written, that I cannot believe that a little alien book such as this, written for the magically-inclined minority, can be considered too assertive a trespasser. -- Stella Benson (author)
Published in 1919, and set in London during the First World War, Living Alone tells of the meeting of a recluse and a witch, then rambles through magic, morality and aerial dogfights on broomsticks. There isn't too much in the way of a plot, but with its curious blend of fantasy and practical detail of a country in war-time, it's a charmingly weird novel that I hope will entertain witches, wizards and muggles alike. -- Cori Samuel (narrator)"
