Clare Boylan

"Charlotte Bronte's death in 1855 deprived the world of what might have been her masterpiece. The twenty unfinished manuscript pages about a lost young girl - which signaled her most compelling work since Jane Eyre - sat in waiting for almost 150 years until Irish novelist Clare Boylan decided to finish it. This tale allows Bronte's tantalizing fragment of a novel, at last, to blossom." "Emma Brown is the story of a young girl, Matilda, brought by her father to a small girls' school in provincial England. The school, Fuchsia Lodge, is foundering, so its new headmistress is delighted to welcome a new pupil - especially one so elaborately dressed with an apparently rich father who is "quite the gentleman." But when the school term ends and it comes time to make arrangements for the Christmas holidays, Matilda's tuition goes unpaid, and the headmistress is shocked to find that the identity of the father, Conway Fitzgibbon - like the address he left behind - is a fiction. Before long, it becomes clear that the little heiress herself is not who she seemed." "So who is the mysterious Matilda? When the girl refuses to reveal her true identity and then disappears, it falls to a local gentleman, Mr. Ellin, and Isabel Chalfont, a childless widow who briefly takes the girl in, to unravel the truth. In a journey that takes them from the drawing rooms of English country society to the grimy streets and back alleys of London's seamiest reached, Emma Brown follows the search - first for Matilda's real identity and then for the girl herself."--BOOK JACKET.

Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving [Young Goodman Brown]( / Nathaniel Hawthorne [Fall of the House of Usher]( / Edgar Allan Poe The lightning-rod man / Herman Melville The diamond lens / Fitzjames O'Brien The celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County / Mark Twain The outcasts of Poker Flat / Bret Harte [Damned Thing]( / Ambrose Bierce The turn of the screw / Henry James The Hiltons' holiday / Sarah Orne Jewett The gift of the Magi / O. Henry The moving finger / Edith Wharton The open boat / Stephen Crane Lou, the prophet / Willa Cather The men of Forty Mile / Jack London Babylon revisited / F. Scott Fitzgerald [A rose for Emily]( William Faulkner Big two-hearted river / Ernest Hemingway Flight / John Steinbeck

When her husband of fifty years begins to slip into madness, Lily Butler turns for help to her only daughter.

A year has passed since the closing of Finbar's Hotel, a down-on-its-heels hotel on the Dublin quays. Now, with a rock star as its new owner, it has once more opened its doors-and Finbar's has become an ultra-chic gathering spot. Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel describes one night in its newly illustrious surroundings-a night filled with adventure and comic romp. In one room a man surreptitiously helps his wife's friend get pregnant, while next door a businesswoman battles her father. And down the hall, a nun struggles with the most important mission of her life. A fabulous mix of pathos and high humor, this is a sardonic tour of the gamut of human experience told by Ireland's finest modern storytellers. Maeve Binchy has written numerous bestsellers, most recently Tara Road. Dermot Bolger is the author of six novels and edited The Vintage Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction. Clare Boylan has written six novels and several nonfiction works, including The Literary Companion to Cats. Emma Donoghue is the author of Stirfry and Kissing the Witch, among other works. Anne Haverty's writing has been short-listed for the Whitbread Award. ƒilis N' Dhuibhne has published poetry, short fiction, children's books, and two novels. Kate O'Riordan writes for stage and screen, and has written two novels including The Bray House. Deirdre Purcell recently adapted her novel Falling for a Dancer as a four-part serial for BBC television.