Alan Garner is an English novelist best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. Much of his work is rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and written narrative, usually, dialogue contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The novel-length version was published in April 1891.
Murray Bail is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. In 1980 he shared the Age Book of the Year award for his novel Homesickness.
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley is a children's fantasy novel by English author Alan Garner. Garner began work on the novel, his literary debut, in 1957, after he moved into the late medieval house, Toad Hall, in Blackden, Cheshire. The story, which took the local legend of The Wizard of the Edge as a partial basis for the novel's plot, was influenced by the folklore and landscape of neighbouring Alderley Edge where he had grown up. Upon completion the book was picked up by Sir William Collins who released it through his publishing company Collins in 1960.
Bret Easton Ellis is an American author, screenwriter, short-story writer, and director. Ellis was first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style. His novels commonly share recurring characters.
The Stone Book Quartet, or Stone Book series, is a set of four short novels by Alan Garner and published by William Collins, Sons, from 1976 to 1978. Set in eastern Cheshire, they feature one day each in the life of four generations of Garner's family and they span more than a century.
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine. Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels and seen as a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been made. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.
The Owl Service is a low fantasy novel for young adults by Alan Garner, published by Collins in 1967. Set in modern Wales, it is an adaptation of the story of the mythical Welsh woman Blodeuwedd, an "expression of the myth" in the author's words.
Batman: The Killing Joke is a 1988 DC Comics one-shot graphic novel featuring the characters Batman and the Joker written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. The Killing Joke provides an origin story for the supervillain the Joker, loosely adapted from the 1951 story arc "The Man Behind the Red Hood!," which was written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger. The Joker's origin is presented via flashback, while simultaneously depicting his attempt to drive Jim Gordon insane and Batman's desperate attempt to stop him.
The Moon of Gomrath is a fantasy story by the author Alan Garner, published in 1963. It is the sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.
Conan the Librarian is a parody of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian that has become a literary trope, and has appeared in various media, including film, radio, television, comics, and fan fiction. Based on the similarity in the sound of the word "librarian" to "barbarian", and their near opposite meanings, the phrase is a parodic coinage, and its origins and recurrence are likely due to both independent invention and imitation. There is no evidence that the character has an origin in Monty Python's Flying Circus in the 1970s.
Red Shift is a 1973 fantasy novel by Alan Garner. It is set in Cheshire, England, in three time periods: Roman Britain, the English Civil War and the present.
Australian literature is the written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies; as such, its recognised literary tradition begins with and is linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, the narrative art of Australian writers has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent into literature—exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mateship, egalitarianism, democracy, national identity, migration, Australia's unique location and geography, the complexities of urban living, and "the beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.
John Brian Francis "Jack" Gaughan, pronounced like 'gone', was an American science fiction artist and illustrator who won the Hugo Award several times. Working primarily with Donald A. Wollheim at Ace Books, and DAW Books from 1971, his simple linear style brought to life images of such works as Andre Norton's Witch World novels and E. E. Smith's Lensmen and Skylark novels. His broad visual vocabulary enabled him to render the objects, spaceships and scenes in whatever was presented to him as they were described in the books and stories he illustrated. That was especially an accomplishment as many of these authors drew on their knowledge of esoteric subjects for their imagery. This ability made him very popular among people with an engineering background.
Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, written as a boys' novel and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886. The novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Hilary Mantel. A sequel, Catriona, was published in 1893.
Alan Bissett is an author and playwright from Hallglen, an area of Falkirk in Scotland. After the publication of his first two novels, Boyracers and The Incredible Adam Spark, he became known for his different take on Scots dialect writing, evolving a style specific to Falkirk, suffused with popular culture references and socialist politics. He also applied to be rector of the University of Glasgow in 2014.
Mobberley is a village in Cheshire, England, between Wilmslow and Knutsford, which in 2001 had a population of 2,546, increasing to 3,050 at the 2011 Census.
To the Stars is a science fiction novel by American writer L. Ron Hubbard. The novel's story is set in a dystopian future, and chronicles the experiences of protagonist Alan Corday aboard a starship called the Hound of Heaven as he copes with the travails of time dilation from traveling at near light speed. Corday is kidnapped by the ship's captain and forced to become a member of their crew, and when he next returns to Earth his fiancee has aged and barely remembers him. He becomes accustomed to life aboard the ship, and when the captain dies Corday assumes command.
Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1 is a 2011 children's fantasy novel by The Decemberists' Colin Meloy, illustrated by his wife Carson Ellis. The 541-page novel, inspired by classic fantasy novels and folk tales, is the story of two seventh-graders who are drawn into a hidden, magical forest, while trying to rescue a baby kidnapped by crows. They get caught up in an epic struggle, and learn of their connection to a magical parallel world while confronting adult authorities who are often cowardly or dishonest. The natural beauty and local color of Portland, Oregon, features prominently in the book.
