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Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-247)

1About Orchids, a Chat

By Frederick Boyle

This is not a manual of instruction for orchid growers; though there are many hints on cultivation, and a few paragraphs on how to hybridize. The author is just an enthusiastic amateur orchid lover. He takes the reader on a wander through the dangers and consequences of hunting orchids in the tropical jungles of the nineteenth century, and chats about the extreme peculiarities of orchid growth, behaviour and structure, colouring the essays with his own experiences and with his delight in cultivating these beautiful plants. Beware! A new hobby beckons! (Summary by Peter Yearsley)

Boston Blackie is the novelization of a group of pulp short stories by Jack Boyle (1881-1928). Blackie, an ex-con with a college education, is a jewel thief based in San Francisco, who outwits the cops with the help of his wife Mary. The character was altered for a later series of popular films and radio shows to become a “reformed” jewel thief turned private eye. (Summary by Winston Tharp)

Boston Blackie had his birth in the imagination of a self confessed “opium eater.” Jack Boyle was a San Francisco newspaper man who became dependent upon the drug to make his deadlines, lost his job, and turned to crime to support his habit. He served several prison terms and while incarcerated in Colorado began writing a series of short stories for the American Magazine based on his experiences. Boston Blackie was a much darker character in these early stories than he became in later incarnations in book, film, radio and television, which dropped his opium dependence. This collection presents the first four Boston Blackie stories to be published, prefaced by an autobiographical piece by Boyle, who wrote them all under the pseudonym “No. 6606,” his prisoner number. - Summary by Winston Tharp

4Days and Hours in a Garden

By Eleanor Vere Boyle

"Already the Snowdrops are giving way before impatient Hepaticas and Primroses, the bare Elms are thickening with purple, and we begin to count the Gentian buds. Everywhere Nature repairs herself in ceaseless round. Only in our human lives some vacant spots there may be, where the grass will not grow green again." A gentle description of an English garden and changes throughout the year. EVB,as she preferred to be known, wrote and illustrated four garden books in the last years of her life. - Summary From the Preface