Gutter Press

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MOST PITEOUS AND BRUTAL MURDER COMMITTED LATELY IN THE BOROUGH OF SPITALFIELDS "Then kill me if you must, for I don't wish to be without you..." Nancy Porter is an extended extract from the novel Oliver Twist, and a supplementary novella based upon the character of Bill Sikes' girlfriend, Nancy. The novella expands upon the character of Nancy (it also gives her a surname, something she does not have in the original novel) while remaining faithful to the original story. It concentrates on the time that Nancy Porter knew Oliver Twist, of how she was murdered by Bill Sikes for offering the help she wished to give so the boy would not have to live as she had had to, it follows the the pursuit and death of Bill Sikes and the trial and execution of Nat Fagin, the leader of the band of child thieves. Revised, edited and expanded by Belle Ellis. - 'Bill Sikes put the flat of his hand upon her face and casually pushed her battered form over while he held the gloves - those she had been given by Rose Maylie - in his other hand and examined them momentarily; he shrugged and threw them to the floor. Nancy used what little strength she had remaining to slump upon her elbows and reach across the floor to take them back into her hands. She held the soft leather to her cheek, and was outraged to see the blood - her own blood - smeared across them. She clasped the bloodied gloves in her bloodied hands and turned her bloodied head towards the heavens, as much as her feeble strength would allow her to hold herself up. She breathed a prayer for mercy; it was a long forgotten prayer, from her brief attendance at a Sunday School when aged five or six years of age, but now, suddenly, she remembered it...' - 'Everyone who attended the execution, that riotous throng, seemed to tell of life and animation, but not everyone; among all who were gathered there, some were family or associates of those who were to be hung; they stood silently, sombrely, dreading what was to come. But they were few in so large a crowd. Not every thing spoke of the same life and animation. The purpose for which they were gathered was told in the cluster of objects in the centre of the yard. They told it all - the platform, the five steps up to that platform, the cross-beam, the rope with it's ominous noose, the masked hangman, the stack of roughly made coffins. It was the black and drear stage upon which is played out all the hideous spectacle and gross drama of lawful execution.Fagin quailed and sought to back away. The escorting guards held firmly onto his arms and guided him up the steps...' - Published by new ventures in recycled fiction & FICTIONFaction, through The Gutter Press. Series Editor, James Scobie. - Belle Ellis also has another title available, Eternal Beloved.

ELECTRA; INFINITE VIOLENCEA new version of Electra by Sophocles revised by James Scobie, with an edited version of the original."Would you have vengeance beget ever more vengeance, for all eternity? an infinity of violence..."CHORUS; Do not question the Gods. They hear.ELECTRA; Then why aren't they here? Why do they stand aside while those two live in their consummated bliss; they share my father's house, my father's wealth, my father's bed, when they ought to know the reward for their actions in a bronze-edged and pointed revenge.CHORUS; You lived in a state of great wealth; upon Agamemnon's wealth and title you were comforted. But these present ills are those you bring upon yourself. Besides, talk of revenge is foolish - it is no easy thing to contest with a king. ELECTRA; It is not the wealth of my father I am concerned with, nor how we have been jilted of it. I would give up all title to wealth and other comforts to have my father alive and to stand within his encompassing arms. It is harsh, unyielding fate that I am contending with; I know it. So that I cannot keep my rage under wraps; that is all. Do not reason with me for I am far beyond its ruling measure. If that is your whole counsel, then leave me. There is no end to my distress, there is no cure. CHORUS; Yet, still you add further woes upon the old.ELECTRA; Not new ills, but racked by the same lacerating torment. The blade that was sunk into him, also struck me ... where should the limit on suffering be properly set? My grief and despair are limitless, so I grieve and despair limitlessly. Am I to forget how my father died? For he did not die naturally, he was murdered.Death strips us all of our costume of flesh; so my father was lain, too early, in his tomb. Those that swung the death-blows, those deviants, should also die. If not, and if sin is so rewarded, with such libidinous lust and wealth, then say farewell to honour, say farewell to reverence, respect and reputation, and let the city and all that is pious collapse, for the city and all life within it is desolate Without these necessary virtues there can be no strong or steady earth for honour and reverence to stand upon.....ELECTRA; Lustrous eye that renews day to the Sky. By the blazing regalia of your light you see how many scars I have marked upon myself. Yet your gladdening light brings no gladness to me. I always mourn my father's loss, and am forever cheerless and sleepless; only when exhaustless grief and sleepless exhaustion overcomes me, and frays at my sleeplessness, that is when I can ever rest, and can forget all troubles for a brief margin upon the lengthy page that is my life since his slaying. Then I suffer angry dreams; always bitter, without comfort. I am the captive of a bitter family, in a bitter household where honour has been routed to abject defeat.It was my mother's blade that carved the treacherous blow that struck my father's flesh with the deep lesion that insulted all ordinary honour... backed by Aegisthus, now her bed-mate. Together, each night, they lie in their adultery and, with it, they pile-up a monstrous heap of ridicule upon proper form and honour. There is no pity that flows for my father here, from any except from myself. I cannot stop from crying or bitterest sighing. My father was met with smiling hypocrisy by his adulterous wife, my deceiving mother; I call upon you, Ara, Goddess of Revenge and Destruction, help me requite the murder that shames his killers and his hearth. I, alone, can scarcely bear the burdensome weight of harrowing grief. Throw the doors of Hades open wide, and wedge them in gaping readiness for these murderers deaths; Ara, help me To you I plead, give me revenge, or give me destruction