A bizarre mix of broad comedy, fantasy, and social commentary, the title story offers an unforgettable depiction of a lunatic civil servant. Includes "Nevski Prospect" and "The Portrait."

Arrested and imprisoned in a small Swiss town, a prisoner begins this book with an exclamation: "I'm not Stiller!" He claims that his name is Jim White, that he has been jailed under false charges and under the wrong identity. To prove he is who he claims to be, he confesses to three unsolved murders and recalls in great detail an adventuresome life in America and Mexico among cowboys and peasants, in back alleys and docks. He is consumed by "the morbid impulse to convince," but no one believes him. This is a harrowing account part Kafka, part Camus of the power of self-deception and the freedom that ultimately lies in self-acceptance. Simultaneously haunting and humorous, I'm Not Stiller has come to be recognized as "one of the major post-war works of fiction" and a masterpiece of German literature.

Max Frischs Homo faber ist eines der wichtigsten und meistgelesenen Bücher des 20. Jahrhunderts: Der Ingenieur Walter Faber glaubt an sein rationales Weltbild, das aber durch eine ›Liebesgeschichte‹ nachhaltig zerbricht.

When Henry Roth published Call It Sleep, his first novel, in 1934, it was greeted with critical acclaim. But in that dark Depression year, books were hard to sell, and the novel quickly dropped out of sight, as did its twenty-eight-year-old author. Only with its paperback publication in 1964 did the novel receive the recognition it deserves. Call It Sleep was the first paperback ever to be reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, and it proceeded to sell millions of copies both in the United States and around the world. Call It Sleep is the magnificent story of David Schearl, the “dangerously imaginative” child coming of age in the slums of New York.

Three classic stories for young adults about the wonder and power of our connections with nature and each other. Gene Stratton-Porter was a pioneer naturalist, wilderness advocate, and author. She wrote both fiction and nonfiction about the woods and swampland that she loved so much, and her tales of finding independence and courage through building a relationship with nature touched millions of readers both when she was writing and to this day. In The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter, three of her most timeless classics are collected in one volume. A Girl of the Limberlost, Freckles, and The Harvester demonstrate the power of Stratton-Porter’s writing for young people as she explores how the natural world can provide not just a means of sustenance, but also a source of strength in the face of the world’s difficulties and, ultimately, a place where you can be true to yourself. In both A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles, we see young Elnora Cornstock and an orphan boy known only as Freckles develop a love of Limberlost Swamp, using it to gain independence and find true connections with others. Taking place in the woodlands of the Midwest, The Harvester tells the story of a young man who lives on his own and who heals an ill girl. In each book, nature is a powerful force that helps the characters deal with the pain of their pasts and the uncertainty of the present. With an introduction by award-winning essayist Scott Russell Sanders, The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter brings together three classic novels that deserve a place on any young adult’s bookshelf.

Antigonick is a translation of Sophokle's Antigone only in the loosest sense – with significant changes and metatextual additions to the original, an extra character, and illustrations with interpretations left open to the reader, it could easily be considered a different work altogether. With text blocks hand-inked on the page by Anne Carson and her collaborator Robert Currie, Antigonick features translucent vellum pages with stunning drawings by Bianca Stone that overlay the text. Anne Carson has published translations of the ancient Greek poets Sappho, Simonides, Aiskhylos, Sophokles and Euripides. Antigonick is her first attempt at making translation into a combined visual and textual experience: it will provoke poetry readers, classical scholars, theatre people and comic-book aficionados.

Anne Carson writes, “Euripides was a playwright of the fifth century BC who reinvented Greek tragedy, setting it on a path that leads straight to reality TV. His plays broke all the rules, upended convention and outraged conservative critics. The Bakkhai is his most subversive play, telling the story of a man who cannot admit he would rather live in the skin of a woman, and a god who seems to combine all sexualities into a single ruinous demand for adoration. Dionysos is the god of intoxication. Once you fall under his influence, there is no telling where you will end up.”

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present. Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is. "A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender."--The New York Times Book Review "A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."  --The Village Voice A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR National book Critics Circle Award Finalist

The water and the air in the Fisher Valley were pristine before the coal seam gas companies arrived with government-endorsed gas exploration and development licences. Then they marched roughshod over the owners of privately owned, highly productive farming and grazing land, paying them little in the way of compensation. After drilling, they pumped water, sand and toxic chemicals at high pressure hundreds of metres into the ground in a process known as 'fracking', which exploded the coal seams and released the methane, while giving scant attention to the ground, air and water pollution they were creating. When little Charlie Paxton, aged only six, dies from a mysterious form of cancer, his father, Charles Paxton, swears to have his revenge. Charles is determined to stop the gas companies even if it means blowing up their wells and blocking their access to agricultural properties. But big gas is powerful and backed by rapacious governments who won't hesitate to use their police and army to smash through blockades. Can a small group of farmers, greens and conservatives stand against the might of big gas and the governments complicit in helping it? -- "I moved to the country for peace and quiet and little did I know that I would become embroiled in the battle of my life. Peter Ralph brings to light the everyday struggle of people who find their lives suddenly caught up with one of the most insidious industries in the world - Coal Seam Gas." (-Dayne Pratzky, a.k.a. 'The Frackman') -- The author, Peter Ralph, was a CEO of a large private company that he took public in the early nineties before becoming a successful share and derivatives trader. He now spends much of his time writing, and the breadth of his business career has provided him with a background and insights well suited to writing suspenseful business and topical novels. He is the author of "Collins Street Whores" and "The CEO," and co-authored "Pass the Sugar" with Joe Hachem.

Bronze Medal Winner of 2018 Readers' Favorite Book Awards for Fiction-Thrillers-Political. * When twelve-year-old Congolese boy, Joseph Muamba, is sold to a wealthy American family he wants to die. Eventually, he comes to love the family and lives the life of the all-American boy. However, he cannot rid himself of a nagging feeling that he has a greater calling in life. Fourteen years later he competes at the Beijing Olympics for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and wins his birth country’s first ever medal – gold in the decathlon. However, the nagging feeling persists, not satisfied with Olympic gold. Revered, he returns to the Congo as a guest of the president and is mobbed by adoring crowds. Maya Tansi, his closest childhood friend, has metamorphosed into a beautiful woman, and they become reacquainted. When Maya tells him Western countries are bribing politicians and plundering the country’s mineral wealth, he does not believe her. He soon finds Maya is right. Government induced bribery, corruption, rape, and murder are taking place in the Congo on a grand scale. Western and Chinese mining companies are ripping gold and minerals out of the earth without paying compensation or taxes. When the poor, oppressed people protest, they are imprisoned or murdered. Finally, Joseph realizes what his calling is, but it involves risking his life, and the lives of those whom he loves. Can he bring down rapacious, Western billionaires and an evil government?

Directors and executives of public corporations are dying in mysterious circumstances. .Their only connection is irregular share dealings that took place in their companies before their deaths. When young auditor, Todd Hansen, runs up a huge gambling debt with illegal bookies, he finds himself in serious trouble. The only way he can pay them is by providing confidential information about his firm’s corporate clients. Caught, and sentenced to nine years in New York’s toughest prison, Todd is given a way out BUT it’s dangerous. There are those who think they’d be safer if he was dead. Will a chance meeting with a Mafia boss in prison save Todd?

Douglas Aspine knew that being CEO of a public company was twenty times more lucrative than winning the lottery. He was forty-five and time was running out when fate dealt him an unexpected opportunity. The company was old, staid and well-respected but it was under performing and Aspine was determined to turn it around *no matter who he had to crush. * Soon he was at war with the company's employees, unions, suppliers, financiers and co-directors * but nothing was going to stop him. * Not his chairman, not his wife, not his mistress, not the anonymous death threats and definitely not the press. Aspine could almost taste the glory, the riches and peer recognition he'd craved for so long. He knew he had countless detractors and enemies who he contemptuously labelled "losers"and paid no heed to. Would this prove to be a miscalculation of monumental proportions or would he prevail?

What would you do if you were framed and sentenced to twenty years in an Asian prison? Would it make any difference if the heinous crimes that you’d gotten away with carried far longer sentences? Would knowing that your actions led directly to the suicide of your financial controller prick your conscience? Blind hate kept Douglas Aspine alive in Changi Prison. He had no conscience or compassion for those he had hurt, only the lust for revenge. Would this evil man succeed in bringing down those who had framed him?

This novel is a story of two working-class sisters, but the main protagonist is Paris, suburban Paris, the Paris of railway stations, cheap restaurants and cafe-concerts, and the passages that describe the music-halls and crowds of the Avenue de Maine and the Boulevard Saint Michel have a visual immediacy."

Huysmans (1848-1907) fue primero seguidor de Zola, para luego entrar en la corriente espiritual, decandente y refinada, en la que brillo también Villiers de L'isle-Adam, su gran amigo. A contrapelo es la gran novela de la ruptura con un Naturalismo ya exhausto. Es la novela de la nueva sensibilidad estética, inconformista, encarnada en su protagonista, el excéntrico duque Jean Floressas des Esseintes, quien tras haber llevado una vida mundana en un París que considera mediocre, decide marcharse a provincias, a una casa señorial situada en la localidad de Fontenay. En ese lugar construye un espacio adecuado, casi al detalle, a lo que él considera de su gusto y agrado. Una vez ya acomodado, el lector podrá adentrarse en esa figura iconoclasta, y conocer a un antihéore que detesta todo lo que parezca burgués o tenga ecos de un utilitarismo que ha invadido cada rincón de París, considerando que tal tendencia corrompe la vida y, sobre todo, el arte al ser el objetivo del artista el satisfacer a un público que paga y no el realizar obras sublimes.

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The Golden Days, begins the tale of Bao-yu, a gentle young boy who prefers girls to Confucian studies, and his two cousins: Bao-chai, his parents' choice of a wife for him, and the ethereal beauty Dai-yu. Through the changing fortunes of the Jia family, this rich, magical work sets worldly events - love affairs, sibling rivalries, political intrigues, even murder - within the context of the Buddhist understanding that earthly existence is an illusion and karma determines the shape of our lives.

"The Story of the Stone (c. 1760)", also known by the title of "The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "The Warning Voice" is the third, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour, realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence - a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things.

The Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the ôFour Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature." It is renowned for its huge scope, large cast of characters, and telling observations on the life and social structures of 18th century China and is considered by many to be the pinnacle of classical Chinese novels. The ôRed Chamberö is an expression used for the sheltered area where the daughters of wealthy Chinese families lived. Believed to be based on the authorÆs own life and intended as a memorial to the women that he knew in his youth, The Dream of the Red Chamber is a multilayered story that offers up key insights into Chinese culture.

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known by the title of "The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "The Debt of Tears" is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour, realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence a theme, which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things.

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The fifth part of Cao Xueqin's magnificent saga, The Dreamer Awakes, was carefully edited and completed by Gao E some decades later. It continues the story of the changing fortunes of the Jia dynasty, focussing on Bao-yu, now married to Bao-chai, after the tragic death of his beloved Dai-yu. Against such worldly elements as death, financial ruin, marriage, decadence and corruption, his karmic journey unfolds. Like a sleepwalker through life, Bao-yu is finally awakened by a vision, which reveals to him that life itself is merely a dream, 'as moonlight mirrored in the water'.

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known as "The Dream of the Red Chamber", is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The fifth part of Cao Xueqin's magnificent saga, "The Dreamer Awakes", was carefully edited and completed by Gao E some decades later. It continues the story of the changing fortunes of the Jia dynasty, focussing on Bao-yu, now married to Bao-chai, after the tragic death of his beloved Dai-yu. Against such worldly elements as death, financial ruin, marriage, decadence and corruption, his karmic journey unfolds. Like a sleepwalker through life, Bao-yu is finally awakened by a vision, which reveals to him that life itself is merely a dream, 'as moonlight mirrored in the water'.

Published for the first time in a faithful English translation, Unknown Soldiers is the story of a platoon of ordinary Finnish soldiers fighting their Soviet Union counterparts during the Second World War. Drawing on Linna's own wartime experiences, this gritty and realistic account shatters the myth of the noble, obedient Finnish soldier.

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends by Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904 was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress." Chekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text". Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.

In the follow-up to his National Translation Award-winning collection The Undiscovered Chekhov, translator and scholar Peter Constantine brings us more little-known work from the legendary author's early days as a magazine writer, pseudonymously turning out pieces for Russia's small middle class.  These stories are fresh, yet mature, snapshots of the style with which Chekhov would come to be associated, both uproariously tragic and darkly comic, and lit from within by a deep fellow feeling for all of humanity. As his readers have come expect, Constantine has translated this work with a masterly command of both languages' subtleties, capturing the shadings and intricacies of Chekhov's writing that flash and recede like sunlight on an orchard, offering Chekhov's tough and amused perspectives on daily phenomena like love, aging, class, and work. With moments that seem to presage the most contemporary writing, Chekhov's Little Apples reveals one of the world's greatest writers as we have rarely seen him, an author both deeply of his times and far ahead of them.

'I did have hallucinations, but did they harm anyone? Who did they harm, that's what I'd like to know!'

New translations of the greatest stories by the Russian master of the form Chekhov was without doubt one of the greatest observers of human nature in all its untidy complexity. His short stories, written throughout his life and newly translated for this essential collection, are exquisite masterpieces in miniature. Here are tales offering a glimpse of beauty, the memory of a mistaken kiss, daydreams of adultery, a lifetime of marital neglect, the frailty of life, the inevitability of death, and the hilarious pomposity of ordinary men and women. They range from the light­hearted comic tales of his early years to some of the most achingly profound stories ever composed. Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was born in Taganrog, Russia, the son of a grocer. While training as a doctor he supported his parents and siblings with his freelance writing, working as a journalist and composing hundreds of short comic pieces under a pen name for local magazines. In his twenties he began to write major works of drama, including The Seagull, Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard, but he continued to write extraordinary short stories up until his death from tuberculosis at the age of 44.

Raymond Carver called Anton Chekhov "the greatest short story writer who has ever lived." This unequivocal verdict on Chekhov's genius has been echoed many times by writers as diverse as Katherine Mansfield, Somerset Maugham, John Cheever and Tobias Wolf. While his popularity as a playwright has sometimes overshadowed his achievements in prose, the importance of Chekhov's stories is now recognized by readers as well as by fellow authors. Their themes - alienation, the absurdity and tragedy of human existence - have as much relevance today as when they were written, and these superb new translations capture their modernist spirit. Elusive and subtle, spare and unadorned, the stories in this selection are among Chekhov's most poignant and lyrical. The book includes well-known pieces such as The Lady with the Little Dog, as well as less familiar work like Gusev inspired by Chekhov's travels in the Far East, and Rothschild's Violin, a haunting and darkly humorous tale about death and loss. The stories are arranged chronologically to show the evolution of Chekhov's art. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This collection of Chekhov's finest early writing reveals a young writer mastering the art of the short story. 'The Steppe', which established his reputation, is the unforgettable tale of a boy's journey to a new school in Kiev, travelling through majestic landscapes towards an unknown destiny. 'Gusev' depicts an ocean voyage, where the sea takes on a terrifying, primeval power; 'The Kiss' portrays a shy soldier's failed romantic encounter; and in 'The Duel' two men's enmity ends in farce. Haunting and highly atmospheric, all the stories in this volume show a writer emerging from the shadow of his masters - Tolstoy, Turgenev and Gogol - and discovering his own voice. They also illustrate Chekhov's genius for evoking the natural world and exploring inner lives.

About This Book "Hate you!" Laevsky said quietly, breathing heavily. "I've hated you a long time!" This new translation of the literary masterpiece— which combines a beautiful romance with high suspense— is here presented for the first time as a stand-alone volume. One of Chekhov’s most important lengthy works, this remarkable story gives a startling twist to his classic, ongoing study of bourgeois romance when he sets it on a collision course with a decaying, Czarist concept of honor. It ends in the ultimate Chekhovian observation: that fate is often ludicrous. This Is An Enhanced eBook This eBook contains Illuminations—additional illustrated material that expand the world of Kleist’s novella through text and illustrations—at no additional charge.  "Illuminations" contains writings by Mikhail Lermontov - Ivan Goncharov - Alexander Pushkin - Herbert Spencer - Friedrich Nietzsche - Jack London - Thomas Paine - Francis Bacon - Charles McKay – And a guide to the game of vint. Full-color illustrations include: William Hogarth - James Joseph Tissot - Jan Steen - The Shahnameh and more. Also Included: “Against The Duel: Writing In Protest of Dueling”

Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics (1899), as well as several lesser-known works, no less masterful in their composition. David Plante is a Professor of Writing at Columbia University. He is the author of many novels, including The Ghost of Henry James, The Family (nominated for the National Book Award), and The Woods. He has been a contributor to The New Yorker, Esquire, and Vogue, and a reviewer and features writer for the New York Times Book Review. The cook's wedding -- The witch -- A dead body -- Easter Eve -- On the road -- The dependents -- Grisha -- The kiss -- Typhus -- The pipe -- The princess -- Neighbours -- The grasshopper -- In exile -- Ward No. 6 -- Rothschild's fiddle -- The student -- The darling -- A doctor's visit -- Gooseberries -- The Lady with the dog -- In the ravine -- The bishop.

set in Tsarist Russian milieux — reveal noted author's skills in character, nuance and setting development. Includes "The Black Monk" (1894), "The House with the Mezzanine" (1896), "The Peasants" (1897), "Gooseberries" (1898) and "The Lady with the Toy Dog" (1899).

Anton Chekhov's only full-length novel, this Penguin Classics edition of The Shooting Party is translated and edited by Ronald Wilks, with an introduction by John Sutherland. The Shooting Party centers on Olga, the pretty young daughter of a drunken forester on a country estate, and her fateful relationships with the men in her life. Adored by Urbenin, the estate manager, whom she marries to escape the poverty of her home, she is also desired by the dissolute Count Karneyev and by Zinovyev, a magistrate, who knows the secret misery of her marriage. When an attempt is made on Olga's life in the woods, it seems impossible to discover the perpetrator in an impenetrable web of lust, deceit, loathing and double-dealing. One of Chekhov's earliest experiments in fiction combines the classic elements of a gripping mystery with a short story of corruption, concealed love and fatal jealousy. Ronald Wilks's brilliant new translation of this work is the first in over seventy years. It brilliantly captures the immediacy of the dialogue that Chekhov was later to develop into his great dramas. This edition also includes an introduction by John Sutherland, suggestions for further reading and explanatory notes. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov. In 1879 he travelled to Moscow, where he entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years, he supported his family by contributing humorous stories and sketches to magazines. He published his first volume of stories, Motley Tales, in 1886, and a year later his second volume In the Twilight, for which he received the Pushkin Prize. Today his plays, including 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Seagull', and 'The Cherry Orchard' are recognised as masterpieces the world over. If you enjoyed The Shooting Party, you might like Chekhov's Plays, also available in Penguin Classics.

If any writer can be said to have invented the modern short story, it is Anton Chekhov. It is not just that Chekhov democratized this art form; more than that, he changed the thrust of short fiction from relating to revealing. And what marvelous and unbearable things are revealed in these Forty Stories. The abashed happiness of a woman in the presence of the husband who abandoned her years before. The obsequious terror of the official who accidentally sneezes on a general. The poignant astonishment of an aging Don Juan overtaken by love. Spanning the entirety of Chekhov's career and including such masterpieces as "Surgery," "The Huntsman," "Anyuta," "Sleepyhead," "The Lady With the Pet Dog," and "The Bishop," this collection manages to be amusing, dazzling, and supremely moving—often within a single page.

These critically hailed translations of The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and the other Chekhov plays are the only ones in English by a Russian-language scholar who is also a veteran Chekhovian actor. Without compromising the spirit of the text, Paul Schmidt accurately translates Chekhov's entire theatrical canon, rescuing the humor "lost" in most academic translations while respecting the historical context and original social climate. Schmidt's translations of Chekhov have been successfully staged all over the U.S. by such theatrical directors as Lee Strasberg, Elizabeth Swados, Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson. Critics have hailed these translations as making Chekhov fully accessible to American audiences. They are also accurate -- Schmidt has been described as "the gold standard in Russian-English translation" by Michael Holquist of the Russian department at Yale University. Swan song -- The bear -- The proposal -- Ivanov -- The seagull -- A reluctant tragic hero -- The wedding reception -- The festivities -- Uncle Vanya -- Three sisters -- The dangers of tobacco -- The cherry orchard.

In the final years of his life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, and also produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces. The poignant 'The Lady with the Little Dog' and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage - its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. And in stories such as 'Peasants', 'The House with the Mezzanine' and 'My Life' Chekhov paints a vivid picture of the conditions of the poor and of their powerlessness in the face of exploitation and hardship. With the works collected here, Chekhov moved away from the realism of his earlier tales - developing a broader range of characters and subject matter, while forging the spare minimalist style that would inspire such modern short-story writers as Hemingway and Faulkner.

The Undiscovered Chekhov gives us, in rich abundance, a new Chekhov. Peter Constantine's historic collection presents 38 new stories and with them a fresh interpretation of the Russian master. In contrast to the brooding representative of a dying century we have seen over and over, here is Chekhov's work from the 1880s, when Chekhov was in his twenties and his writing was sharp, witty and innovative. Many of the stories in The Undiscovered Chekhov reveal Chekhov as a keen modernist. Emphasizing impressions and the juxtaposition of incongruent elements, instead of the straight narrative his readers were used to, these stories upturned many of the assumptions of storytelling of the period. Here is "Sarah Bernhardt Comes to Town," written as a series of telegrams, beginning with "Have been drinking to Sarah's health all week! Enchanting! She actually dies standing up!..." In "Confession...," a thirty-nine year old bachelor recounts some of the fifteen times chance foiled his marriage plans. In "How I Came to be Lawfully Wed," a couple reminisces about the day they vowed to resist their parents' plans that they should marry. And in the more familiarly Chekhovian "Autumn," an alcoholic landowner fallen low and a peasant from his village meet far from home in a sad and haunting reunion in which the action of the story is far less important than the powerful impression it leaves with the reader that each man must live his life and has his reasons.

The ever maturing art and ever more ambitious imaginative reach of Anton Chekhov, one of the world's greatest masters of the short story, led him in his last years to an increasingly profound exploration of the troubled depths of Russian society and life. This powerful and revealing selection from Chekhov's final works, made by the legendary American critic Edmund Wilson, offers stories of novelistic richness and complexity, published in the only formatp edition to present them in chronological order. Table of Contents 003 A Woman’s Kingdom (1894) 053 Three Years (1895) 161 The Murder (1895) 199 My Life (1896) 311 Peasants (1897) 363 The New Villa (1899) 383 In The Ravine (1900) 433 The Bishop (1902) 455 Betrothed (1903)

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life. Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman” and the tour de force “A Boring Story,” to his best-known stories such as “The Lady with the Little Dog” and his own personal favorite, “The Student,” Chekhov’s short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Considered one of the greatest dramatists of all time, Anton Chekhov began his literary career as a crime and mystery writer. Scattered throughout periodicals and literary journals from 1880-1890, these early psychological suspense stories provide a fresh look into Chekhov’s literary heritage and his formative years as a writer. In stories like "A Night in the Cemetery," "Night of Horror," and "Murder," not only will Chekhov’s dark humor and twisted crimes satisfy even the most hardboiled of mystery fans, readers will again appreciate the penetrating, absurdist insight into the human condition that only Chekhov can bring. Whether it is the death of a young amateur playwright at the hands of an editor who hates bad writing, or a drunken civil servant who ends up trapped in a graveyard, these stories overflow with the unforgettable characters and unique sensibility that continue to make Chekhov one of the most fascinating figures in literature.

"* Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world.* "

Published to tie in with the world premiere at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces, forces rooted deep in history and in the society around them. Their estate is hopelessly in debt: urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they struggle to act decisively. Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness.

Chekhov's worldwide reputation as a dramatist rests on five great plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. All are presented in this collection, taken from the authoritative Oxford Chekhov, in Ronald Hingley's acclaimed translation. Hingley has also written an introduction specifically for this volume in which he provides a detailed history of Chekhov's involvement in the theater and an assessment of his accomplishment as a dramatist.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Cherry Orchard’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Chekhov includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: The complete unabridged text of ‘The Cherry Orchard’ Beautifully illustrated with images related to Chekhov’s works Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

A rich and compelling story about four generations of magnificent women, celebrating the love, pride, sacrifice, devotion, and unheralded triumph of all women's lives.

Romantic love and its power to shake a woman's life at any age is the subject of this new novel by Marilyn French. At the center, Hermione Beldame, in her sixties, a writer of romance novels (eighty-seven of them, an average of two a year for forty years). She is rich, sophisticated, self-made, often di-vorced, long widowed, and long finished with the notion of romantic love as a part of her life. Until, one day, at a party - she sees across the room an attractive man who finds his way to her. What begins as a charming conversation between two strangers develops into much more (and much less) as the novel charts the course of a brief encounter that disrupts the equilibrium - the hard-won serenity - of its heroine, seizing her heart and her life during her summer with George.

By the author of the groundbreaking feminist novel THE WOMEN'S ROOM, THE BLEEDING HEART is a compelling novel about the devastating power of marriage -- and the unexpected power of love. A love story for and about adults, it speaks to the hearts and minds of women and men everywhere. Dolores and Victor are both both successful, both Americans living alone in England. They meet and fall instantly in love, only to discover they agree on nothing. From the start they know they have only one year together. Their affair is sometimes bitter, always passionate, and, in the end, an extraordinary revelation for them both. "A monumental achievement." -- Cosmopolitan

Marilyn French, author of My Summer with George, The Women's Room, and Her Mother's Daughter, learns at the beginning of this memoir that she has esophageal cancer. (A smoker for 46 years, she had ignored friends and doctors who implored her to quit.) She is told that one survives metastasized esophageal cancer. A Season in Hell is French's personal story of her journey through the nightmares of aggressive cancer treatment, seizures, a two-week coma, kindhearted nurses, and uncompassionate doctors. One told her not to get her hopes up when her tumor disappeared, and a neurologist said (prophetically?), "Doctors hate writers; they always say horrible things about us." It is also French's story of triumph--because she succeeds in conquering the cancer, though she emerges from the struggle far from well, with "just about every system in my body [damaged] by chemotherapy or radiation." Readers share the worst and the best with French, and by the end of the book get to know this woman, feel a part of her humanity, respect her courage, and cherish her circle of close friends (including Gloria Steinem) and relatives who gave her so much when she needed it most. --Joan Price

"FRENCH'S MOST FOCUSED, DARING, AND POWERFUL NOVEL." --New Woman Famed presidential advisor Stephen Upton has suffered a stroke, and his four very different daughters gather in his perfectly appointed mansion outside Boston to await his death or recovery. Elizabeth, cold and calculating, fights hard for every success and pays a high price; beautiful Mary has always needed a man to support her tastes, but time is catching up with her; Alex can't remember her childhood and wants to know why; and Ronnie, illegitimate and proud, refuses to acknowledge her feelings for the man they all love and hate. In the weeks to come, they will learn one another's terrible secrets, and the astonishing truth about the life they might have shared.... Once again, Marilyn French has written an extraordinary novel of our times--a novel of family love and resentment, of sisterhood and fatherhood, of acceptance and rejection and the search for peace. "SHOULD STRIKE A CHORD WITH EVERY WOMAN who is willing to think honestly about the place of femaleness in the world." --Chicago Tribune

An alternate cover edition can be found here. The bestselling feminist novel that awakened both women and men, The Women's Room follows the transformation of Mira Ward and her circle as the women's movement begins to have an impact on their lives. A biting social commentary on an emotional world gone silently haywire, The Women's Room is a modern classic that offers piercing insight into the social norms accepted so blindly and revered so completely. Marilyn French questions those accepted norms and poignantly portrays the hopeful believers looking for new truths.

Twelve of Shakespeare's greatest tales come to life in this entertaining collection of short, lively stories specially adapted for young readers. Capturing the vital events and using some of the original wording, the stories serve as a perfect introduction to Shakespeare for preteens and as literate refreshers for older folks. Fulfilling a request from her own children, author Edith Nesbit turned twelve of the Bard's most famous plays into delightful tales of kings, queens, ghosts, and witches. Filled with tragedy, humor, and moral lessons, the stories--told with wit and grace--include "Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cymbeline, The Taming of the Shrew, Pericles, "and "The Winter's Tale." Wonderfully transformed by the noted author of children's books, these classics are a great way to start a lifelong interest in the works of Shakespeare.