Other books that might interest you

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  Jane Eyre

  Charlotte Brontë

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  Jane Eyre, the beloved heroine, is for many their first introduction to a truly independent female character in classic literature. Charlotte Bronte develops an assertive and passionate character in Jane, whose search for belonging and freedom remains refreshingly relevant for the modern-day reader. 

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  The Way to Wealth

  Benjamin Franklin

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  Benjamin Franklin toiled to become one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. It’s no more evident than in The Way to Wealth, as the main character espouses Franklin’s wisdom to an unsuspecting crowd of shoppers. Listen to adage after adage that have stood the test of time and ring true even today. 
  Originally published in 1810.

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  Souls of Black Folk The...

  W.E.B. DuBois

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  This landmark book is a founding work in the literature of black protest. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) played a key role in developing the strategy and program that dominated early 20th-century black protest in America. In this collection of essays, first published together in 1903, he eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy advanced by Booker T. Washington, then the most influential black leader in America, would only serve to perpetuate black oppression. Publication of The Souls of Black Folk was a dramatic event that helped to polarize black leaders into two groups: the more conservative followers of Washington and the more radical supporters of aggressive protest. Its influence cannot be overstated. It is essential reading for everyone interested in African-American history and the struggle for civil rights in America.

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  Russian Short Story The - Volume...

  Anton Chekhov, Helena Blavatsky,...

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  The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length.  Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature. 
   
  Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story.  These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.   
   
  The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own.  It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity. 
   
  In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire. 
   
  The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.  
   
  Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced. 
   
  01 - The Russian Short Story - Volume 4 - An Introduction 
  02 - The Sentry by Nikolai Lyeskov 
  03 - A Witch's Den by Helena Blavatsky 
  04 - The General's Will by Vera Jelihovsky 
  05 - The Old Bell Ringer by Vladimir Korolenko 
  06 - The Shades, A Phantasy by Vladimir Korolenko 
  07 - The Signal by Vsevolod Garshin 
  08 - Dethroned by I N Potapenko 
  09 - The Kiss by Anton Chekhov 
  10 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 
  11 - The Bet by Anton Chekhov 
  12 - Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov

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  The Great God Pan

  Arthur Machen

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  "one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language." - Stephen KingA tense and creepy horror story, The Great God Pan revolves around the mysterious "Mrs Vaughan" and the tide of death she leaves in her wake. Can she be stopped? What connection does she have to a certain illegal experiment performed some twenty years earlier? Or horrendous goings on at a sleepy welsh rural village? Inspired  by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. "The Great God Pan" received positive approval from Oscar Wilde, Lovecraft and others, and is considered a Horror Masterpiece.Narrated by Michael Ward.

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  The Daughter of Pontius Pilate -...

  Ivan Vazov

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  Ivan Minchov Vazov was born on the 9th July 1850 (although that date is disputed) in the town of Sopot, in Bulgaria, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.  
   
  After primary education at the local school he was sent to Kalofer to continue his studies and work as an assistant teacher.  He later spent a short time in Plodiv where he began to write poetry. 
   
  Fascinated by literature he abandoned work as an apprentice to move to Brăila, in Romania, where he lived with exiled revolutionaries and befriended the poet Hristo Botev. 
   
  By 1874, he had joined the struggle for independence from the Ottomans and returned to Sopot. After the failure of the 1876 uprising he had to flee the country, going back to Galaţi, in Romania, where most of the surviving revolutionaries were exiled. There he was appointed a secretary of the committee. 
   
  In 1876 he published his first work, ‘Priaporetz and Gusla’, followed by ‘Bulgaria's Sorrows’ in 1877. 
   
  Bulgaria regained its independence in 1878 as a result of the Russo-Turkish War and Vazov wrote the famous ‘Epic of the Forgotten’.  He now became the editor of the political reviews Science and Dawn.  
   
  Exile was forced upon him once again due to the persecution of the Russophile political faction. Later he returned to Bulgaria with his mother’s help, and started teaching and then became a civil servant. 
   
  He moved to Sofia in 1889 where he started publishing the review Dennitsa. 
   
  His 1888 novel ‘Under the Yoke’, depicting Ottoman oppression, is his most famous work and has been translated into over 30 languages. 
   
  During his life he became a prominent and widely respected figure in the social and cultural life of Bulgaria.  
   
  In 1917, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. 
   
  Ivan Vazov died on September 22nd, 1921.  He was 71.

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