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  Silence (CopyrightGroup)

  Leonid Andreyev

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  Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev was born on 21st August in Oryol, Russia to a middle-class family of Polish, Ukranian and Finnish ancestry. 
   
  He studied law in Moscow before working as a police-court reporter for a daily newspaper.  His literary efforts at this time were confined to poetry and those he did try to get published were all rejected.  
   
  In 1898 his first short story ‘Bargamot and Garaska’, published in the ‘Kurier’ newspaper caught the attention and friendship of Maxim Gorky.  Andreyev now discarded any other career path apart from that of author. 
   
  His first collection of short stories appeared in 1901 and sold over a quarter of a million copies.  He was a sensation. Using his interest in psychology and psychiatry gave him an almost unrivalled ability to delve into the human psyche and create astonishing characters. 
   
  During the first Russian revolution Andreyev was a staunch defender of democratic ideals and many of his stories reflected the heated mood of the times. With the 1905 Revolution’s failure his work became pessimistic and despairing. By the beginning of the following decade he began losing his audience to new literary movements such as the Futurists. 
   
  He published little after 1914 except political writings, instead working as the literary editor of the ‘Russian Will’ newspaper.  When the Bolsheviks took power he sensed catastrophe was coming and moved to Finland where he spent his last years in poverty distraught at the outcome of the Revolution. 
   
  Leonid Andreyev died of heart failure on 12th September 1919 at the age of 48 in Mustamäki, Finland. 
   
  His classic story ‘Silence’ is a haunting and a desperately sad account of a family broken by death and unable to reconcile their feelings.

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  The Canterbury Tales

  Geoffrey Chaucer

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  This classic work of medieval literature features the pious and profane stories of commoners on a pilgrimage in fourteenth-century England.   One of the most famous works of literature written in Middle English, The Canterbury Tales were penned by Geoffrey Chaucer, who was widely regarded as the greatest poet of his time. The stories “run the gamut of tales known to people in the Middle Ages and include ribald stories such as the ‘Miller’s Tale’ and the ‘Reeve’s Tale’; medieval romances set against ancient backgrounds such as the ‘Knight’s Tale’; animal fables such as the ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’; Arthurian legends such as the ‘Wife of Bath’s Tale’; saint’s lives such as the “Prioress’ Tale”; and the “Second Nun’s Tale”; tragic tales, sort of, such as the Monk’s Tale’; and cautionary tales, such as the Pardoner’s Tale.’ . . . It is rightly considered one of the masterworks of English literature” (The Kansas City Public Library).   “A raucous read.” —The Guardian

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  Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It was first published on 14 October 1892; the individual stories had been serialised in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. The stories are not in chronological order, and the only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson. The stories are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.In general the stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes identify, and try to correct, social injustices. Holmes is portrayed as offering a new, fairer sense of justice. The stories were well received, and boosted the subscriptions figures of The Strand Magazine, prompting Doyle to be able to demand more money for his next set of stories. The first story, "A Scandal in Bohemia", includes the character of Irene Adler, who, despite being featured only within this one story by Doyle, is a prominent character in modern Sherlock Holmes adaptations, generally as a love interest for Holmes. Doyle included four of the twelve stories from this collection in his twelve favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, picking "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" as his overall favourite.Content: I. A Scandal in Bohemia / II. The Red-Headed League / III. A Case of Identity / IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery / V. The Five Orange Pips / VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip / VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle / VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band / IX. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb / X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor / XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet / XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

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  Crime and Punishment

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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  Crime and Punishment is set in the claustrophobic slums of St Petersburg in the heat of the summer. The novel's setting mirrors the inner life of the main characters as they struggle with their problems of grinding poverty. Central to the plot are the thoughts and actions of Rodion Raskolnikoff, an embittered yet idealistic student who is disastrously influenced by new ideas on morality. He is finally redeemed through the love of Sonia, a prostitute who is also a devout Christian, and the cool wisdom of Porphyrius, a magistrate.

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  Secret Places of the Heart The...

  H. G. Wells

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  The Secret Places of the Heart was written at a time when Wells was obsessed with the teaching of history and it is, in his own words, 'saturated with the historical idea'. It was also written at a time when he was heavily overworked. He had completed the immense task of writing The Outline of History and was simultaneously at work on The Salvaging of Civilisation, a series of lectures planned for delivery in the United States, and A Short History of the World. The Secret Places of the Heart bears all the signs of having been prepared during a phase when Wells was tired and ill, and despite much interesting dialogue it is one of his least successful discussion novels.

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  War and Peace - Book 12: 1812...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  War and Peace is a literary work mixed with chapters on history and philosophy by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It was first published serially, then published in its entirety in 1869. It is regarded as one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements and remains an internationally praised classic of world literature.Book 12: 1812: In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties of Rumyántsev, the French, Márya Fëdorovna, the Tsarévich, and others, drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones.

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