Other books that might interest you

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  Lazarus (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 ‘Lazarus’ brilliantly tells the story of Christ’s disciple, forced to wander the earth for all time it is both chilling and heart-breaking in its Russian setting.

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  The Apology of Socrates

  Plato

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  The Apology (of Socrates) is Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man "who corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods, and created new deities". "Apology" here has its earlier meaning (now usually expressed by the word "apologia") of speaking in defense of a cause or of one's beliefs or actions.

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  Frankenstein - or The Modern...

  Mary Shelley

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  In the frozen wastes north of Russia, a lone seaward vessel seeks the elusive Northwest Passage. Suddenly they sight a dog sled with a gargantuan figure in the shape of a man, driving the dogs northward to sure oblivion. The following day, they find another sled. This sled is filled with a European near death, and when asked what he is chasing, he simply replies, "to seek one who fled from me."

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  Three Men in a Boat

  Jerome K.

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  A witty account of three friends' boating adventure along the river Thames. Wtritten in the nineteenth century the humour is still accessible to a modern audience. Read by celebrated actor Sir Timothy Ackroyd

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  The Pit and the Pendulum

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  “I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony,” begins one of the most famous tales from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. Through the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, we follow the straying mind of an unnamed prisoner in his quest for hope in a world of darkness and despair.

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  Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV:...

  James Joyce

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  Bloomsday on Broadway celebrates June 16, 1904, the most famous fictional date in literature, when Leopold Bloom walked around Dublin in the pages of James Joyce's Ulysses. Since 1981, Hundreds of acclaimed actors have joined avid Joyceans, writers, critics and scholars on stage at Symphony Space to read selections from the book that heralded the birth of modern literature. Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Leopold's Women Bloom was recorded at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City on Thursday, June 16th 2005 from 7pm until after midnight, broadcast live on WBAI and streamed over the internet on The Bloomsday Radio Network at symphonyspace.org.

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