Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
On The Eve - cover

On The Eve

Iván Turguénev

Publisher: Flip

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

On the Eve is the third novel by famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, best known for his short stories and the novel Fathers and Sons. Turgenev embellishes this love story with observations on middle class life and interposes some art and philosophy. Nikolay Dobrolyubov was critical of On the Eve, offending Turgenev. The story revolves around Elena, a girl with a hypochondriac mother and an idle father, a retired guards lieutenant with a mistress. On the eve of the Crimean War, Elena is pursued by a free-spirited sculptor (Shubin) and a serious-minded student (Berzyenev). But when Berzyenev's revolutionary Bulgarian friend, Insarov, meets Elena, they fall in love. In secretly marrying Insarov Elena disappoints her mother and enrages her father, who had hoped to marry her to a dull, self-satisfied functionary, Kurnatovski. Insarov nearly dies from pneumonia and only partly recovers. On the outbreak of war Insarov tries to return with Elena to Bulgaria, but tragically dies in Venice. Elena takes Insarov's body to the Balkans for burial and then vanishes.
Available since: 06/13/2018.

Other books that might interest you

  • Until Leaves Fall in Paris - cover

    Until Leaves Fall in Paris

    Sarah Sundin

    • 1
    • 2
    • 1
    As the Nazis march toward Paris in 1940, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. Lucie struggles to run Green Leaf Books due to oppressive German laws and harsh conditions, but she finds a way to aid the resistance by passing secret messages between the pages of her books. 
     
    Widower Paul Aubrey wants nothing more than to return to the States with his little girl, but the US Army convinces him to keep his factory running and obtain military information from his German customers. As the war rages on, Paul offers his own resistance by sabotaging his product and hiding British airmen in his factory. After they meet in the bookstore, Paul and Lucie are drawn to each other, but she rejects him when she discovers he sells to the Germans. And for Paul to win her trust would mean betraying his mission. 
     
    Master of WWII-era fiction Sarah Sundin invites you onto the streets of occupied Paris to discover whether love or duty will prevail.
    Show book
  • Love Strikes a Devil - cover

    Love Strikes a Devil

    Barbara Cartland

    • 1
    • 7
    • 0
    The beautiful young Charisa Templeton has always loved her father’s old friend, the Marquis of Mawdelyn, and as a child she roamed Mawdelyn Priory with his nephew, Vincent, whom she adored.
     
    And her father, who is a rich man, has helped support The Priory through difficult times and Charisa is his only child.
     
    Greatly saddened to hear that the charming Marquis has died, she is however glad that his heir, Vincent, will be coming home soon from his Army posting in India to claim his title and estate. 
     
    But then Fate strikes another blow with the news that Vincent has been killed in India. Reluctantly Charisa and her father prepare to welcome the next in line to the Marquisate, the  half-French Gervais Mawde, who no one seems to know anything about.
     
    But as soon as he arrives at The Priory they sense that something is wrong. Penniless, he immediately sets about selling off the family treasures and dismissing loyal servants, even the Vicar! 
     
    Worse still he forces his attentions onto the shy and unworldly Charisa. But just as she begins to despair, her prayers are answered and Vincent appears, alive but in terrible danger. 
     
    Someone is trying to kill him and now they realise who! None other than Gervais, who is not only a murderer but also a Devil worshipper and is planning to use innocent Charisa in a Satanic Black Mass. 
     
    The burning question is, can love conquer the forces of darkness?
    Show book
  • Kiss from a Stranger - cover

    Kiss from a Stranger

    Barbara Cartland

    • 0
    • 12
    • 0
    Horrified when her beloved dog, Rufus, is caught in a cruel snare while out walking in the estate of Arrow Castle, local Parson’s daughter Shenda is at first relieved when a handsome stranger comes to poor Rufus’s rescue and then at once she is abashed and confused when he claims a kiss – Shenda’s very first – as his reward.
     
    But then she is told that her father has been killed by a savage bull and that she must leave the family’s Vicarage forthwith. Penniless Shenda is obliged to take a job at Arrow Castle as a seamstress, where she stumbles across a letter from one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s spies to Society beauty Lucille Gratton, ‘the most beautiful Lady in England’, who is staying at The Castle. 
    
    Reporting the discovery to the Earl, she finds that he is no other than her ‘gentleman stranger’ and just as she realises that she is falling in love with the heroic Earl of Arrow, she is embroiled in a counter-espionage plot that puts her young life – and her love for the Earl – in deadly peril.
    Show book
  • Women have Hearts - cover

    Women have Hearts

    Barbara Cartland

    • 1
    • 4
    • 0
    Pretty young Kelda Lawrence arrived at Mrs. Gladwin’s Seminary for Young Ladies when she was fifteen, coming from the orphanage where she was sent for three years after her father and mother were tragically killed in an earthquake travelling in Turkey.
     
    At the Seminary she makes a firm friend in the beautiful Yvette de Villon who, although also an orphan, is from a wealthy French extended family.
     
    One day Yvette comes to Kelda feeling tearful and distraught because she has been summoned to go and live with her English uncle.
     
    This, Kelda thinks, does not sound so bad until Yvette explains that her uncle is ‘horrible’ and worse still lives in Dakar in the French West African Colony of Senegal as a recluse in a huge mansion..
     
    When none of the school’s Mistresses agree to accompany Yvette, to Kelda’s amazement the Headmistress instructs her to go with her to Senegal and look after her until she can be handed over safely to her uncle in Dakar.
     
    And so begins Kelda’s great adventure – and, when Yvette falls head over heels in love to a good-looking young man on the voyage, she and her new beau enlist Kelda in their plan to gain the acceptance of Yvette’s uncle to their marriage.
     
    There are severe problems when they arrive in Dakar as Yvette’s uncle has already promised Yvette’s hand in marriage to the Governor-General.
     
    Little do any of them know that Kelda too is soon to lose her heart!
    Show book
  • The Hidden Heart - cover

    The Hidden Heart

    Barbara Cartland

    • 0
    • 4
    • 0
    When her mother dies, lovely Sylvia Mace is left penniless and homeless. Rather than depend on the charity of her unpleasant uncle she must find work and is entrusted with the upbringing of Sir Robert’s daughter at Sheldon Hall. But a sinister secret overshadows all those living at the Hall, which is ruled by a possessive and ambitious old dowager, Lady Clementine.
     
    In a cruel twist of fate, a murder is revealed by a spurned mistress leading to another death, and Sylvia must choose between her love of the child and her hidden love for Sir Robert. With few people she can trust, she runs to safety, but her ward lies dangerously ill. How the secrets of the past are exposed, and how she returns to the Hall to save the lives of those she loves are all revealed in this thrilling tale of betrayal, lies and overwhelming love.
    Show book
  • Journey to Paradise - cover

    Journey to Paradise

    Barbara Cartland

    • 0
    • 4
    • 0
    Desperate to escape her fate, Kamala runs away from her brutal uncle who was to force her into a marriage with an even more brutal man of sixty. On her way to Southampton she meets a stranger, but after a hunting accident she nurses him back to health, which is the beginning of a series of adventures for them both.  An audacious plan sees them boarding a ship destined for Mexico. But when they arrive, they have to face the deadly threats of a Spanish Don who has set his sights on only one prize… Set in 1839, this thrilling tale across land and sea charters their exciting but dangerous journey, before their mutual bravery and love takes them to paradise.
    Show book