Publisher: Sovereign
The story follows a separatist guerrilla Murat who falls out with his own commander and eventually sides with the Imperial Russian forces in hope of saving his family. Tolstoy collected material for this novel from events he witnessed while serving in the Caucasus, according to letters he wrote to his brother Sergei.
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.OF THE NEW REIGN: The bunting and the crimson vanish from the streets. Already the vast army of improvised carpenters that the Coronation has created set themselves to the work of demolition, and soon every road that converges upon Central London will be choked again with great loads of timber-but this time going outward-as our capital emerges from this unprecedented inundation of loyalty. The most elaborately conceived, the most stately of all recorded British Coronations is past.Show book
This timeless science fiction classic, depicting mans struggle by technologically superior invaders from Mars. Narrated by Michael WardShow book
Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" is a piercing exploration of the constraints and conventions of upper-class society in New York during the Gilded Age. The novel tells the story of Newland Archer, a privileged lawyer engaged to the conventional and lovely May Welland. However, the sudden arrival of May's cousin, Ellen Olenska, who has fled a disastrous marriage in Europe, disrupts Archer's settled life. As he grows increasingly captivated by Ellen, Archer grapples with his commitment to May and his deep longing for a life less bounded by societal norms. Wharton's novel, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921, skillfully dissects the complexities of love, passion, and duty, all set against a backdrop of fading aristocratic values.Show book
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 2 - An Introduction 02 - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol 03 - Taman by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov 04 - The Jew by Ivan Turgenev 05 - The Rendezvous by Ivan Turgenev 06 - A Strange Story by Ivan Turgenev 07 - Mumu by Ivan Turgenev 08 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 09 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 10 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor DostoyevskyShow book
Facts concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family is a horror short story written by H.P. Lovecraft. As Lovecraft's both parents died in a mental hospital, it is believed that Lovecraft handled some of his own family issues in this very story.Show book
"Boots" by Anton Chekhov tells the story of Murkin, a piano-tuner who, due to a mistake by the hotel attendant Semyon, is left without his boots. Semyon admits to having accidentally taken the boots to the neighboring actress's room, but upon retrieving them, Murkin discovers they are not his. They belong to Pavel Alexandritch, an actor who only stays at the hotel on Tuesdays and who is now unreachable. Murkin is desperate to find his own boots as he has an appointment with a client, Madame la Générale Shevelitsyn. Semyon suggests that Murkin wears the boots that are left, even though they are two left boots and full of holes. Murkin is hesitant, but in the end, he puts them on and goes to Madame la Générale Shevelitsyn's house. He is ridiculed by the servants, and his client cannot contain her laughter. The story shows the hardships faced by the poor, and the difficulties people go through to make ends meet. Read in English, unabridged.Show book
