This collection of eleven essays originally appeared in France thirty years ago and created a literary whirlwind on the Left Bank. Cioran writes incisively about Western civilizations, the writer, the…
Born of a terrible insomnia—"a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell"—this book presents the youthful Emil Cioran, a self-described "Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra,…
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious author interested in human psychology. He is regarded as a leading pioneer of existentialism and one of the greatest philosophers …
In this dark and compelling short novel, Dostoevsky tells the story of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young tutor working in the household of an imperious Russian general. Alexey tries to break through the wall…
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her …
Fernando Pessoa was many writers in one. He attributed his prolific writings to a wide range of alternate selves, each of which had a distinct biography, ideology, and horoscope. When he died in 1935,…
When it appeared in 1924, this work launched into the international spotlight a young and unknown poet whose writings would ignite a generation. W. S. Merwin's incomparable translation faces the origi…
This is Goethe's first novel, published in 1774. Written in diary form, it tells the tale of an unhappy, passionate young man hopelessly in love with Charlotte, the wife of a friend - a man who he alt…
Bazarov—a gifted, impatient, and caustic young man—has journeyed from school to the home of his friend Arkady Kirsanov. But soon Bazarov’s outspoken rejection of authority and social conventions touch…
Our first meeting with Sherlock Holmes. And John Watson's too! The young doctor is astonished by Holmes' many idiosyncrasies, including his talents on the violin.
