Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (1870-1938) was Russian novelist and short-story writer. He was an army officer for several years before he resigned to pursue a writing career, and was a friend of Maxim Go…
In its adventurous happenings, its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues, A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820…
In this powerful and brutal short story, Leskov demonstrates the enduring truth of the Shakespearean archetype joltingly displaced to the heartland of Russia. Chastened and stifled by her marriage of …
Written in 1831, this dark tale relates the adventures of Vakula, the blacksmith, in his fight against the devil, who has stolen the moon above the village of Dikanka and is wreaking havoc on its inha…
Oscar Wilde's audacious drama of social scandal centres around the revelation of Mrs Arbuthnot's long-concealed secret. A house party is in full swing at Lady Hunstanton's country home, when it is ann…
The Little Mermaid is one of the most haunting stories ever written. Its author, Hans Christian Andersen, made the literary fairy tale so much his own that even today no writer has surpassed him.
Usually interpreted as a diatribe against the Chernyshevsky generation, it is a work that is often referred to, but rarely read. Cioran's translation is not only readable, but is evocative of the wit …
"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and…
While his literary reputation rests mainly on such celebrated novels as Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, Dostoyevsky also wrote much superb short fiction. The Double is one…
In no other work does Kafka reveal himself as in the Letters to Milena, which begin essentially as a business correspondence but soon develop into a passionate "letter love." Milena Jesenská was a gif…
