“How much pain and suffering must a man endure in the name of the child, for the breach of trust, oath and honor for a land he so dearly loved, for its people insofar as he WAS PREPARED to give his life for the freedom of others for the preservation of laws of mankind, for the true love and dedication before of his Queen”?

Ranging in scope from lengthy novellas to fables and folktales only a few pages long, Leo Tolstoy’s short fiction provides a marvelous opportunity to become closely acquainted with Russia’s great novelist.Volume 2 of the Collected Shorter Fiction reveals howTolstoy’s growing spiritual preoccupations flowered into a series of extraordinary late masterpieces that equal anything in the earlier novels for intensity and power. Readers of The Death of Iván Ilých, The Kreutze...

Written over a period of more than half a century, Leo Tolstoy’s stories reflect every aspect of his art and personality. They cover his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his cult of truth and simplicity, and his growing preoccupation with religion.The stories in Volume 1 of the Collected Shorter Fiction date from the period in which the young Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

Ford masterfully combines his trademark subtlety and complexity in this masterful tetralogy that follows Christopher Tietjens, an officer and a gentleman, as he traverses the tumultuous path leading from Edwardian England to World War I. Against the chaotic backdrop of a world at war, the complicated sexual warfare between Tietjens and his sadistic wife, Sylvia, comes to a head while Tietjens is faced with a deteriorating sense of self and an increasingly ruinous life.

"A feminist classic."—Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review“A pivotal book, one of those after which we will never think the same again.”—Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Washington Post Book WorldA pathbreaking book of literary criticism is now reissued with a new introduction by Lisa Appignanesi that speaks to how The Madwoman in the Attic set the groundwork for subsequent generations of scholars writing about women ...

This collection of short stories by some of Russia’s most famous authors is beautifully illustrated with nearly 20 wonderful images to amplify the narrative. Simply gorgeous!From Chekhov to Gorky, Pushkin to Dostoyevsky, Russian writers have long been celebrated for their excellent short fiction. Even Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace, one of the longest novels ever written, wrote short stories. These Russian storytellers, along with others, are represented here by ...

The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical l...

Much has been written of the forbidden pleasures. But what of the "unforbidden" pleasures?Unforbidden Pleasures is the singular new book from Adam Phillips, the author of Missing Out, Going Sane, and On Balance. Here, with his signature insight and erudition, Phillips takes Oscar Wilde as a springboard for a deep dive into the meanings and importance of the unforbidden, from the fall of our "first parents," Adam and Eve, to the work of the great p...

This unique eBook presents the complete FICTIONAL works of Nikolai Gogol, with beautiful illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Gogol's life and works* Concise introductions to the novels and other works* The complete novels, stories and plays, with contents tables* Features many of Constance Garnett's original translations* Images of how the books were fi...

Wayne Booth transformed the study of fiction in the twentieth century and wrote some of the most influential and engaging criticism of our time. In What Every Novelist Needs to Know about Narrators, Booth tackles one of the most difficult issues writers of fiction face: the choice of which narrative approach to take in their work. With trademark Booth aplomb, he articulates the methods behind dramatization, character development, and point of view that are indispensable for succes...

The oldest boy among 9 children, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was raised in the protective home of an Anglican churchman. He was then sent off to the notorious English public school system as an unprepared youngster, where terrible things were done to him. What emerged was a man filled with rage at the betrayal by his parents and the institutions they supported. While maintaining the facade of propriety throughout a life as an Oxford don, he wrote several nonsen...

Beginning its life as the sensational entertainment of the eighteenth century, the novel has become the major literary genre of modern times. Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, Marina MacKay explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters are longer readings of individual works, ...