Masterful stories of faith and superstition from a much-loved Russian author, in English for the first time 'A magnificent edition of the works of a writer who deserves her seat at the top table of Russian authors' Sara Wheeler, Wall Street Journal These stories conjure a vanished Russia, where Orthodox Christianity coexists with the shapeshifters and house spirits of ancient folk belief. Celebrated for her sublime wit and graceful style, Teffi here plumbs the darker aspects of psychology,...

Stories about the occult, folk religions, superstition, and spiritual customs in Russia by one of the most essential twentieth-century writers of short fiction and essays.Though best known for her comic and satirical sketches of pre-Revolutionary Russia, Teffi was a writer of great range and human sympathy. The stories on otherworldly themes in this collection are some of her finest and most profound, displaying the acute psychological sensitivity beneath her chara...

A collection of short Christmas stories by some of Russia's greatest nineteenth and twentieth century authors—several appearing in English for the first time.Running the gamut from sweet and reverent to twisted and uproarious, this collection offers a holiday feast of Russian fiction. Dostoevsky brings stories of poverty and tragedy; Tolstoy inspires with his fable-like tales; Chekhov's unmatchable skills are on full display in his story of a female factory owner a...

Ranging from portraits of Rasputin and Lenin to observations on the Russian Revolution, and from profiles of cultural figures to moving domestic scenes, this short collection includes writings by the inimitable Teffi never before published in English. Everything is here - politics, society, art and literature, love and family life - and all is told in Teffi's multifaceted style: amusing, sincerely moving, ironic and always honest, pervaded by an intensely felt understanding of humanity's s...

An enthralling, elegant, emotional account of a journey into exile, by the wonderful Teffi Moscow, 1918. Following the Revolution, people are leaving the city in droves - bound for the Black Sea, and from there to Europe and beyond. In late autumn, the celebrated writer Teffi is invited on a reading tour; having elegantly navigated the bureaucratic waters for her visa, she spends the winter travelling from Moscow to Kiev, and from there to Odessa and on to Novorossisk, first by train and t...

Early in her literary career Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in St. Petersburg in 1872, adopted the pen-name of Teffi, and it is as Teffi that she is remembered. In prerevolutionary Russia she was a literary star, known for her humorous satirical pieces; in the 1920s and 30s, she wrote some of her finest stories in exile in Paris, recalling her unforgettable encounters with Rasputin, and her hopeful visit at age thirteen to Tolstoy after reading War and Peace. In this selection of her...

A beloved 20th century writer’s painful and humorous memoir of leaving her home in post-revolutionary Russia forever, written with a poet’s sensitivity to tone and rhythm“Despite the backdrop of terror, war, death and loss, Teffi’s world becomes somewhere we do not want to leave”—Claire Kohda Hazelton, The GuardianConsidered Teffi’s single greatest work, Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea is a deeply personal account o...

The writer and satirist Teffi was a literary sensation in Russia until war and revolution forced her to leave her country forever. Memories is her blackly funny and heartbreaking account of her final, frantic journey into exile across Russia - travelling by cart, freight train and rickety steamer – and the 'ordinary and unheroic' people she encounters. From refugees setting up camp on a dockside to a singer desperately buying a few 'last scraps' of fabric to make a dress, all are caught up...

In this collection of short stories, drawing heavily from the authors own experiences as a medical graduate on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Bulgakov describes a young doctors turbulent and often brutal introduction to his practice in the backward village of Muryovo. Using a sharply realistic and humorous style, Bulgakov reveals his doubts about his own competence and the immense burden of responsibility, as he deals with a superstitious and poorly educated people struggling to enter ...

[Dr. Reicher] lived through the Second World War in Poland, dodging bullets, uprisings and deportations-not to mention betrayal, starvation and airless hideouts-in a manner more reminiscent of a talented outlaw than a mild-mannered dermatologist . . . It is the impressive simplicity of the good doctor’s writing that makes [t]his book resemble [Victor] Klemperer’s, and the detailed observations of its report that makes it emotionally memorable. . . . William Carlos Williams once said that ...

Take your understanding of Animal Farm by George Orwell to a whole new level, anywhere you go: on a plane, on a mountain, in a canoe, under a tree. Or grab a flashlight and read Shmoop under the covers.Shmoop's award-winning learning guides are now available on your favorite eBook reader. Shmoop eBooks are like a trusted, fun, chatty, expert literature-tour-guide always by your side, no matter where you are (or how late it is at night). You'll find thought-provoking character analyses, quotes...

The classic collection of wildly inventive and bitingly satirical tales of post-revolutionary Russia: "amusing and excellent reading" (Isaac Bashevis Singer).This famous collection of Soviet satire from 1918 to 1963 devastatingly lampoons the social, economic, and cultural changes wrought by the Russian Revolution. Among the seventeen boldly outspoken writers represented here are Mikhail Bulgakov, Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Vale...