Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a member of Russia's dying aristocracy - a man so lazy that he has given up his job in the Civil Service, neglected his books, insulted his friends and found himself in debt. Too apathetic to do anything about his problems, he lives in a grubby, crumbling apartment, waited on by Zakhar, his equally idle servant. Terrified by the bustle and activity necessary to participate in the real world, Oblomov manages to avoid work, postpone change and - finally - risks losing ...

Sir Robert Boniface, the industrial and financial tycoon—and stalwart of the British Cabinet—has been found shot dead in his blue limousine on a warm Friday evening in the Vale of Health, Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now-missing artist Matt Caldwell. Called to the scene, Inspector Beckett of Scotland Yard suspects murder. By the time Superintendent Mooney joins the case, the suspects have tripled and the myste...

This collection, unique to the Modern Library, gathers seven of Dostoevsky's key works and shows him to be equally adept at the short story as with the novel. Exploring many of the same themes as in his longer works, these small masterpieces move from the tender and romantic White Nights, an archetypal nineteenth-century morality tale of pathos and loss, to the famous Notes from the Underground, a story of guilt, ineffectiveness, and uncompromising cynicis...

Big Ben Strikes Eleven is a gripping and elegantly constructed mystery novel by David Magarshack, more widely known for his acclaimed translations of Russian literature. In this rare work of crime fiction, Magarshack demonstrates his command of suspense, dialogue, and psychological depth, crafting a tale that is as atmospheric as it is intellectually engaging. Set in post-war London, the novel begins with the sudden and suspicious death of a prominent financier moments after the chimes of ...

What is Chekhov’s method of ensuring audience participation? What does his stage direction ‘through tears’ mean? What happens between the first and second acts of The Seagull? Is there any reason for the despondency in Chekhov’s drama? This book, first published in 1972, discusses these questions and many other issues around Chekhov’s last four plays. David Magarshack, the leading translator and biography of many of Russia’s greatest writers, closely examines Chekhov’s work for th...

The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface's body on the floor of his limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, was shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now missing artist Matt Caldwell. As it hurtles towards its feverish denouement under the bells of the capi...

Just two years after completing the crime and punishment, Dostoevsky produced a second novel with a very different man at his center. In Idiot, saint Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from a Swiss sanatorio and finds himself a stranger in a society obsessed with wealth, power, and sexual conquest. Soon he gets caught up in a love triangle with a well-known woman, Nastasya, and a pretty Aglaya girl.

This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works - the Œuvre - of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook - easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: – THE QUEEN OF SPADES A.S. Pushkin – THE CLOAK N.V. Gogol – THE DISTRICT DOCTOR I.S. Turgenev – THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE WEDDING F.M. Dostoyevsky – GOD SEES THE TRUTH, BUT WAITS L.N. Tolstoy – HOW A MUZHIK FED TWO OFFICIALS M.Y. Saltykov – THE SHADES, A PHANTASY V.G. Korolenko – THE SIGNAL V.N. Garshin – THE ...

Notes from the Underground is a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Cher...

Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls is a novel that tells the story of Chichikov, a man who tries to buy the souls of dead serfs from landowners. The novel is full of complex characters and intricate plotlines, and it is considered to be one of the finest examples of Russian literature.

Vladimir Petrovich Voldemar, a 16-year-old, is staying in the country with his family and meets Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina, a beautiful 21-year-old woman, staying with her mother, Princess Zasyekina, in a wing of the manor. This family, as with many of the Russian minor nobility with royal ties of that time, were only afforded a degree of respectability because of their titles; the Zasyekins, in the case of this story, are a very poor family. The young Vladimir falls irretrievably in l...

The Lady with the Dog is a novella by Anton Chekhov first published in 1899. Written while in Yalta, it is considered one of his most famous stories, (also called Lady with Lapdog).The novella depicts what at first seems a casual liaison between a married man and a married woman in Yalta. Neither expects anything lasting from the encounter, but they find themselves drawn back to each other, risking the security of their family lives.It tells the st...