Céline’s third novel, first published in 1944 but dealing with events taking place during the First World War, Guignol’s Band follows the narrator’s meanderings through London after he has been demobilized due to a war injury. The result is a frank, uncompromising, yet grotesquely funny portrayal of…
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Causing an uproar in Russia when it was first published in 1840, Lermontov’s brilliant, seminal study of contemporary society and the nihilistic aspect of Romanticism – accompanied here by the unfinished novel Princess Ligovskaya – remains compelling to this day. On his travels through the wild moun…
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This collection of lesser-known early short fiction – ranging from absurd humorous sketches to psychological dramas and tragic tales – demonstrates Anton Chekhov’s mastery of the genre, with stories about marital infidelity, betrayal, deception and love in its various forms. Although varying in tone…
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By Leo Tolstoy
In some ways comparable to the controversial Kreutzer Sonata, The Devil shows Tolstoy at his most salacious, and addresses the conflicts between desire, social norms and personal conscience. Also included in this volume is Family Happiness, one of Tolstoy’s earliest works, an entertaining and cynica…
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In June 1862, Dostoevsky left Petersburg on his first excursion to Western Europe. Ostensibly making the trip to consult Western specialists about his epilepsy, he also wished to see first-hand the source of the Western ideas he believed were corrupting Russia. Over the course of his journey he visi…
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Seen by many as the first existentialist novel and showcasing the best of Dostoevsky’s dry humour, Notes from Underground was a pivotal moment in the development of modern literature and has inspired countless novelists, thinkers and film-makers. This edition is part of Alma Classics Evergreens seri…
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By Leo Tolstoy
Hadji Murat, one of the most feared and venerated mountain chiefs in the Caucasian struggle against the Russians, defects from the Muslim rebels after feuding with his ruling imam, Shamil. Hoping to protect his family, he joins the Russians, who accept him but never put their trust in him – and so M…
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By Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Kyril Zinovieff, this edition of Anna Karenina contains a preface and translator’s note, an extensive critical apparatus, extra reading material including a section of photographs and notes. Leo Tolstoy’s most personal novel, Anna Karenina scrutinizes fundamental ethical and theologica…
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A landmark in the history of European literature, Goethe’s novel is not only one of the key works of Weimar Classicism and the prototype for the Bildungsroman genre, but also a timeless tale of coming into one’s own and a fascinating portrayal of the late-eighteenth-century theatre world. Seduced b…
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First published in 1842, The Black Spider displays its author’s talent for dark satire and realism, as well as the visionary powers of his imagination. After one of their own people repeatedly fails to live up to a pact with the Devil, a petty and morally bankrupt village community is plagued by a s…
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Controversial when first published and still much critically debated today, Goethe’s Elective Affinities is an early model for the modern novel. Baron Eduard and his second wife Charlotte enjoy a quiet, humdrum existence in their opulent castle, but when he invites his friend the Captain and she inv…
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Find out more about our collections! This unique collection contains the best novels by ‘one of the most prodigiously gifted and influential French writers’ (The Irish Times). All translated by Barbara Wright who worked very closely with Queneau to offer English readers the best reading experience….
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Published originally as the purported French translation of a novel by fictional Irish writer Sally Mara, We Always Treat Women Too Well is set in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising and tells the story of the siege of a small post office by a group of rebels, who discover to their embarrassment th…
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When shop-owner Julia Segovia decides that she’s going to marry the handsome if exceedingly young and naive soldier Valentin Brû, he willingly goes along with her scheme. Little does he know that he will have to contend with disgruntled in-laws, eccentric locals, a cunning wife, a shifty career in f…
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In late-nineteenth-century Paris, the writer Hubert is shocked to discover that Icarus, the protagonist of the new novel he’s working on, has vanished. Looking for him among the manuscripts of his rivals does not solve the mystery, so a detective is hired to find the runaway character, who is now in…
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This volume contains Tristan Tzara’s famous manifestos, which first appeared between 1916 and 1921 and became essential texts of the modern movement and models for Breton’s Surrealist manifestos. Art for Tzara was both deadly serious and a game, and the playfulness of his character is apparent not o…
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On a crowded bus at midday, the narrator observes one man accusing another of jostling him deliberately. When a seat is vacated, the first man takes it. Later, in another part of town, the man is spotted again, while being advised by a friend to have another button sewn onto his overcoat. Exercises…
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Highly autobiographical in nature, Torrents of Spring offers a revealing insight into its author’s intimate thoughts and innermost emotions. Turgenev made three drafts of this novella, published to great public acclaim in 1872, and regarded it, justifiably, as one of his best pieces of work. Present…
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Originally published individually in the St Petersburg journal Sovremennik before appearing as a single volume in 1852, and presented here in a masterful new translation by Michael Pursglove, this landmark collection established the literary reputation of the author, who considered it his most signi…
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A brand-new translation of Turgenev’s poems, presented in a dual-language edition. Also contained in this volume are four other narrative poems by Turgenev – Andrei, A Conversation, The Landowner and The Village Priest – all showing the author’s early interest in ordinary stories of Russian life and…
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First published in 1850, ‘The Diary of a Superfluous Man’ was initially censored by the authorities, as some of its passages were deemed too critical of Russian society. This volume also includes two other masterly novellas, also touching on the theme of disappointed love: ‘Asya’ and ‘First Love’. D…
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Turgenev’s final novel, Virgin Soil traces the destinies of several middle-class revolutionaries who seek to “go to the people” by working on the land and instilling democratic ideas in the countryside’s locals. They include the daydreaming impoverished young tutor Nezhdanov – employed by the libera…
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Around this love story Turgenev constructs a sharply satirical exposé of his countrymen, which famously embroiled its author in a heated quarrel with Dostoevsky. A melancholy evocation of impossible romance, Smoke represents the apogee of Turgenev’s later fiction. On his way back to Russia after som…
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On the eve of the Crimean War, the young, headstrong Yelena, the daughter of aristocratic Russian parents, falls in love with a revolutionary from Bulgaria named Insarov. Facing the wrath and disapproval of her family, Yelena abandons her home to follow Insarov to Bulgaria. Their fateful match sets…
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Turgenev’s masterpiece investigates the growing nihilist movement of mid-nineteenth-century Russia – a theme which was to influence Dostoevsky and many other European writers – in a universal and often hilarious story of generational conflict and the clash between the old and the new. This edition i…
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Coming back to the “nest” of his family home in Russia after years of fruitless endeavours away from his roots, Lavretsky decides to turn his back on the vacuous salons of Paris and his frivolous and unfaithful wife Varvara Pavlovna. On his return he meets Liza, the daughter of one of his cousins, w…
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This volume, part of Alma’s series of the complete poetic works of Alexander Pushkin, collects the poems written by Pushkin from the time of his courtship to Natalia Goncharova until his untimely death in a duel, and includes some of the greatest lyrical poems of his maturity, such as ‘The Promise’,…
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This volume, part of Alma’s series of the complete poetic works of Alexander Pushkin, collects the poems Pushkin wrote in his mid-to-late twenties, during his exile in Mikháylovskoye and his subsequent return to metropolitan life. The pioneer of modern Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin has exert…
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This volume, part of Alma’s series of the complete works of Alexander Pushkin, collects the poems he wrote during his time in St Petersburg as a young intellectual and his subsequent stay in the Caucasus, the Crimea and Russia’s Balkan frontier-lands. It includes many significant poems of his early…
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A drama of ambition, murder, remorse and retribution, Boris Godunov charts the decline of a Russian statesman, whose dynastic aims were foiled by a guilty past and an audacious upstart. Based on history and inspired by Shakespeare, Alexander Pushkin’s daring masterwork is presented here in its rarel…
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By Thomas More
A sparkling new translation by Roger Clarke of one of the most influential philosophical works of all time, which renders the original Latin into an English that is clear, readable and true to the spirit of Thomas More’s writing. In Thomas More’s hugely influential Utopia, a traveller recounts his d…
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Set during the Pugachov rebellion against Catherine the Great, The Captain’s Daughter was Pushkin’s only completed novel and remains one of his most popular works. The inexperienced and impetuous young nobleman Pyotr Grinyev is sent on military service to a remote fortress, where he falls in love wi…
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In order to rescue his beloved Lyudmila, who has been abducted by the evil wizard Chernomor, the warrior Ruslan faces an epic and perilous quest, encoutering a multitude of fantastic and terrifying characters along the way. The basis for Glinka’s famous opera of the same name, Ruslan and Lyudmila -…
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A central text of the Renaissance, Praise of Folly is an essential part of the Western canon. In addition to a sparkling modern translation of Praise of Folly, this volume also includes other works by Erasmus: Pope Julius Barred from Heaven, ‘Epigram against Pope Julius II’ and a selection of his Ad…
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Eugene Onegin – presented here in a dual language edition and sparkling translation by Roger Clarke, along with extensive notes and commentary – was the founding text of modern Russian literature, marking a clean break from the high-flown classical style of its predecessors and introducing the quint…
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First published in 1831, Belkin’s Stories was the first completed work of fiction by the founding father of Russian literature. Through a series of interlinked stories purporting to have been told by various narrators to the recently deceased country squire Ivan Belkin, Pushkin offers his own variat…
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Written in Persian, The Blind Owl is predominantly a love story – an unconventional love story that elicits visions and nightmare reveries from the depths of the reader’s subconscious. A young man, an old man and a beautiful young girl perform, as if framed within a Persian miniature, a ritual of de…
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By Stendhal
Published posthumously in 1930, Stendhal’s travel notes on his 1838 journey to southern France contain descriptions of cities such as Bordeaux, Toulouse and Marseilles, peppered with numerous personal digressions, anecdotes and cultural musings. Both an addition to the Stendhalian canon and a pionee…
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