Populated with unforgettable characters, such as Alikhanov’s fellow guides Mitrofanov and Pototsky and the KGB officer Belyaev, and presented here for the first time in the English language, Pushkin Hills is arguably Dovlatov’s most personal work and a poignant portrayal of the Russian attitude towa…
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The first story in this volume, How the Two Ivans Quarrelled, is an amusing portrayal of two exceptionally close friends, the mortal insult that drives them apart, and the ensuing chaos that occurs. This is Gogol’s humour at its best, where the most irrelevant-seeming details and turns of phrase tak…
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By Stendhal
This major critical work by the great French novelist reveals Stendhal’s decisive role in the literary renaissance called Romanticism. Written sixteen years before ‘The Charterhouse of Parma’, it marked the beginning of his illustrious career and established him at the forefront of the French Romant…
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Highly valuable both as a detailed depiction of the Tsarist system of penal servitude and as an insight into Chekhov’s motivations and objectives for visiting the colony and writing the exposé, Sakhalin Island is a haunting work which had a huge impact both on Chekhov’s career and on Russian society…
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Originally written as a cautionary tale for the children of Chamisso’s patron, Peter Schlemihl was hailed by contemporaries as a masterpiece with a wide adult appeal, and continues to capture imaginations today. Unsuccessful in his endeavours, the young and naive Peter Schlemihl seals a pact with th…
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Mörike’s vivid and imaginative depiction of a day in the life of Mozart captures both the humorous and the more fragile and pensive side of the Austrian genius. While on a journey with his wife to Prague for the opening night of Don Giovanni, Mozart is caught picking an orange on the grounds of a st…
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Published posthumously in 1869, Paris Spleen was a landmark publication in the development of the genre of prose poetry – a form which Baudelaire saw as particularly suited for expressing the feelings of uncertainty, flux and freedom of his age – and one of the founding texts of literary Modernism….
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After her tragic death in December 1938 at the early age of twenty-six, Antonia Pozzi’s poems – which she had been secretly writing for years – were brought to light and became the object of great critical attention, going through several editions in Italy and being translated into all the major Eur…
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Based on Saint-Exupéry’s own experiences as a commercial pilot, Night Flight is a haunting and lyrical examination of duty, destiny and the individual, as well as an authentic and tragic portrayal of the intrepid early days of human air travel. Under the pressure of his boss, the intransigent Rivièr…
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While their tone is at times ironic and firmly tongue-in-cheek, the two stories in Arsène Lupin vs Sherlock Holmes bear all the hallmarks of classic detective fiction, and will put a smile on the lips and set the pulses racing of all fans of mystery and detective fiction. Illustrated by Thomas Mülle…
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A distressed young man murders the woman he loves in a café, watched by a large crowd. Fascinated by the crime she has witnessed, Anne Desbaresdes returns several times to the scene, forming a relationship with a man who also saw the murder, and drinking through the afternoon with him as he patientl…
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By Émile Zola
Inspired by real events and meticulously researched by Zola, Money is, in the wake of recent financial scandals, an all-too-topical exploration of the dynamics of greed, the excesses of capitalism and its dangerous relationship with politics and the press. Now bankrupt after some failed gambles, Ari…
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