100 pages

In this short novel, Tolstoy fictionalizes the final days of Hadji Murád, a legendary Avar separatist who fought against, and later with, Russia, as the Russian Empire was struggling to annex Chechnya and the surrounding land in the late 1840s. The novel opens with the narrator finding a thistle crushed in a blooming field, which reminds him of Hadji Murád and his tragic tale. As the narrator recounts the story, the reader is quickly thrust into the rich, colorful history of the Caucuses, and its people’s fight against Russian imperialism. Hadji Murád is portrayed as a legendary and imposing, yet friendly and approachable figure. Despite his reputation, it seems that his best days are behind him; as the novel opens, Murád is fleeing Shamil, a powerful imam who has captured Murád’s family. Murád finds himself thrust between the invading Russians on one side, and Shamil’s vengeance on the other. As Murád and his tiny but loyal group of warriors try to forge alliances in their attempt to rescue Murád’s family, they quickly find themselves politically outclassed. The Russians are Murád’s enemies, yet only they can help him in his struggle against Shamil; and after years of losses incurred by Murád’s guerrilla tactics, the Russians would like his help but cannot trust him. Shamil, on the other hand, is a deep link to the region’s complex web of tribal blood feuds, vengeances, reprisals, and quarrels over honor. He’s one of the few powers left standing between the Russians and their control of the Caucuses, but Murád, having crossed him, can’t rescue his family from Shamil’s clutches without the help of the Russians. Murád’s impossible position, the contradiction between his legendary past and his limping, dignified, and ultimately powerless present, and the struggle against a mighty empire by a people torn by internecine conflict, form the major thematic threads of the novel. The novel was one of the last that Tolstoy finished before his death, and was only published posthumously in 1912. Tolstoy himself served in the Crimean War, and the war scenes portrayed in the novel echo his personal experiences. As the story progresses, Tolstoy characterizes various real-life historical personalities besides Hadji Murád and Shamil, including Emperor Nicholas I, Mikhail Loris-Melikov, and Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, making this a fascinating piece of historical fiction. Despite this being such a late entry in Tolstoy’s corpus, it has been highly praised by critics both contemporary and modern, with the famous critic Harold Bloom going so far as to say that Hadji Murád is “my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world, or at least the best I have ever read.”

"New Life is Dante's account of his lifelong muse Beatrice, an unobtainable woman who predeceased him by many years, but inspired the most beautiful poetry of his youth." "From his first meeting with her, dressed modestly but strikingly in crimson, Dante sensed that his life would never be quite the same again. The story of his attachment follows: his helpless emotional and physical reactions to her, his strange visions, and his desperate subterfuges, together with all the moving sonnets and canzoni that 'his gracious lady' inspired. At once a subtle spiritual allegory and a moving portrait of the youthful love that can afflict us all, New Life is the acknowledged masterpiece of Dante's early life, prefiguring in many ways both the poetic fruition of The Divine Comedy and the modern novel form."--Jacket.

Assigned to spy on the lifestyle of a wealthy bureaucrat by the name of Orlov, a man becomes enthralled in a life of riches he has been instructed to oppose.

"M. Folantin is a young governmental employee who is overwhelmed by the pettiness of life. M. Bougran is a government clerk - who has just been prematurely retired. Together, Huysman's two studies of institiutionalised boredom brilliantly evoke the social fetters that force us to go 'with the flow.'" "Intelligent though he is, Folantin's poverty and puny physique have doomed him to a humdrum existence of unvarying office work by day, evenings of insipid restaurant food, and a lonely bed at night. But once in a while, Folantin is inspired to break this cycle of misery and search for happiness: in a new menu, a visit to the theatre, in the arms of a prostitute. Ultimately, however, he discovers that nothing can shake from him his disgust at the business of living. Complimenting With the Flow is Huysmans' study of the mental confusion experienced by M. Bougran, a clerk facing retirement - and the end of his lifelong routine."--BOOK JACKET.

A captivating and evocative work, Memoirs of a Madman is one of Flaubert's earliest writings, and forms the basis for his highly renowned L'Education Sentimentale. As a young man looks back on the years that have brought him to "madness," he recalls the innocence of his boyhood and his fond belief that he was blessed with a mind of genius. Yet, painfully, wretchedly, he also recounts his all-too-sudden entry into the adult world. For the day he caught sight of a beautiful woman by the sea marked the end of his flamboyant philosophizing, and the beginning of a tragic coming of age. (amazon.com)

"Orphaned at a young age, the beautiful Lady Emily has been raised by her doting uncle, the Marquis of Charlesworth. In a resolute and grand gesture, the Marquis vows to fulfil his duties by finding her the perfect suitor. He elects for Colonel the Honourable Alexander Augustus Percy. Her choice: a struggling artist named Leslie." "As the two suitors do battle for their chosen bride, the political climate heightens around them, and they find themselves called upon to defend Verdopolis - Bronte's imaginary state - from the advancing threat of the feared Ashantee tribe. But even when brothers-in-arms, their enmity remains, and is soon brought to crisis point with the mysterious disappearance of Lady Emily."--Jacket.

Contains: Love and Friendship Three Sisters Collection of Letters

Written in 1832, three years before The Life of Henry Brulard (which recounts the author?s boyhood and youth), Memoirs of Egotism forms the essential middle section of Stendhal?s intended autobiography. Along with Journals of Italy, these volumes comprise what Andr Gide has called one of the truly great autobiographies in any language. Unpublished until fifty years after the Stendhal?s death, Memoirs of Egotism concerns itself exclusively with the decade following his return from Milan to Paris in 1821. Stendhal appears as a cynical wit, adventurer, lover, brilliant conversationalist, and secret man of letters. We are privy to his encounters in the salons and boudoirs of the capital, with his attendant hopes (realized and disappointed), private foibles, and social miscalculations. Stendhal?s passionate and ceaseless pursuit of happiness is on display, intertwined, as always, with the undercutting wit and unsparing self-analysis that have transformed his name into an adjective for an entire point of view?all as frankly conveyed and keenly observed as in any memoir before or since. The book is deftly translated by Hannah and Matthew Josephson. Mr. Josephson also provides an extensive introduction and editorial notes.

xvi, 84 pages ; 20 cm

"A disparate group of Western tourists collect aboard the Nile steamer Korosko, anticipating a trip filled with sightseeing and civilised colonial pleasures. But when, during a morning excursion in the desert, they are kidnapped by a group of dervish camel-men, their relationships, their beliefs and their very survival are placed in jeopardy." "In The Tragedy of the Korosko, Arthur Conan Doyle evokes the uncertainty of the late-Victorian era, a time of white supremacy and cultural hegemony, but also a time when the moral authority of Western imperialist powers was starting to be called into question. Each of Conan Doyle's carefully drawn characters takes their part in the cultural and spiritual debate that underlies the story, and each emerges with a greater understanding, be it personal or universal, at the close."--BOOK JACKET.

xx, 106 p. ; 20 cm