The House of the Dead recounts the story of Alexander Goryanchikov, a gentleman who is sent to a prison colony in Siberia for killing his wife. Largely ignored at first by his fellow inmates due to his noble blood, he gradually settles in and becomes an avid observer of the new world around him – watching his fellow prisoners being brutally and cruelly punished by the guards, listening to their past stories of blood and murder, assimilating the institution’s social codes and learning that even convicts are capable of acts of pure generosity.
Based on Dostoevsky’s own autobiographical experiences of penal servitude in Siberia, this genre-defying novel is not only an unflinching exposé of the conditions faced by prisoners during the Tsarist period, but also a call to see the human side in criminals and rediscover the values of forgiveness and compassion.
A mysterious stranger named Chichikov arrives in a small provincial Russian town and proceeds to visit a succession of landowners, making each of them an unusual and somewhat macabre proposition. He offers to buy the rights to the dead serfs who are still registered on the landowner’s estate, thus reducing their liability for taxes. It is not clear what Chichikov’s intentions are with the dead serfs he is purchasing, and despite his attempts to ingratiate himself, his strange behaviour arouses the suspicions of everyone in the town.
A biting satire of social pretensions and pomposity, Dead Souls has been revered since its original publication in 1842 as one of the funniest and most brilliant novels of nineteenth-century Russia. Its unflinching and remorseless depiction of venality in Russian society is a lasting tribute to Gogol’s comic genius.
Translated and annoted by Donald Rayfiled, Emeritus Professor of Russian at Queen Mary University of London. He has written extensively on Russian and Georgian literature and on Stalin and the secret police. He has translated works by Chekhov and Gogol.
Written in the 1830s and early 1840s, these comic stories tackle life behind the cold and elegant façade of the Imperial capital from the viewpoints of various characters, such as a collegiate assessor who one day finds that his nose has detached itself from his face and risen the ranks to become a state councillor (‘The Nose’), a painter and a lieutenant whose romantic pursuits meet with contrasting degrees of success (‘Nevsky Prospect’) and a lowly civil servant whose existence desperately unravels when he loses his prized new coat (‘The Overcoat’).
Also including the ‘Diary of Madman’, these Petersburg Tales paint a critical yet hilarious portrait of a city riddled with pomposity and self-importance, masterfully juxtaposing nineteenth-century realism with madcap surrealism, and combining absurdist farce with biting satire.
Inspired by Dostoevsky’s own gambling addiction and written under pressure in order to pay off his creditors and retain his rights to his literary legacy, The Gambler is set in the casino of the fictional German spa town of Roulettenburg and follows the misfortunes of the young tutor Alexei Ivanovich. As he succumbs to the temptations of the roulette table, he finds himself engaged in a battle of wills with Polina, the woman he unrequitedly loves.
With an unforgettable cast of fellow gamblers and figures from European high society, this darkly comic novel of greed and self-destruction reveals Dostoevsky at his satirical and psychological best.
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 and purpose, what these tales have in common is a profound and subtle understanding of the human condition, in its farcical and melancholy aspects, couched in Chekhov’s trademark minimalist style.
This edition contains the stories ‘The Woman in the Case’, ‘A Visit to Friends’, ‘Appropriate Measures’, ‘The Boa-Constrictor and the Rabbit’, ‘History of a Business Enterprise’, ’75,000’, ‘The Mask’, ‘An Unpleasant Incident’, ‘The Eve of the Trial’, ‘Sinister Night’, ‘The Lodger’, ‘The Dream’, ‘Out of Sheer Boredom’, A Disagreeable Experience’, ‘His First Appearance’, ‘Holy Simplicity’, ‘The Diplomat’, ‘Mutual Superiority’, ‘Taedium Vitae’, Other People’s Trouble’, ‘A Reporter’s Dream’, ‘One Man’s Meat’, ‘The Guest’, and ‘Wife for Sale’. There are also detailed notes on the text, extra material about the author’s life and works, and a carefully selected bibliography.
As ideological ferment grips Russia, a small group of revolutionaries, led by Pyotr Verkhovensky and inspired by Nikolai Stavrogin, plan to spread destruction and anarchy throughout the country. Morally bankrupt, they are prepared to use whatever means necessary to achieve their goal, including murder and incitement to suicide. But when they are forced to test the limits of their doctrine and kill one of their own to secure the secrecy of their mission, the ragtag group breaks up in mutual recrimination.
Devils is at once a compelling political statement and a study of atheism and its calamitous effect on a country that is teetering on the edge of an abyss. Seen as Dostoevsky’s most powerful indictment of man’s propensity to violence, this darkly humorous work, shot through with grotesque comedy, is presented here in Roger Cockrell’s masterful new translation.
First published in 1861, Humiliated and Insulted plunges the reader into a world of moral degradation, childhood trauma, unrequited love and irreconcilable relationships. At the centre of the story are a young struggling author, an orphaned teenager and a depraved aristocrat, who not only foreshadows the great figures of evil in Dostoevsky’s later fiction, but is a powerful and original presence in his own right.
This new translation catches the verve and tumult of the original, which – in concept and execution – affords a refreshingly unfamiliar glimpse of the author.
In this collection of short stories, drawing heavily from the author’s own experiences as a medical graduate on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Bulgakov describes a young doctor’s 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 the modern age. This acclaimed collection contains some of Bulgakov’s most personal and insightful observations on youth, isolation and progress.
Professor Persikov, an eccentric zoologist, stumbles upon a new light ray that accelerates growth and reproduction rates in living organisms. In the wake of a plague that has decimated the country’s poultry stocks, Persikov’s discovery is exploited as a means to correct the problem. As foreign agents, the state and the Soviet media all seize upon the red ray, matters get out of hand…
Set in 1928 but written four years earlier, during Stalin’s rise to power, The Fatal Eggs is both an early piece of science fiction reminiscent of H.G. Wells and a biting, brilliant satire on the consequences of the abuse of power and knowledge.
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 with Masha, Captain Mironov's daughter – but then the ruthless Cossack Pugachov lays siege to the stronghold, setting in motion a tragic train of events.
This volume also contains another work by Pushkin on the same theme, A History of Pugachov, which presents an impartial, meticulously researched history of the revolt, but was regarded in aristocratic circles as subversive on its publication. Together, these two works provide a fascinating insight into the character of the peasant who tried to overthrow an empress, written with the clarity and insight of Russia's greatest poet.
Leo Tolstoy’s most personal novel, Anna Karenina scrutinizes fundamental ethical and theological questions through the tragic story of its eponymous heroine. Anna is desperately pursuing a good, “moral” life, standing for honesty and sincerity. Passion drives her to adultery, and this flies in the face of the corrupt Russian bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, the aristocrat Konstantin Levin is struggling to reconcile reason with passion, espousing a Christian anarchism that Tolstoy himself believed in. Acclaimed by critics and readers alike, Anna Karenina presents a poignant blend of realism and lyricism that makes it one of the most perfect, enduring novels of all time.
First published in 1859, Oblomov is an indisputable classic of Russian literature, comparable in its stature to such masterpieces as Gogol’s Dead Souls, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. The book centres on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman and the reproaches of his friend, the hard-working Stoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments.
Rich in situational comedy, psychological complexity and social satire, Oblomov – here presented in Stephen Pearl’s award-winning translation, the first major English-language version of the novel in more than fifty years – is a timeless novel and a monument to human idleness.
One of the great achievements of twentieth-century Russian émigré literature, Dark Avenues – translated here for the first time into English in its entirety – took Bunin’s poetic mastery of language to new heights.
Written between 1938 and 1944 and set in the context of the Russian cultural and historical crises of the preceding decades, this collection of short fiction centres around dark, erotic liaisons. Love – in its many varied forms – is the unifying motif in a rich range of narratives, characterized by the evocative, elegiac, elegant prose for which Bunin is renowned.
Contents: ‘Dark Avenues’, ‘The Caucasus’, ‘A Ballad’, ‘Styopa’, ‘Muza’, ‘A Late Hour’, ‘Rusya’, ‘A Beauty’, ‘The Simpleton’, ‘Antigone’, ‘An Emerald’, ‘The Visitor’, ‘Wolves’, ‘Calling Cards’, ‘Zoyka and Valeria’, ‘Tanya’, ‘In Paris’, ‘Galya Ganskaya’, ‘Heinrich’, ‘Natalie’, ‘Upon a Long-Familiar Street’, ‘A Riverside Inn’, ‘The Godmother’, ‘The Beginning’, ‘The Oaklings’, ‘Miss Klara’, ‘Madrid’, ‘A Second Pot of Coffee’, ‘Iron Coat’, ‘A Cold Autumn’, ‘The Steamer Saratov’, ‘The Raven’, ‘The Camargue’, ‘One Hundred Rupees’, ‘Vengeance’, ‘The Swing’, ‘Pure Monday’, ‘The Chapel’.
This edition also contains extra material about the author’s life, works and film adaptations. There is also an appendix containing ‘Dark Avenues’ in the original Russian, as well as the short stories ‘In Spring, in Judaea’ and ‘A Place for the Night’.
Dostoevsky’s most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.
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