Penguin Poor Folk and Other Stories Достоевский Федор Михайлович

The Gambler and Other Stories is Fyodor Dostoyevsky's collection of one novella and six short stories reflecting his own life - indeed, 'The Gambler', a story of a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian General, was written under a strict deadline so he could pay off his roulette debts. This volume includes 'Bobok', the tale of a frustrated writer visiting a cemetery and enjoying the gossip of the dead; 'The Dream of a Ridiculous Man', the story of one man's plan to commit suicide and the troubling dream that follows, as well as 'A Christmas Party and a Wedding', 'A Nasty Story' and 'The Meek One'

A man goes mad because he is happy • A civil servant behaves like a monster at a wedding-party • A man is swallowed by a crocodile, but not eaten nor seriously damaged • Dostoevsky's stories inhabit similarly volcanic atmospheres as his novels, places of curiosity and exception. They resemble jokes and anecdotes, told by volatile, voluble, morbidly sensitive and frustrated characters. These narrators all have a tendency to express themselves in crescendos of conflicting emotions, while the stories themselves steer clear of grand conclusions • Michael Wood's selection of Dostoevsky's shorter works is drawn from the timeless translations of Constance Garnett whose work, he says in his preface, gives readers the best of several worlds

The anonymous narrator of Notes from Underground is a bitter, misanthropic man living alone in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the 1860s. The novel consists of the notes that the man writes, a confused and often contradictory set of memoirs or confessions describing and explaining his alienation from modern society

The Steppe and Other Stories 1887-91 is a collection that reveals Anton Chekhov's evolution from a novice writer to a master of short narrative form. This Penguin Classics edition is translated by Ronald Wilks with an introduction by Donald Rayfield • This collection of Chekhov's finest early writing is headlined by 'The Steppe', which established his reputation, telling the unforgettable tale of a boy's journey to a new school in Kiev, travelling through majestic landscapes towards an unknown destiny. 'Gusev' depicts an ocean voyage, where the sea takes on a terrifying, primeval power; 'The Kiss' portrays a shy soldier's failed romantic encounter; and in 'The Duel' two men's enmity ends in farce. Haunting and highly atmospheric, all the stories in this volume show a writer emerging from the shadow of his masters - great Russian writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Gogol - and discovering his own voice

'The best thing is to do nothing! Better conscious inertia! So, long live the underground!' • Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of hose own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the 'anthill' of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence 'underground'. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in the The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who looks exactly like him - his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly tragi-comic study of human consciousousness

Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and yet to be free of them. This duality of vision infuses his work with a powerful energy from the earliest tales including 'Old Shloyme' and 'Childhood', which affirm his Russian-Jewish childhood, to the relatively non-Jewish world of his collection of stories entitled 'Red Cavalry'. Babel's masterpiece, 'Red Cavalry' is the most dramatic expression of his dualism and in his simultaneous acceptance and rejection of his heritage heralds the great American-Jewish writers from Henry Roth to Saul Bellow and Philip Roth

A superb new translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka's most frightening and visionary short fiction • Strange beasts, night terrors, absurd bureaucrats and sinister places abound in this collection of stories by Franz Kafka. Some are less than a page long, others more substantial; all were unpublished in his lifetime. These matchless short works range from the gleeful miniature horror 'Little Fable' to the off-kilter humour of 'Investigations of a Dog', and from the elaborate waking nightmare of 'Building the Great Wall of China' to the creeping unease of 'The Burrow', where a nameless creature's labyrinthine hiding place turns into a trap of fear and paranoia

This new selection of stories featuring Inspector Maigret - three of which are published in English for the first time - takes the detective from a mysterious death in a Cannes hotel to a love triangle in the Loire countryside and a bitter rivalry within a Parisian family • Written during the Second World War, just a few years after Simenon had published what was intended to be his last novel featuring Inspector Maigret, these tales of human frailty and deceit distil the atmosphere, themes and psychological intensity that make Simenon's famous detective series so compelling

In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army and travelled to the Caucasus as a soldier. The four years that followed were among the most significant in his life, and deeply influenced the stories collected here. Begun in 1852 but unfinished for a decade, The Cossacks describes the experiences of Olenin, a young cultured Russian who comes to despise civilization after spending time with the wild Cossack people. Sevastopol Sketches, based on Tolstoy's own experiences of the siege of Sevastopol in 1854-55, is a compelling consideration of the nature of war, while Hadji Murat, written towards the end of his life, returns to the Caucasus of Tolstoy's youth to explore the life of a great leader torn apart by a conflict of loyalties

These pieces show the range of Waugh's skills: Mr Loveday's Little Outing; Cruise; Period Piece; On Guard; An Englishman's Home; Excursion in Reality; Bella Fleace Gave a Party; Winner Takes All; Work Suspended; Scott-King's Modern Europe; Basil Seal Rides Again; and Charles Ryder's Schooldays

Ширли Джексон: Лотерея и другие истории • Это окончательный сборник рассказов Ширли Джексон, включая "Лотерею" - одну из самых страшных и культовых историй двадцатого века, оказавшую влияние на таких писателей, как Нил Гейман и Стивен Кинг • В этих историях превосходный хозяин оказывается выгнанным из дома собственными гостями; женщина проводит день своей свадьбы в лихорадочных поисках своего будущего мужа; а в самой известной истории Ширли Джексон маленькая фермерская деревня собирается вместе для ужасного ежегодного ритуала. Подкрадывающееся беспокойство из-за растраченных жизней и кровавое ликование из-за потерянных жизней захватывающе передано в этих рассказах о растраченном потенциале и случайной жестокости мастером короткого рассказа • Книга на английском языке

Два маленьких шедевра в одном томе. Во-первых, "Двойник", удивительно современный галлюцинаторный кошмар, предвосхищающий Кафку и Сартра. Мелкий чиновник по имени Голядкин узнает о таинственном двойнике - человеке, у которого есть его имя и его лицо и который постепенно и безжалостно начинает вытеснять его из круга друзей и коллег. В дилемме своего все более параноидального героя Достоевский ярко конкретизирует внутреннюю множественность сознания, которая станет главной темой его творчества. Во-вторых, "Игрок" - потрясающий психологический портрет волнующей и разрушительной зависимости молодого человека, навязчивой идеи, которую Достоевский, однажды проигравший обручальное кольцо своей жены, близко знал по собственному опыту. В "Катастрофических любовных похождениях и азартных играх Алексея Ивановича" Достоевский исследует непреодолимое искушение заглянуть в бездну предельного риска, которое, по его мнению, было неотъемлемой частью русского национального характера