Widely regarded as the greatest Romanian novel of the twentieth century, Mateiu Caragiale’s Rakes of the Old Court (Craii de Curtea-Veche) follows four characters through the bars and brothels of Bucharest. Guided by an amoral opportunist, the shadowy narrator and his two affluent friends drink and gamble their way through a city built on the ruins of crumbled castles and bygone empires. The novel’s shimmering, spectacular prose describes gripping vignettes of love, ambition, and decay. Originally published in 1929, Rakes of the Old Court is considered a jewel of Romanian modernism. Devoted “Mateists” have long read, memorized, and reenacted the novel, and after the Romanian Revolution, it became part of the high school curriculum. Now canonical, Mateiu’s work has been celebrated for its opulent literary style and enigmatic tone.

The Romanian writer Mateiu I. Caragiale (great playwright Ion Luca Caragiale's son), lived between 1885-1936. His main literary works are the short story "Remember" (1921) and the novel "Gallants of the Old Court" (1929, Romanian Writers Society's Award). He shines through the originality and distinction of his masterly controlled style. Written in the first person, "The Gallants of the Old Court (Craii de Curtea-Veche)" reveals the traits of, and satirizes, Romanian society in the early 20th century. Three self-indulgent, decadent characters while away their time, drinking, playing cards, chasing women. They also make allowance for the company of Gore Pirgu, an uncultured self-seeker of very low extraction, whose abominable character mirrors the new political class of the time. In this novel, the dying world of medieval boyars meets a rising fiercely capitalistic world, with new rules and ruthless behavior. Respected Romanian literary critic George Calinescu wrote: "Reality is transfigured, it becomes fantastical and a sort of Edgar Poe-like unease stirs these worthless figures of the old Romanian capital." "Gallants of the Old Court" opens a fascinating universe in front of us, as well as explains usually untapped regions of the human soul, helping us to better understand not only most of the Byzantine, Balkan, and Romanian spirit, but also a large size of our own unexplored self. The translator has done a painstakingly perfectionist work in rendering the text into English in the best possible way and also explaining every detail that might help us understand the spirit and the letter of the original, even without any hint of knowledge of Romanian. "Gallants of the Old Court" is a great read and one of the masterpieces of world literature; and this translation is surely the best so far.

For King and Country, Three Notorious Rakes Will Put All Their Seductive Skills to Work. After All, The Fate of England's Monarchy is in Their Hands. Since the death of his fiancée, Nathaniel Colton's polished boots have rested beneath the beds of countless wayward wives and widows of the ton. He's careful to leave each lady smiling, and equally careful to guard his heart. So seducing Lady Georgette should pose no problem. But the beautiful reformist is no easy conquest, and Nate's considerable charm fails to entice Georgette to his bed. To woo her, Nate will have to make her believe he cares about someone besides himself--and no one is more surprised than Nate when he realizes he actually does.

Trixy is a 1904 novel by the best-selling but largely forgotten American author and women’s rights activist Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. The book decries the then common practice of vivisection, or scientific experiments on live animals. In Trixy, contemporary readers can trace the roots of the early animal rights movement in Phelps’s influential campaign to introduce legislation to regulate or end this practice. Phelps not only presents a narrative polemic against the cruelty of vivisection but argues that training young doctors in it makes them bad physicians. Emily E. VanDette’s introduction demonstrates that Phelps’s protest writing, which included fiction, pamphlets, essays, and speeches, was well ahead of its time. Though not well known today, Phelps’s 1868 spiritualist novel, The Gates Ajar, which offered a comforting view of the afterlife to readers traumatized by the Civil War, was the century’s second best-selling American novel, surpassed only by Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Recently scholars and readers have begun to reexamine Phelps’s significance. As contemporary authors, including Peter Singer, Jonathan Safran Foer, Donna J. Haraway, Gary L. Francione, and Carol J. Adams, have extended her vision, they have also created new audiences for her work.

"[A] feast of female empowerment, positive friendships, feel-good moments, and social satire." — NPR “A jolt of electricity, a blast of fresh air—everything delightful and exciting you could want it to be.” — The New York Times Book Review Meet the Union of the Rakes—a new Regency romance series inspired by the Breakfast Club and other classic 80s films! In the first book, a bluestocking enlists a faux suitor to help her land an ideal husband only to be blindsided by real desire… Lady Grace Wyatt is content as a wallflower, focusing on scientific pursuits rather than the complications of society matches. But when a handsome, celebrated naturalist returns from abroad, Grace wishes, for once, to be noticed. Her solution: to “build” the perfect man, who will court her publicly and help her catch his eye. Grace’s colleague, anthropologist Sebastian Holloway, is just the blank slate she requires. To further his own research on English society, Sebastian agrees to let Grace transform him from a bespectacled, bookish academic into a dashing—albeit fake—rake. Between secret lessons on how to be a rogue and exaggerated public flirtations, Grace’s feelings for Sebastian grow from friendship into undeniable, inconvenient, real attraction. If only she hadn’t asked him to help her marry someone else... Sebastian is in love with brilliant, beautiful Grace, but their bargain is complete, and she desires another. Yet when he’s faced with losing her forever, Sebastian will do whatever it takes to tell her the truth, even if it means risking his own future—and his heart. *One of Oprah Magazine's Best Historical Romances to Read*

A great masterpiece never before available in English, Kornél Esti is the wild final book by a Hungarian genius. Crazy, funny and gorgeously dark, Kornél Esti sets into rollicking action a series of adventures about a man and his wicked dopplegänger, who breathes every forbidden idea of his childhood into his ear, and then reappears decades later. Part Gogol, part Chekhov, and all brilliance, Kosztolányi in his final book serves up his most magical, radical, and intoxicating work. Here is a novel which inquires: What if your id (loyally keeping your name) decides to strike out on its own, cuts a disreputable swath through the world, and then sends home to you all its unpaid bills and ruined maidens? And then: What if you and your alter ego decide to write a book together?

The Essential Turgenev will provide American readers with the first comprehensive, portable edition of this great Russian author's works. It offers an extensive introduction to the writings that established Turgenev as one of the preeminent literary figures of his time, and reveals the breadth of insight into changing social conditions that made Turgenev a portal to Russian intellectual life. Readers will find complete, exemplary translations of Turgenev's finest novels, Rudin, A Nest of Gentry, and Fathers and Sons, along with the lapidary novella First Love. The volume also includes selections from Sportsman's Sketches, seven of Turgenev's most compelling short stories, and fifteen prose poems. It also contains samples of the author's nonfiction drawn from autobiographical sketches, memoirs, public speeches, plus the influential essay "Hamlet and Don Quixote" and correspondence with Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and others.

Abandoned by his cavalier father at a young age, William de Veres grew up knowing precious little happiness. But William has put the past firmly behind him and as a military hero and noted rake, he rises fast in the ranks of the hedonistic Restoration court. Though not before he is forced to seek shelter from a charming young Puritan woman… The civil wars have cost the once-high-spirited Elizabeth Walters her best friend and her father, leaving her unprotected and alone. She flees an unwanted marriage, seeking safe haven, but what she finds is something she never expected. When her kindness and her beauty bring her to the attention of William, and then the king, she will have a choice to make. After all, can a notorious libertine really be capable of love?