History is often narrated as sagas of kings and queens, legends of battles and wars, or chronicles of art and architecture. But history is more than that. It is the story of ordinary people; their food and language, their thoughts and beliefs, their livelihood and culture. Tales of sweepers and sculptors, robbers and merchants, sailors and saint-why, even pirates! In this book, Mallika Ravikumar pens eight historical stories that help you look upon the past, as less of a dry-as-bone set of facts, and more of a dynamic shift that shapes our present. Told through the lens of class and conflict, symbols and language, creativity and enterprise and power and perspective, these stories help younger readers see why history is relevant and meaningful.

Excerpt from Tales of the Revolution From the street came distant sounds of clattering droshkies and jingling tramway-bells, while in the courtyard far below harsh, angry voices could be heard. Yet up here all was deadly still. Suddenly the house-door banged, and the noise re-echoed throughout the building. Footsteps could be heard. Some one was coming upstairs at a great rate, hurrying round each landing, and taking two stairs at a time. As the steps reached the last landing and a figure was about to dash past the dim window the man outside the door suddenly moved towards it. Who's there cried the newcomer in a tone that betrayed more than mere astonishment. Is there a room to let, here Perhaps you may know asked the man at the door, sharply and decisively. Oh! A room I really can't say. Yes, I believe there is. You'd better ring. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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"There are five stories in this book: Sheviriof; The Blood-Stain; Morning Shadows; Pasha Tumanof; The Doctor. All are stories of men and women who sacrificed themselves or the revolution. It appears a hopeless cause, in which a few helpless individuals hurl themselves in futile rebellion against an invincible power, but the stories, dark as they are, will be read with a different feeling now, when it is known that the sacrifice was not in vain." -Book Review Digest, Volume 13 [1918] "Characterized for the most part by grim realism." -The Athenaeum [1918] "This writer never lays himself open to criticism on the ground of inconsistency or of producing horror merely for horror's sake. The emotions that he describes are justified by the situations which produce them, and then in turn by his characters, who are undoubedly real to his experience.... Personally we read him with mingled feelings - a deep admiration for his power and feeling of the futility of expenditure." -Boston Transcript [1918] "Artzibashef was a very young man when he wrote some of the stories in Tales of the Revolution, but they show little sign of immaturity.... We may not like the Russia he shows us, we may even profess to disbelieve in its existence, yet he himself is the best proof that it does exist. It is a Russia that we must take into account in the present crisis, and in spite of Artzibashef's black pessimism, by no means as a factor altogether evil. For it is an honest and straightforward and unsentimental Russia, and even in its hopelessness it keeps striving." -N.Y. Times [1918]

CONTENTS:SheviriofThe Blood-StainMorning ShadowsPasha TumanofThe Doctor