Hailed universally as Russia's finest comic writer, and by many as its greatest writer of prose, Nikolai creates a unique Ukranian world, from the darkest Gothic to folkloric levity. Here, this extraordinary countryside is revealed in all its variety in his first two collections of short stories. The only translation available of this cycle of stories, this edition captures fully the spirit and vigor of his important early work for the first time.

"In the autumn of 1831, some easter from the Poltava province issued a book under the tantalizing title "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka". The simple-hearted villager, as if in a frightened way, recommended to the enlightened public four fantastic stories allegedly told at gatherings in his modest hut. "This is real gaiety, sincere, unconstrained, without cheating, without being stiff. In some places, what poetry! What sensitivity!"--So welcomed the new book Pushkin. He knew that, under the mask of an old farmer, a twenty-two-year-old writer is hiding, happily inventing and colorful characters (daring dudes, dazzling marvels, stubborn old men, angry women, mermaids, witches, devils - in a word, all sorts of people and nonhumans), and funny storytellers, and the collector himself invariably "truthful" nonsense - Rudy Pank. Nowadays the name of the writer "Evenings ..." is known to all, in 1831, very few knew him. But among them were two great poets - Zhukovsky ..." --Vasha Kniga

When Edna Pontellier becomes enamored with Robert LeBrun while on vacation, the wife and mother realizes the full force of her desire for love and freedom, in a text that includes thirty-two additional short stories by the author.

And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact'. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man's rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But it also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas, at last leaving the reader with a broken-off ending that defies solution. Apart from its violence and mystery, the tale calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing truth. Layer upon layer of elaborate hoaxes include its author's own role of posing as ghost-writer of the narrative; Pym - his only novel - has become the key text for our understanding of Poe. This edition offers eight short tales which are linked to Pym by their treatment of persistent themes - fantastic voyages, gigantic whirlpools, and premature burials - or by their ironic commentary on Poe's mystification of his readers. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Tamerlane, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the Japanese, the Nazis, and the Soviets: All built empires meant to last forever; all were to fail. But, as John Darwin shows in this magisterial book, their empire-building created the world we know today. From the death of Tamerlane in 1405, to America's rise to world "hyperpower," to the resurgence of China and India as global economic powers, After Tamerlane is a grand historical narrative that offers a new perspective on the past, present, and future of empires.

Richard Peace is Emeritus Professor of Russian at Bristol University. He is the author of Dostoevsky: An Examination of his Major Novels.

For Maupassant, existence is what happens to us between two events which we cannot avoid: birth and death. The space between is filled with a compulsory programme of rituals which merely pass the time. But mankind cannot bear too much truth, and we turn mating to Love, dignify war by calling it Patriotism, subscribe to morality, and generally delude ourselves that we are not animals acting upon instinct but rational creatures capable of idealistic beliefs and actions. We survive only on the drug of self-deception. Maupassant, whose disgust with creation was only equalled by his contempt for human hypocrisy, takes a scalpel to our illusions and cuts to the bone. He operates without anaesthetic and his tales are not for the squeamish. He would be unbearable to read if his clinical pessimism were not redeemed by a sense of the absurd and a warmer compassion for 'humanity bleeding'. Unsentimental but always honest, he persuades us that life is an incomprehensible, cosmic farce. This translation of twenty tales shows Maupassant at his bitter, bawdy, chilling best. It features some of his grimmest and most famous stories such as A Vendetta and The Grove of Olives, but it also reflects both his moods and his mastery of the short story. The Little Keg is rich in comic invention, while the disturbing Who Can Tell? draws its power from the strange forces which drove its author into madness.

Russian literature arrived late on the European scene. Within several generations, its great novelists had shocked - and then conquered - the world. In this introduction to the rich and vibrant Russian tradition, Caryl Emerson weaves a narrative of recurring themes and fascinations across several centuries. Beginning with traditional Russian narratives (saints' lives, folk tales, epic and rogue narratives), the book moves through literary history chronologically and thematically, juxtaposing literary texts from each major period. Detailed attention is given to canonical writers including Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn, as well as to some current bestsellers from the post-Communist period. Fully accessible to students and readers with no knowledge of Russian, the volume includes a glossary and pronunciation guide of key Russian terms as well as a list of useful secondary works. The book will be of great interest to students of Russian as well as of comparative literature.

Humphrey Van Weyden, rescued by the crew of the Ghost, becomes an unwilling sailor under the command of Wolf Larsen.

`Verlaine, possessed by the madnesses of love, brimming over with desires and prayers, the rebel railing against the complacent platitudes of society, of love, of language'. Jean Rousselot Verlaine ranks alongside Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud as one of the most outstanding poets of late nineteenth-century France whose work is associated with the early Symbolists, the Decadents, and the Parnassiens. Remarkable not only for his delicacy and exquisitely crafted verse, Verlaine is also the poet of strong emotions and appetites, with an unrivalled gift for the sheer music of poetry, and an inventive approach to its technique. This bilingual edition provides the most comprehensive selection of his poetry yet, offering some 170 poems in lively and fresh translations and providing a lucid introduction which illuminates Verlaine's poetic form within the context of French Impressionism and the poetry of sensation. Parallel text ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.