Portraying the characters and events of a small Midwestern town at the end of the nineteenth century, Winesburg, Ohio is a...

In the title piece of this collection a party of guests wonder at the great comet which has appeared in the sky, and give their...

One of Tolstoy’s last published works of fiction, The Devil revolves around the young landowner Yevgeny’s irrepressible lust for...

What could be better during the golden age of boating on the Thames than a relaxing row up the river? So think J., George and...

This collection of lesser-known early short fiction - ranging from absurd humorous sketches to psychological dramas and tragic...

Set in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev during the chaotic winter of 1918–19, The White Guard, Bulgakov’s first full-length novel,...

When an army of invading Martians lands in England, panic and terror seize the population. As the aliens traverse the country in...

Ivan Bunin's first published work, The Village is a bleak and uncompromising portrayal of rural life in south-west Russia. Set at...

Imbued with a comic nostalgia and overlaid with Dovlatov's characteristically dark-edged humour and wry power of observation, The...

"After a while, with the parrot's help, the Doctor got to learn the language of the animals so well that he could talk to them...

Combining psychological detail with a strong sense of place and time, this tale bears all the hallmarks of Chekhov's genius, and...

Published posthumously, The Red Notebook is an account of the youth of the author of the seminal Romantic novel Adolphe, relating...

Roberta, Phyllis and Peter have their comfortable lives in London thrown into disarray by the unexpected disappearance of their...

Having lived in the city of Orphalese for twelve years, the revered Prophet is about to board a ship taking him back to the isle...

When Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane accidentally destroy a carpet in their London home with fireworks, their parents replace it...

Having crash-landed in the Sahara desert, a pilot comes across a young boy who introduces himself as the Little Prince and tells...

Written in 1932, but not published until 1962, over twenty years after its author’s death, The Life of Monsieur de Moliere charts...

On a train journey, Pozdnyshev tells his story to a stranger: how his relationship with his wife gradually deteriorated from one...

Happily engaged to the poet Amandus, Fraulein Anna is horrified to discover that a beautiful ring, mysteriously deposited upon...

Based on a true story, The Jew's Beech centres on two brutal murders in rural Westphalia – the first of a local forester and the...

Invited to an extravagantly lavish party in a Long Island mansion, Nick Carraway, a young bachelor who has just settled in the...

In order to repay a small debt, the young student Mitya is persuaded by a friend to falsify a bank bond and cash it in. Little...

When the young and sensitive Auguste Saint-Clair notices an Etruscan vase on the mantelpiece of his beloved Mathilde, he becomes...

Finding the young Angelique on their doorstep one Christmas Eve, the pious Hubert couple decide to bring her up as their own. As...

The civil servant Ivan Matveich and his wife Yelena Ivanovna are spectators of an exhibition – in a shopping arcade – of a...

The boy who wouldn't grow up, Peter Pan has the power of flight and lives on a magical island. But he is fascinated by Mary...

Paul Scarron’s masterpiece, The Comic Romance, recounts the adventures of a troupe of provincial itinerant actors, skilfully...

Set during the Pugachov rebellion against Catherine the Great, The Captain's Daughter was Pushkin's only completed novel and...

When Buck is smuggled from his beloved home in the Santa Clara Valley and forced to work as a sled-dog in the frozen wilderness...

After one of their own people repeatedly fails to live up to a pact with the Devil, a petty and morally bankrupt village...