Golden cut, bookmark, excellent gift edition! Published in 1919 and based on a Burgundian tale, this book was also the inspiration for the opera by Dmitry Kabalevsky.

Stefan Zweig was enchanted with Mary Stuart, whose life he perceived as immensely paradoxical and from whom he perceived a ‘inexhaustible attraction of mystery.’ Thus, he investigated the queen of Scotland and Elizabeth I's fierce rival through the lens of a novelistic biography. Zweig is the undisputed master of this genre: he meticulously details the tumultuous life of this amazing woman, who...

A classic of Russian theater, the play, based on an actual event, highlights the tragic tale of a woman, scorned by her lover decided to marry someone else. Her new fiance proves to be an embarassment and she returns to her old lover, hoping to wed. He's turns her down, as he is already engaged to someone else. Feeling dejected she contemplates suicide, only to be murdered by her drunk, jealous...

This one is very gloomy but without the dramatic battles and mayhem found in other Russian novels. This is a grim study of a spiritually bankrupt country split by greed and selfishness. A very bitter portrayal of Russia.

The Insulted and Humiliated. In this novel we see a young man madly in love with a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl falls in love with a very aristocratic prince - a man without principles, but charming in his childish egotism - extremely attractive by his sincerity, and with a full capacity for quite unconsciously committing the worst crimes toward those with whom life brings him...

The Danish novelist, poet and playwright Hans Christian Andersen is known throughout the world primarily as a storyteller. His tales and stories have been translated into more than 100 languages. The strength and immortality of Andersen's fairy tales lies in the fact that they are poetic, wise, imbued with goodness, love for nature and beauty in all its manifestations. Many heroes of his...

The story of Nicholas Urfe and his friendship with a demonic millionaire which leads to an elaborate series of staged hallucinations, riddles, and psychological traps, The Magus endures as the most enigmatic and magical novel in the Fowles canon, a work rich in symbols, conundrums, and labyrinthine twists of events.

Novels and short stories by Aleksei Tolstoy written from 1909 to 1944. The book includes fragments of memoirs of Korney Chukovsky about his friendship with the author.