Stefan Zweig’s Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman, first published in 1927, is a powerful psychological novella that explores obsession, fate, and the intensity of human emotions. Known for his keen insight into the human psyche, Zweig crafts a gripping story about an elderly woman who, for the first time in her life, confesses a passionate and reckless episode from her past. This brief...

The three novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920. Galsworthy's masterly narrative examines not only their fortunes but also the wider developments within society, particularly the changing position of women.

Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk follows the adventures of Josef Svejk, a boisterous and sometimes bumbling (or brilliantly subversive?) Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army in 1914, Svejk, ‘one of the great characters of 20th century literature’ (New Republic), embarks on a wild trip through war-ravaged Europe as he...

Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk follows the adventures of Josef Svejk, a boisterous and sometimes bumbling (or brilliantly subversive?) Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army in 1914, Svejk, ‘one of the great characters of 20th century literature’ (New Republic), embarks on a wild trip through war-ravaged Europe as he...

In these folk tales, young women go on long and perilous quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese, and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Some of the stories here were collected by folklorists during the last two centuries, while the others are reworkings of oral...

‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ is a classic of ‘horror literature,’ a work whose popularity only increases with time. This short novel about a Victorian scientist who conducts a daring and dangerous experiment on himself, thereby unleashing his dark ‘self’ from the depths of his subconscious – the sinister villain and murderer Mr. Hyde – continues to stir minds and hearts,...

This novel, which has had a tremendous influence not only on Russian but also on world culture, has been adapted into films numerous times both in Russia and abroad. Prince Nekhlyudov, an intelligent and jaded aesthete and sybarite, is horrified to recognize in court the prostitute accused of poisoning a client as Katyusha Maslova – the pure, gentle girl he had seduced out of boredom years...

This book is highly recommended as a reference book for family reading and for use in all educational institutions. And as for government officials and other persons in positions of power, they should consider it their duty to familiarize themselves with this work, lest their exercise of power turn into an even greater misfortune for the Fatherland.

‘The collection includes three works: the novellas ‘Notes from Underground’ (1864), ‘The Eternal Husband’ (1870), and the short story ‘Bobok’ (1873). ‘Notes from Underground’ is perhaps the most prophetic of all of Dostoevsky's works. In it, the writer largely anticipated the ideas of the 20th century, including the prose of Camus and Sartre, and for the first time showed that the...