18 books like Смерть Ивана Ильича
Creatures That Once Were Men
The Boni and Liveright edition of 1918 introduced by G.K. Chesterton and translated by J.M. Shirazi contains five stories - 'Creatures that once were men', 'Twenty-six men and a Girl', 'Chelkash', 'My Fellow Traveller', and 'On a Raft'.
Shares: Russian Short stories, Continental european fiction
Обломов
A comedic story about a member of the landed gentry of nineteenth-century Russia whose indolence destroys his life.
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Voskresenīe
Resurrection, the last full-length novel written by Leo Tolstoy, was published in 1899 after ten years in the making. A humanitarian cause—the pacifist Doukhobor sect, persecuted by the Russian government, needed funds to emigrate to Canada—prompted Tolstoy to finish the novel and dedicate its ensuing revenues to alleviate their plight. Ultimately, Tolstoy’s actions were credited with helping…
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Три сестры
Три сестры: Драма в четырёх действиях
Shares: Russian language, Continental european fiction, Drama
Идиот
Inspired by an image of Christ's suffering, Fyodor Dostoyevsky set out to portray "a truly beautiful soul" colliding with the brutal reality of contemporary society. Returning to St. Petersburg from a Swiss sanatorium, the gentle and naive Prince Myshkin—known as "the idiot"—pays a visit to his distant relative General Yepanchin and proceeds to charm the General and his circle. But after becoming…
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Защита Лужина
Originally published in Russian in 1930. Nabokov released an English translation in 1964. The novel is a fictionalized account of chess master, Curt von Bardeleben. The book was made into the movie, The Luzhin Defense in 2000.
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Бѣсы
Also known as Demons or The Devils, this is Dostoyevsky’s most political novel. Though critical of the left-wing revolutionaries, split as they often were into disparate factions and cells the author also tacitly rebukes the conservative elite for failing to come to terms with the high levels of disaffection in the country, a stance that would ultimately lead to their downfall.
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Записки изъ подполья
Its nameless hero is a profoundly alienated individual in whose brooding self-analysis there is a search for the true and the good in a world of relative values and few absolutes. Moreover, the novel introduces themes — moral, religious, political and social — that dominated Dostoyevsky's later works.
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Вишневый сад
""Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English."-The New YorkerThere have always been two versions of Chekhov's heartrending and humorous masterwork: the one with which we are all familiar, staged by Konstatine Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1904, and the one Chekhov had originally envisioned. Now, for the first time, both are available and…
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The Gadfly
The Gadfly was published in 1897, and its original publishers feared a hostile public reaction to its theme of revolution. Instead, it quickly became a classic of socialism, one of the very first politically aware novels. A story of love and conspiracy, it was based in part on the early life of Sidney Rosenblum, better known as "Reilly Ace of Spies" -- Voynich's boyfriend at the time.
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Cyrano de Bergerac
A Representation at the Hotel de Bourgogne. The hall of the Hotel de Bourgogne, in 1640. A sort of tennis-court arranged and decorated for a theatrical performance. The hall is oblong and seen obliquely, so that one of its sides forms the back of the right foreground, and meeting the left background makes an angle with the stage, which is partly visible. On both sides of the stage are benches.…
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The deluge
This is Volume 2 of the Curtin translation, first published in 1898. This is NOT the more modern Kuniczak translation of 1991 that many people prefer, despite what you can see as the book cover on the screen.
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Home as found
"No society, dear!--Why you were at the Henderson's, and the Morgan's, and the Drewett's; three of the greatest _réunions_ that we have had in two winters!"'
"I did not know that you meant those unpleasant crowds, by society".
"Unpleasant crowds! Why, child, that is society, is it not?'
"Not what I have been taught to consider such; I rather think it would be better to call it company".
"And is…
Shares: Historical Fiction
The Border Empire
Wes Stone was a lawman—until the Sandlin gang gunned down his legendary father. Now, he's giving up his badge for vengeance...
Shares: Historical Fiction
Lolita
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, whom he sexually molests after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores.…
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Чайка
The scene is laid in the park on SORIN'S estate. A broad avenue of trees leads away from the audience toward a lake which lies lost in the depths of the park. The avenue is obstructed by a rough stage, temporarily erected for the performance of amateur theatricals, and which screens the lake from view. There is a dense growth of bushes to the left and right of the stage. A few chairs and a little…
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Дядя Ваня
Uncle Vanya is one of Anton Checkov's four major plays. It was first performed in 1900, the year after its publication, under direction by the celebrated Konstantin Stanislavski. The text reworks an earlier play by Checkov, The Wood Demon. Critics have attempted to follow Checkov's method and artistic development by tracking the changes he made to the earlier text. The cast of Uncle Vanya is…
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Pan Michael An historical novel
The third and final book of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy takes a closer and more intimate look at one of the series’ protagonists: Pan Michael Volodyovski. The Polish Commonwealth has been through intense periods of war, and the peace that follows leaves one of its greatest heroes, Pan Michael, finally free to marry his beloved Panna Anusia. But in a twist of fate, she falls ill and dies, leaving…
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