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Coming back to the nest of his family home in Russia after years of fruitless endeavours away from his roots, Lavretsky decides to turn his back on the vacuous salons of Paris and his frivolous and unfaithful wife Varvara Pavlovna. On his return he meets Liza, the daughter of one of his cousins, whom he had known when they were children and who rekindles in him long-smothered feelings of love. News of Varvara''s death arrive from France, offering Lavretsky the prospect of a new life, but a cruel twist threatens to shatter his dreams and forces him to re-evaluate his plans.

This is a new release of the original 1923 edition.

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Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys'' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning. Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky-Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world-woke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o''clock in the morning, not in his wife''s bedroom, but on the leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa, as though he would sink into a long sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes. "Yes, yes, how was it now?" he thought, going over his dream. "Now, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il m i o t e s o r o -not Il m i o t e s o r o though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too," he remembered. Stepan Arkadyevitch''s eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. "Yes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only there''s no putting it into words, or even expressing it in one''s thoughts awake." And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife''s room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.

Collected here are the letters of famed master of the short story, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). The son of a former serf in southern Russia, Chekhov attended Moscow University to study medicine, writing short stories for periodicals in order to support his family. What began as a necessity became a legitimate career in 1886 when he was asked to write in St. Petersburg for the Novoye Vremya (New Times), owned by millionaire magnate Alexey Suvorin. Chekhov began paying more attention to his writing, revising and developing his own principles and conceptions of truth, for a time coming under the influence of Leo Tolstoy. The letters in this volume illustrate the charming blend of narration and wit that comprise Chekhov''s signature style. Ranging from love letters, discussions of literature with publishers and directors, and descriptions of the landscapes, people and preoccupations of his daily life, this collection lets readers see inside the mind of one of the world''s greatest writers.

Referred to by Henry James as ''the first novelist of his time'' Ivan Turgenev''s works focus on class, love and suffering. Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories with its themes of the supernatural was, therefore, something of a departure for a writer who was well-known for his more humanitarian and liberal views. However, Turgenev uses these supernatural elements as a vehicle for exploring the irrationalities of the human psyche and he leaves the rational explanations for apparently supernatural events ambiguous - as Avrahm Yarmolinsky writes in his biography of Turgenev perhaps ''there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in positivist philosophy''. Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories includes Knock, Knock, Knock, The Inn, Lieutenant Yergunov''s Story, The Dog and The Watch. ''Turning from side to side I stretched out my hands ... My finger hit one of the beams of the wall. It emitted a faint but resounding, and as it were, prolonged note ... I must have struck a hollow place. I tapped again ... this time on purpose. The same sound was repeated. I knocked again ...'' From Knock, Knock, Knock (1871)

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky written in 1877. It chronicles the experiences of a man who decides that there is nothing of any value in the world. Slipping into nihilism with terrible anguish, he is determined to commit suicide. However, after a chance encounter with a young girl, he begins an inner journey that re instills a love for his fellow man. The story was first published in A Writer''s Diary

First Love is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860. It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. It tells the love story between a 21-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. Like many of Turgenev''s works, this one is highly autobiographical. Indeed, the author claimed it was the most autobiographical of all his works. Here Turgenev is retelling an incident from his own life, his infatuation with a young neighbor in the country, Catherine Shakovskoy (the Zinaida of the novella), an infatuation that lasted until his discovery that Catherine was in fact his own father''s mistress.Critics were divided. Some criticized its light subject matter that did not touch upon any of the pressing social and political issues of the day. Others condemned the impropriety of that subject matter, namely a father and son in love with the same woman and a young woman who was the mistress of a married man. But it had its many admirers, including the French novelist Gustave Flaubert, who gushed in a letter to Turgenev, "What an exciting girl that Zinochka [Zinaida] is!" The Countess Lambert, a close acquaintance of Turgenev, told the author that the Russian emperor himself had read the novella to the empress and been delighted by it.

Golding is a titular Councilors. This is rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great. As rank eight led to hereditary nobility, being a titular Councilors is symbolic of a low-level bureaucrat still struggling to succeed. Golding has a formative discussion with his Doctor Marten site, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behavior is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golding resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Karla Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters his double, who looks exactly like him. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

First Love (Russian: Первая любовь, Pervaya ljubov) is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860. It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. It tells the love story between a 21-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.