Ronald Wilks

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Gripping new translations of two harrowing psychological novels by the Russian master The two novels of inner turmoil brought together here mark a turning point for Dostoyevsky, and are among his most personally revealing. The anonymous narrator of Notes from Underground (1864) tells of his refusal to become a worker in the ant-hill of society and of his gradual withdrawal to an underground existence. A classic study of human breakdown, The Double (1846) tells of a man haunted by his double or is it just the fearful side of his own nature? Both are universal testaments of human despair, made vibrant in masterly new translations.

Notes from Underground and the Double

John Bayley

Alexander Pushkin

Presents a collection of stories, including "The Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin," "Roslavlev," and "Egyptian nights."

Tales of Belkin and Other Prose Writings

David McDuff

Anthony Briggs

Leo Tolstoy

Offers a collection of Tolstoy's short stories, including "Three Deaths," "After the Ball," and "The Forged Coupon."

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories

Anton Chekhov

John Sutherland

A Russian country magistrate recounts the murder of the young mistress of a local count, during a shooting party the count had organized for his guests, in an all-new translation of the playwright's only novel. Original.

The Shooting Party

Nikolay Gogol

Nikolai Gogol's short fiction, collected here as The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector and Selected Stories, deeply influenced later Russian literature with powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty bureaucracy and base corruption. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Ronald Wilks, and an introduction by Robert A. Maguire. This volume includes a selection of Gogol's most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A hilarious and biting political satire, 'The Government Inspector' has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play ever written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They include 'Diary of a Madman', an amusing but disturbing exploration of insanity; 'Nevsky Prospect', a depiction of an artist infatuated with a prostitute; and 'The Overcoat', a moving consideration of poverty. Edited and translated by Ronald Wilks, this new collection of Gogol's shorter writings skilfully captures the savage wit of the original works. Robert Maguire's introduction considers recurrent themes and explores Gogol's influence on realism. This edition also includes detailed notes, a publishing history for each story and a chronology. Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) was born in the Ukraine. His experience of St Petersburg life informed a savagely satirical play, The Government Inspector, and a series of brilliant short stories including Nevsky Prospekt and Diary of a Madman. For over a decade, Gogol laboured on his comic epic Dead Souls - before renouncing literature and burning parts of the manuscript shortly before he died. If you enjoyed The Diary of a Madman, you might like Anton Chekhov's The Steppe and Other Stories, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Everything he started to imagine transformed itself and began to wriggle with life'A.S. Byatt, author of Possession

Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, & Selected Stories

Irwin Paul Foote

Collects ten stories from Tolstoy, and includes a chronology and an introduction that places the stories in the context of Tolstoy's life and literary development.

Master and Man and Other Stories

Impressionistic and bold, the nine stories in this collection frame the middle period of Chekhov's career. Exploring both complicated and intense emotions, Chekhov presents a world without simple answers or universal truths. "Ward No. 6" is a savage indictment of the medical profession. "The Black Monk," the story of a scholar who has strange hallucinations, explores ideas of genius and insanity. "A Woman's Kingdom" and "Three Years" show women discovering that money, marriage, and choices do not necessarily bring happiness. In "Murder" religious fervor leads to violence, while in "The Student" a young man recounts a tale from the gospels and undergoes a sudden spiritual epiphany. Also in this volume are "The Grasshopper," "Adriana," and "The Two Volodyas."

Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892-1895

Fyodor Sologub

"'No, my dear contemporaries, it is of you that I have written my novel about the little demon ... about you.'" "Thus Sologub emphatically refuted suggestions that The Little Demon (1907) contained elements of autobiography. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that his schoolmaster hero is one of the great comic monsters of twentieth-century fiction. Peredonov is exercised first by the idea of marrying to gain promotion, later by arson, torture and murder. His descent into paranoia and sexual perversion (he subsequently lent his name to the brand of sado-masochism known in Russia as Peredonovism) mirrors the obsessions of a petty provincial society, tyrannized by triviality and senseless bureaucracy." "The Little Demon is a formidable technical achievement in its portrayal of a spiritual wasteland. It brought Sologub immediate and lasting fame, and is arguably the finest Russian novel to have come out of the Symbolist movement."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Little Demon

Penguin Classics Introduction to Ward No. 6 and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov (Penguin Classics)

A dark classic of Russia's silver age, this blackly funny novel recounts a schoolteacher's descent into sadism, arson and murder. Mad, lascivious, sadistic and ridiculous, the provincial schoolteacher Peredonov torments his students and has hallucinatory fantasies about acts of savagery and degradation, yet to everyone else he is an upstanding member of society. As he pursues the idea of marrying to gain promotion, he descends into paranoia, sexual perversion, arson, torture and murder. Sologub's anti-hero is one of the great comic monsters of twentieth-century fiction, subsequently lending his name to the brand of sado-masochism known as Peredonovism. The Little Demon (1907) made an immediate star of its author who, refuting suggestions that the work was autobiographical, stated 'No, my dear contemporaries ... it is about you'. This grotesque mirror of a spiritually bankrupt society is arguably the finest Russian novel to have come out of the Symbolist movement. Fyodor Sologub was born in St Petersburg in 1863. His first two novels Bad Dreams (1896) and The Little Demon (1907) were drawn from his own experiences as schoolmaster in a remote provincial town. For many years Sologub could not find a publisher for The Little Demon but when in 1907 the novel was at last published - to immediate and resounding success - he was able to leave his restricting career and devote himself to literature. In 1921 his wife committed suicide and Sologub died a few years later in 1927. Ronald Wilks studied Russian language and literature at Trinity College,Cambridge, after training as a Naval interpreter, and later Russian literature at London University. He has translated many works from Russian for Penguin Classics, including books by Gorky, Gogol, Pushkin, Tolstoy and Chekhov.

Ronald Wilks

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