A hospital assistant, called Yergunov, an empty-headed fellow, known throughout the district as a great braggart and drunkard, was returning one evening in Christmas week from the...

Take my word for it, there is no such thing as an ancient village, especially if it has seen better days, unillustrated by its legends of terror. You might as well expect to find...

All her life Miss Elizabeth Dwarris had been a sore trial to her relations. A woman of means, she ruled tyrannously over a large number of impecunious cousins, using her...

In one of the greatest works of German literature, Goethe explores the human need for meaning and the desire for power over one's own fate, regardless of the consequences.

John was not twenty years old when he assisted, as a volunteer, at the attack on Mont-Joui, which was captured, and where the Prince of Hesse lost his life. Our poor Johnny was...

We enter the world of a fictional town of Plassans in Zola's native region of Provence and we are introduced to the eccentric heroine Adelaide Fouque, later known as Tante...

Aleksandr Petrovich lives through a spiritual re-awakening that culminates with his release from the prison camp. The narrator has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia...

Chichikov, a gentleman of middling social class and position arrives in a small town and quickly tries to make a good name for himself by impressing the officials of the town....

Ouida ( 1 January 1839 – 25 January 1908) was the pseudonym of the English novelist Maria Louise Ramé (although she preferred to be known as Marie Louise de la...

I can write but just now a few lines. I cannot tell how to bear the sound of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for that measure are: and yet I am firmly...