A country doctor recounts a particularly moving experience – for him and for the reader – when he had been called out to visit in difficult conditions a peasant family whose young daughter had been taken seriously ill.
One of the most memorable stories in Turgenev’s collection of hunting tales A Sportsman’s Sketches, centered less on hunting and the beauties of nature than on the essential humanity of the serfs and poor people that he encountered in his many expeditions into the (…)
Articles les plus récents
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"The District Doctor" by Ivan Turgenev (1848)
18 février 2022, par Ivan Turgenev -
"Commentaries on the Gallic War" by Julius Caesar
14 février 2022, par Julius CaesarJulius Caesar’s account of his military campaign from 58-52 B.C. that integrated Gaul – and Britain – into the Roman Empire. A remarkably vivid, dramatic and on the whole accurate account of a particularly important episode in European history, written with the clarity, style and forcefulness that has established this text as one of the most famous historical documents of all time.
A monument of Roman and world literature.
Translated and extensively annotated by the distinguished (…) -
"The Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin (1834)
11 février 2022, par Alexander PushkinA cautious young man who has never gambled sees large sums of money being won and lost around him in the social whirl of Saint Petersburg and becomes fascinated by a fabulous story about an aged countess who had learned a secret method of winning at cards in her youth. He devotes all his energies, charm and determination to be able to confront the old lady in her private quarters late at night to demand that she reveals her secret to him, which she does in an unexpected way.
One of the (…) -
"Counterparts" by James Joyce (1914)
8 février 2022, par James JoyceOne of the central stories in James Joyce’s first published work of fiction, Dubliners (1914), this account of a day in the life of a very mediocre but very believable office worker is one of the harsher but nevertheless most outstanding stories in that collection of variegated vignettes of life in pre-WW1 Dublin. (4,100 words)
An e-book of the story is available for downloading below. COUNTERPARTS
The bell rang furiously and, when Miss Parker went to the tube, a furious voice called (…) -
"The Sandman" by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816)
5 février 2022, par E. T. A. HoffmannNathaniel has vivid memories of being terrified in his childhood of the Sandman, an evil being who punished children who didn’t want to go to bed by sprinkling sand over their eyes and then taking their eyes out to feed to his own monstrous brood (!). And of the fearsome advocate Coppelius who visited his father every evening just after Nathaniel had to go to bed, and who had a most nefarious and eventually catastrophic influence on both his parents.
Things go from bad to worse when in (…) -
"Treasure Island" (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson
2 février 2022, par Robert Louis StevensonOne of the best books for younger readers ever written - anyone who has not read this book around the age of 12 years or so has missed something important in the growing-up experience !
The writing is splendidly taut, the story moves along steadily at a nice pace, the bad guys are really well done – unlike the current mythology, pirates are not portrayed as romantic rebels or gentlemen of fortune revelling in their marginal ways, but as the savage cut-throat scum that they really were – (…) -
"The Burrow (Der Bau)" by Franz Kafka (1922)
29 janvier 2022, par Robert Louis StevensonA fascinating account of an undefined creature’s psychosis as it wanders around its enormous underground complex worrying about how to protect the domain from being discovered and invaded by enemies and, towards the end, constantly hearing strange sounds and worrying about what menacing creature or creatures might be making them.
This brilliant and penetrating exploration of existential anguish is surely one of the best things that Kafka ever did.
(14,100 words)
Translated specially (…) -
"The Weapon Makers" (1943) - the original version of A. E. van Vogt’s first "Weapon Shop" novel (never before republished)
23 janvier 2022, par A. E. van VogtThis novel was the third publication by van Vogt in as many years on the theme of an on-going conflict between a 4,000-year-old autocratic “Isher” regime, some 7,000 years in the future, and a powerful, scientifically-minded opposition organisation, The Weapon Shops, after the short story The Seesaw (1941) and the novelette The Weapon Shop (1942).
It was followed by the novella The Weapon Shops of Isher in 1949 and the novel of the same name in 1951.
Here the narrative not only recounts (…) -
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
21 janvier 2022, par Robert Louis StevensonA brilliant and far-sighted description of an amazing but perfectly credible case of extreme schizophrenia [1] that rolls along at a rapid pace in a clear, elegant style, a masterful tale that was an immense success at the time, a sophisticated mélange of science, horror and mystery by the author of the immortal Treasure Island (1882) that has perfectly passed the test of time. (25,700 words)
An e-book is available for downloading below. CONTENTS I. THE STORY OF THE DOOR II. THE SEARCH (…) -
"In Autumn" by Anton Chekhov (1883)
17 janvier 2022, par Anton ChekhovOn a stormy evening Tikhon’s tavern is crowded with coachmen and pilgrims, and a forty-year-old man in shoddy clothes at the bar is ceaselessly begging for a glass of vodka, eventually proposing his worn-out coat in exchange. Tikhon contemptuously refuses to give him any more vodka until a coachman arrives who recognizes the man as his former master, and we learn the unhappy and female cause of his downfall.
A dramatic story with a most convincing atmosphere, a remarkable achievement for a (…)