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Chekhov

• 1. Overviews of all the stories
  • The complete (319) stories of Anton Chekhov: synopses, comments and ratings
• 2. Stories and anthologies
  • “Easter Eve” and other Chekhov stories
  • "An Enigmatic Nature" and other stories by Anton Chekhov
  • "Anyuta" and other Chekhov stories
  • "The Black Monk" and other stories by Anton Chekhov
  • "The Huntsman" and other Chekhov stories
  • "The Lady with The Dog" and other great stories by Anton Chekhov
  • "Ward No. 6" and other stories by Anton Chekhov
  • Anton Chekhov’s funniest story: "From the Diary of a Violent-tempered Man" (1887)

S. Zweig

• Stories and essays
  • "Burning Secret" (1911) by Stefan Zweig
  • "In the Snow" and other stories by Stefan Zweig
  • "Letter From an Unknown Woman" (1922) by Stefan Zweig
  • "The Conquest of Constantinople May 29, 1453" – Stefan Zweig’s dramatic account of a decisive moment in history
  • "The Invisible Collection" and other stories by Stefan Zweig
• Overviews of all the stories
  • The complete (44) stories of Stefan Zweig — synopses, comments and ratings

Stories

Articles

• "A Hunger Artist" (1922) by Franz Kafka
• "A Simple Soul (Un cœur simple)" by Gustave Flaubert (1877)
• "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" (1865) by Lewis Carroll
• "Clothes Make People (Kleider machen Leute)" by Gottfried Keller (1874) - one of the most famous German-language stories now available in English
• "Don Juan", by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1813)
• "From the Life of a Good-for-nothing (Taugenichts)" (1826) — a Romantic classic by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
• "In the Penal Colony" (1919) by Franz Kafka
• "Lalie’s Story", from Zola’s novel "L’Assommoir" (1877)
• "Little Zaches, called Zinnober" (1819) by E. T. A. Hoffmann
• "Nutcracker and the Mouse-King" (1816) — a fairy-tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann
• "Shock-Headed Peter (Der Struwwelpeter)" (1845) by Heinrich Hoffmann, an extraordinary set of illustrated lessons showing children how to behave – or else!
• "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town" (1912), Steven Leacock’s humorous masterpiece
• "The Bottle Imp" (1891) - a South Sea fable by Robert Louis Stevenson
• "The Golden Pot" (1814) by E. T. A. Hoffmann
• "The Metamorphosis" (1915) by Franz Kafka
• "The Mysterious Cup" (Der Pokal, 1812) by Ludwig Tieck - a classic of German romanticism
• "The Promenade (der Spaziergang)" (1917) by Robert Walser
• "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1900) by L. Frank Baum
• "War" (1918): Luigi Pirandello’s memorable story about parenthood in wartime
• A selection of Nelson Algren’s best short stories
• Herman Melville’s masterful story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (1853)
• Three Grimm Brothers "Witch Tales" (1812-1815)

Memoirs

Articles

• "Children of Yesterday" - Jan Valtin’s dramatic eyewitness account of the Pacific War in the Philippines 1944-45
• "Out of the Night" (1941) by Jan Valtin - an extraordinary memoir of life in the international Communist movement between the two World Wars
• "Roughing It in Africa" in World War 2, by Newton Fink
• "Typee" (1846) by Herman Melville - a fascinating account of life in a South Sea island before the spread of Western civilization
• Jack London’s in-depth exploration of the (shocking) living conditions in London’s East End: "The People of the Abyss" (1903)
• The Normandy Campaign - an eyewitness account

Great novels

Articles

• (Our selection of) the world’s greatest novels
• More of the world’s greatest novels

Thrillers

Articles

• "Little Caesar" (1929) by W. R. Burnett
• "Rogue Male" (1939) by Geoffrey Household
• "The Most Dangerous Game" (1964) by Gavin Lyall

Poetry

Articles

• "Sonnets From the Prison of Moabit" (1944-45) by Albrecht Haushofer - a modern triumph of the human spirit
• "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" (1859), translated by Edward Fitzgerald
• "Tobacco Shop (Tabacaria)" by Fernando Pessoa (1928)
• "Twas the night before Christmas" (1823) by Clement Moore
• "Waiting for the Barbarians" (1904) by Constantin Cavafy
• A selection of Tang Dynasty poems
• An anthology of famous French poems, with their English translations
• An anthology of great English poems
• Poetry Readings
• The Lyrical Ballads (1798) version of Coleridge’s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" — the original and arguably most authentic text
• The Lyrical Ballads (1798) version of Wordsworth’s "Tintern Abbey" - the original and most authentic text
• Thoughts on reading "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", translated by Edward Fitzgerald

Essays

Articles

• "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling", by Mark Twain
• "I Love Awfully Bad Writing", by James Clarke
• "The Awful German Language", by Mark Twain
• A comparative study of the vocabulary of the greatest Western authors - and the winner is . . .
• The Great Baseball Scandal - how the Mob won the 1919 World Series, by Nelson Algren
• Why we think that German has a bigger vocabulary than English (or any other Indo-European language)

Dickens

• 1. The complete novels
  • "David Copperfield" (1850) by Charles Dickens
  • "The Pickwick Papers" (1837) by Charles Dickens
  • "Oliver Twist" (1838), by Charles Dickens
  • "Nicholas Nickleby" (1839) by Charles Dickens
  • "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1841) by Charles Dickens
  • "Barnaby Rudge" (1841) by Charles Dickens
  • "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1844) - where Charles Dickens goes to America
  • "Dombey and Son" (1846) by Charles Dickens
  • "Bleak House" (1853) by Charles Dickens
  • "Hard Times" (1854) by Charles Dickens
  • “Little Dorrit” (1857) by Charles Dickens
  • "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859) by Charles Dickens
  • "Great Expectations" (1861) by Charles Dickens
  • "Our Mutual Friend" (1865), by Charles Dickens
  • "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (1869) - the last work of Charles Dickens
  • The 15 novels of Charles Dickens: synopses, comments and ratings
• 2. Stories and essays
  • "A Christmas Carol" (1843) by Charles Dickens
  • "Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions" (1865) - a great late story by Charles Dickens
  • "In Memoriam to William Makepeace Thackeray" - by Charles Dickens
  • "The Five Sisters" and "The Baron of Grogzwig" — tales by Charles Dickens
  • Comments on "Little Dorrit" by Charles Dickens

German Studies

Articles

• A 34,000-word German-English literary dictionary
• A German-French literary dictionary (un dictionnaire littéraire allemand-français)
• German Literature - a personal survey
• German prefixes and suffixes - an overview
• Lexical analysis of "The Magic Mountain": more than 3,300 neologisms and undefined words!
• The astonishing vocabulary of Thomas Mann’s "The Magic Mountain"
• The average number of meanings per word in German (and maybe English too)
• Why we think that German has a bigger vocabulary than English (or any other Indo-European language)

Gogol

Articles

• "Dead Souls" (1842) by Nikolai Gogol
• "Nevsky Prospect" (1835) by Nikolai Gogol
• "The Diary of a Madman" (1835) by Nikolai Gogol
• "The Nose" (1836) by Nikolai Gogol
• "The Overcoat" (1843) by Nikolai Gogol
• "The Portrait" (1842) by Nikolai Gogol

J. London

• 1. Overviews of all the stories & novels
  • The complete stories (205) and novels (15) of Jack London: synopses, comments and ratings
• 2. Anthologies
  • "By the Turtles of Tasman" and other stories by Jack London
  • "Make Westing" and other stories by Jack London
  • "The Pearls of Parlay" and other stories by Jack London
  • "The Sunlanders" and other stories of the Far North by Jack London
  • "The White Man’s Way" and other Klondike stories by Jack London
  • A selection of South Seas stories by Jack London
  • Eleven of Jack London’s best Far North stories
  • Jack London’s two war stories
  • More of Jack London’s best Far North stories
  • Survival in the Klondike – 10 great stories by Jack London
  • Two great boxing stories by Jack London: "A Piece of Steak" (1909) and "The Mexican" (1911)
• 3. Stories
  • "Before Adam" (1906) - a prehistoric adventure novella by Jack London
  • "Lost Face" (1908) by Jack London: the clash of cultures in Russian Alaska
  • "The Call of the Wild" (1903) by Jack London - the full text with e-books
  • "The Cruise of the Dazzler" (1902) - an adventure novella by Jack London
  • "The Game" (1905) - a boxing story by Jack London
  • "The Heathen" (1909) - an unforgettable South Seas tale by Jack London
  • "The Hobo and the Fairy" (1911) - a memorable Hobo story by Jack London
  • "The Scarlet Plague" (1912): a powerful, end-of-the-civilized-world science-fiction novella by Jack London
  • "The Shadow and the Flash" (1903): an early science-fiction story by Jack London
  • An early science-fiction story by Jack London: "A Thousand Deaths" (1899)
  • Jack London’s funniest story: "That Spot" (1908)
  • The Abysmal Brute (1913) - a boxing novella by Jack London
• 4. Novels
  • "Burning Daylight" (1910) - Jack London’s last Klondike novel
  • "Hearts of Three" (1916) - a treasure-hunt adventure novel by Jack London (co-authored by Charles Goddard)
  • "Martin Eden" (1909) by Jack London
  • "The Iron Heel" (1907) - Jack London’s radical statement of faith in the future of socialism
  • "The Mutiny of the Elsinore" (1913) - an adventure novel on the high seas by Jack London
  • "The Sea Wolf" (1904) by Jack London
  • "The Star Rover" (1915) - a novel about prison life in (and out of) San Quentin by Jack London
  • "White Fang" (1906) by Jack London
• 5. Memoirs
  • "The Road" (1907) - Jack London’s vivid account of his hobo days
  • "Through the South Seas with Jack London" by Martin Johnson
  • Jack London’s in-depth exploration of the (shocking) living conditions in London’s East End: "The People of the Abyss" (1903)

ebooks

Articles

• see above

Maupassant

• 1. Overviews of all the stories
  • The complete (300) stories of Guy de Maupassant: synopses, comments and ratings
• 2. Stories and anthologies
  • "An Outing in the Countryside" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "At the Spa" and other previously untranslated stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "Boule de Suif" and other famous stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "La petite Roque" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "On the Water" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "Solitude" and other previously untranslated stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "Suicides" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "The Burning Log" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • "The Night" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
  • Corsican stories by Maupassant
  • The adventures of the Marquise and the Baroness — three of Guy de Maupassant’s most amusing (and amoral) stories

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Articles

• see above

Orwell

Articles

• "Animal Farm" (1945) by George Orwell
• "Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933) by George Orwell
• "Homage to Catalonia" (1938) by George Orwell
• "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell (1949)

van Vogt

• 1. Overviews of all the stories & novels
  • The complete stories (104) and novels (34) of A. E. van Vogt: synopses, comments and ratings
• 2. Anthologies
  • "Away and Beyond" - A. E. van Vogt’s other great 1952 anthology
  • "Destination: Universe!" - A. E. van Vogt’s superb first anthology of his science-fiction short stories (1952)
  • Fifteen golden-age science-fiction stories by A. E. van Vogt
  • More of A. E. van Vogt’s best late-period stories
  • The "Mixed Men" series of golden-age s-f stories by A. E. van Vogt
  • The Silkie Stories (1964-1967) by A. E. van Vogt
  • Three of A. E. van Vogt’s best late-period stories: "Itself" (1963), "Lost: Fifty Suns" (1972) and "The Timed Clock" (1972)
• 3. Stories
  • "Black Destroyer" (1939) - the original text of A. E. van Vogt’s first published s-f story
  • "Centaurus II" (1947) by A. E. van Vogt - a golden-age novelette never before republished
  • "Discord in Scarlet" (1939) by A. E. van Vogt - the original text and graphics
  • "Dormant" (1948) - a great golden-age sci-fi story by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Femworld" - a late (1979) tale by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Haunted Atoms" (1951) - a rare golden-age sci-fi story by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Humans, Go Home!" (1969) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Juggernaut" (1944) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "M33 in Andromeda" (1943) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Not Only Dead Men" (1942): an early A. E. van Vogt story
  • "Ride In, Killer!" (1951) - a golden-age Western story by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Rogue Ship" (1950) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Beast" - an early van Vogt novella now available for the first time since 1943
  • "The Cataaaaa" (1947) - one of A. E. van Vogt’s most original golden-age science-fiction stories
  • "The Expendables" (1963) - a space-exploration saga by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The First Rull" (1978) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Ghost" (1942) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Monster" (1948) - A. E. van Vogt’s best short story
  • "The Perfect Day" (1981) by A. E. van Vogt - never before published in English
  • "The Proxy Intelligence" (1968) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Replicators" (1965) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Sea Thing" (1940) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Shadow Men" (1950) — an outstanding golden-age novella by A. E. van Vogt never before republished
  • "The Ship of Darkness" (1948) - a golden-age s-f/fantasy story by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Star-Saint" (1951) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Ultra Man" (1966) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Weapon Shop" (1942) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Weapon Shops of Isher" (1949) - a major golden-age novella by A. E. van Vogt never before republished!
  • "The Witch" (1943) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Vault of the Beast" (1940) - A. E. van Vogt’s first s-f story
  • "War of Nerves" (1950) by A. E. van Vogt
• 4. Novels
  • "Cosmic Encounter" (1980) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "Slan" (1940) - A. E. van Vogt’s first and most famous novel
  • "The Book of Ptath" (1943) - A. E. van Vogt’s only fantasy novel
  • "The House That Stood Still" (1950) by A.E. van Vogt
  • "The Mind Cage" (1957) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Mixed Men" novel (1952) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Players of Null-A" (1948-49) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Universe Maker" (1953) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Voyage of The Space Beagle" (1950) by A. E. van Vogt
  • "The Weapon Makers" (1943) - the original version of A. E. van Vogt’s first "Weapon Shop" novel (never before republished)
  • "The Weapon Shops of Isher" (1951) by A. E. van Vogt – the “fix-up” novel
  • "The World of Null-A" (1945) by A. E. van Vogt

S-F

Articles

• "A Matter of Size" (1934) by Harry Bates
• "Correspondence Course" (1945) by Raymond F. Jones
• "Exit the Professor" (1947) - a comic masterpiece by Henry Kuttner
• "Farewell to the Master (The Day the Earth Stood Still)" (1940) by Harry Bates
• "He Who Shrank" (1936) by Henry Hasse
• "Liberation of Earth" (1953) by William Tenn
• "Mitkey Rides Again" (1950) by Frederic Brown
• "Sci-fi drink" stories by Kingsley Amis
• "Skirmish (Bathe Your Bearings in Blood!)" (1950) by Clifford Simak
• "The Golden Egg" (1941) by Theodore Sturgeon
• "The Star Mouse" (1942) by Frederick Brown
• "The Time Machine" (1895) by H. G. Wells
• "The Twonky" (1942) by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore (Lewis Padgett)
• "The War of the Worlds" (1898) by H. G. Wells
• "The Wishes We Make" (1943) by E. Mayne Hull
• "Uncommon Sense" (1945) by Hal Clement
• "When Time Was New" (1964) by Robert F. Young
• "Who Goes There?" (1938) - an iconic sci-fi story by John Campbell
• The funniest golden-age s-f story: "The Proud Robot" (1943) by Henry Kuttner (Lewis Padgett)
• The Funniest Science-Fiction Story: “MUGWUMP 4” (1959) by Robert Silverberg

Archives

• Archived essays
  • "Black Swan", ou la dialectique d’un parcours d’expression scénique
  • Choses lues
  • Commentaire sur "Three Uses of the Knife (on the nature and purpose of drama)", par David Mamet
  • Extracts from the Minutes of the annual Smith-McWilliam picnics (1907-1945)
  • Good Words
  • Great music
  • How to improve your English diction (with useful sayings and proverbs)
  • Interesting things read recently that I would like to share with you
  • L’histoire (corse) de Babù Marc
  • La littérature de langue allemande — un survol personnel
  • Marcel Proust and the 4th Dimension
  • My struggle to overcome the CBBS (Compulsive Book-Buyer’s Syndrome)
  • Shakespeare on Football
  • The Maisley McWilliams in Canada family history book (1846-1939)
  • The Ultimate Roller-Ride
  • Tragique et baroque dans "Romeo and Juliet", de William Shakespeare
• Reviews
  • "La Marche de l’empereur", de Luc Jacquet
  • "8 mm", by Joel Schumacher
  • "Disgrace", by J.M. Coetzee
  • "Fiesta (The Sun Also Rises)", by Ernest Hemingway
  • "L’Envol du Migrateur", d’Ismail Kadaré
  • "La chanson de Roland", de Turold
  • "La Chute (Der Untergang)", par Olivier Hirschbiegel
  • "La Conversation de Bolzano", par Sandor Marai
  • "Le Jour des Morts", par Cees Nooteboom
  • "Le Loup Bleu", par Yasushi Inoué
  • "Le Silence", par Orso Miret
  • "Les Noces Funèbres" (Corpse Bride), de Tim Burton
  • "Love and Garbage", by Ivan Klima
  • "Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse", par Jean Potocki
  • "Nouvelle Vie TM", de Pierre Bordage
  • "Ocean’s Twelve", by Steven Soderbergh
  • "Quiller KGB", by Adam Hall
  • "Runaway", by Alice Munro
  • "The Art of Travel", by Alain de Botton
  • "The Blind Assassin", by Margaret Atwood
  • "The Matrix" by Larry and Andy Wachowski/Joe Silver
  • "The Party", de Blake Edwards
  • "The Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus", edited by Brian Aldiss
  • "Vertiges", par W.G. Sebald
  • "Victor Segalen, les tribulations d’un poète en Chine", par Simon Leys
  • Cyrano de Bergerac à la Comédie Française
  • Le bûcher de Montségur, par Zoë Oldenburg
  • Les Cowboys fringants au Zénith
  • Les marionnettes de Salzbourg font leur Mozart à Paris
  • Pepe Carvalho: a Spanish Hercule Poirot
  • Some E.T.A. Hoffmann books
  • Some George Eliot books
  • Some Ismail Kadare books
  • Some Mario Vargas Llosa books
  • Some P.G. Wodehouse Books
  • Some Thomas Hardy Books
  • Some W.G. Sebald books
  • The Irish Civil War