A very lonely and very penniless young man wanders around the streets of Saint Petersburg dreaming about life in general and the people he sees around him in particular. One eventful evening he rescues a damsel in distress and strikes up the most significant relationship of his life – that does not end particularly well, of course, this being a story by the author of Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment.
(20,300 words)
Translated by Constance Garnett. An e-book, with the (…)
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Stories
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"White Nights" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1848)
7 March 2022, by Fyodor Dostoyevski -
"Lieutenant Gustl" by Arthur Schnitzler (1900)
28 February 2022, by Arthur SchnitzlerA long, intense and dramatic "stream-of-consciousness" mental monologue of of an officer in pre-WW1 Vienna before, during and after a dramatic incident in an opera house that neither he nor the reader can ever forget.
A brilliant portrayal of the military mindset in the country that started the First World War.
By Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), doctor, playwright, novelist and one of the most renowned German-language short-story writers of the 20th century.
(12,500 words)
Translated (…) -
"The Cremona Violin (Rat Krespel)" by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1818)
21 February 2022, by E. T. A. HoffmannCouncillor Krespel (“Rat Krespel” – the original title of this original story) is an eccentric and somewhat mysterious fellow who plays the violin marvelously, specialises in repairing ancient instruments and who lives with (!) a particularly talented young singer Angelina whose voice – for those lucky enough to hear it – moves one and all like none other. But when the narrator falls in love with the beauty he discovers the secret connection between the tragic destiny of the young woman and (…)
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"The District Doctor" by Ivan Turgenev (1848)
18 February 2022, by Ivan TurgenevA 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 (…) -
"The Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin (1834)
11 February 2022, by 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 February 2022, by 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 out (…) -
"The Sandman" by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816)
5 February 2022, by 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 (…) -
"The Burrow (Der Bau)" by Franz Kafka (1922)
29 January 2022, by 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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
21 January 2022, by 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 (…) -
"A Report to an Academy" by Franz Kafka (1920)
10 January 2022, by Franz KafkaAn ape that has learned human ways reports to an assembly of scientists on the use or rather misuse that mankind had made of his talents.
A moving and powerful account of his determined, obsessive striving to fundamentally change his essential condition and acquire a form of freedom in spite of the coarseness, stupidity and callousness of the humans into whose world he has been unwillingly thrust.
Yet another masterwork by the author of The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony, a writer (…)