Публицистика: прочее
Различные книги в жанре Публицистика: прочееThe Son of the Wolf and Other Stories
Jack London was born into abject poverty in the slums of San Francisco during the winter of 1876. His writing was to reflect the hard life he lived, perpetually chronicling men facing the wild as he did throughout his life. After his eighth grade year, poverty forced London to leave school. This did not stop him, as he furthered his literary knowledge and skill at the Oakland Public Library, borrowing books and educating himself. London faced great obstacles, even landing himself in a Niagara Falls prison as a vagrant just shortly after winning a prize from a newspaper for his piece on a Typhoon near Japan. Once he was released, London decided to go back to high school, finishing his education in just a year and got into the University of California. He left after only one semester and began his prolific writing career. «The Son of the Wolf and Other Stories» includes: «The White Silence,» «The Son of the Wolf,» «The Men of Forty Mile,» «In A Far Country,» «To The Man On The Trail,» «The Priestly Prerogative,» «The Wisdom of The Trail,» «The Wife Of A King,» and «An Odyssey Of The North.»
The Wife and Other Stories
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a master of the short story. The son of a former serf in southern Russia, he attended Moscow University to study medicine, writing short stories for periodicals in order to support his family. What began as a necessity became a legitimate career in 1886 when he was asked to write in St. Petersburg for the Novoye Vremya (New Times), owned by millionaire magnate Alexey Suvorin. Chekhov began paying more attention to his writing, revising and developing his own principles and conceptions of truth, for a time coming under the influence of Leo Tolstoy. As a result of his widespread popularity, Chekhov amassed a vast collection of short stories displaying an early use of stream-of-consciousness writing, as well as his powerful ideas concerning the individual, the tedium of life, and the beauty nature and humanity. This edition contains «The Wife,» «Difficult People,» «The Grasshopper,» «A Dreary Story,» «The Privy Councilor,» «A Man in a Case,» «Gooseberries,» «About Love,» and «The Lottery Ticket.»
Dubliners
First published in 1914, James Joyce’s “Dubliners” is a collection of fifteen short stories which naturalistically depict the middle class of Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. These stories were written near the height of the Irish nationalistic movement. A growing desire for national identity and independence from British rule would ultimately culminate in the conflict of the Anglo-Irish War, which lasted from 1919 to 1921. Drawing upon his experiences as a youth growing up in Dublin, Joyce’s stories are rich with the cultural identity of the Irish people during this era. Each tale of this collection is concerned with some event that evokes an illuminating epiphany in the lives of its characters. Joyce illustrates the changing perspective that we have as we get older by changing the age of the protagonist as he progresses through the stories of the collection. An intimate portrayal of the lives of the Irish people during the early part of the 20th century, “Dubliners” includes the following tales: “The Sisters,” “An Encounter,” “Araby,” “Eveline,” “After the Race,” “Two Gallants,” “The Boarding House,” “A Little Cloud,” “Counterparts,” “Clay,” “A Painful Case,” “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” “A Mother,” “Grace,” and “The Dead.”
The Happy Prince and Other Stories
“The Happy Prince and Other Stories” is a collection of whimsical, fantastical, and deeply moral tales by Oscar Wilde, the renowned nineteenth century Irish poet and playwright. Though best known for his plays and the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Wilde was an accomplished and talented author of children’s stories and fairy tales. This collection includes many of his most enduring short stories: the sad and beautiful “The Happy Prince”, where a lonely swallow, left behind by his flock, shows the magical statue of a privileged and wealthy Prince the harsh reality of life for the poor; “The Selfish Giant”, a touching tale of a giant who realizes the importance of love and kindness when he finally allows children to play in his garden, which had turned cold and lonely when the giant closed it off to them; and “The Remarkable Rocket”, the tale of an arrogant and disdainful, but forgotten, firework who alienates everyone and finally explodes with no one there to appreciate him. Those tales along with six other stories are included in this collection. Readers of all ages will be inspired by these beautiful and magical tales which teach the value of kindness and charity. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
The Garden Party and Other Stories
Katherine Mansfield is often recognized as one of the true innovators of the modern short story. The New Zealand-born Englishwoman embraced a Bohemian lifestyle and became involved in a series of scandalous relationships, which greatly influenced some of her most significant work. Her best-known writings were produced in her final years, as she was plagued by illness. Her fiction is dominated by themes of male-female relationships, sexual ambivalence, and gender roles. Most of her work focuses on female protagonists and demonstrates the problems of social relationships. This collection, written between 1920-1922, includes “At the Bay”, a story that proposes there is more to a woman's life than marriage and motherhood; “The Garden Party”, which explores class differences; “The Daughters of the Late Colonel”, a story about life and death; “Marriage à la Mode”, about the dissolution of a relationship; “Miss Brill”, Mansfield's memorable tale of the lonely woman, and many more. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
In this representative volume, “The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories” the reader will find twenty-four of Mark Twain’s best shorter works. Classic and unforgettable tales that span the author’s career are included, such as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, which is Twain’s most famous short story and was his first great success as an author. It is the unforgettable tale of Jim Smiley, the gambler who will bet on anything including a frog-jumping competition. Also included is the fascinating and unfinished final novel by Twain, “The Mysterious Stranger”, which he worked on over a period of several years from 1897 to 1908 and was finally published after his death. The story takes place several hundred years ago and features a mysterious character who is revealed to be Satan himself. Far darker, more serious, and mature than Twain’s earlier works, this final story grapples with challenging and important concerns about the moral failings of men and the fate of the human race. This collection is an important addition to the library of anyone who enjoys one of America’s most renowned authors. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
Sketches from a Hunter's Album
Generally thought to be the work that led to the abolishment of serfdom in Russia, “Sketches from a Hunter’s Album” is a series of short stories, written in 1852, that gained Turgenev widespread recognition for his unique writing style. These stories were the result of Turgenev’s observations while hunting all over Russia, particularly on his abusive mother’s estate at Spasskoye. A definitive work of the Russian Realist tradition, this collection of sketches unveils the author’s insights on the lives of everyday Russians, from landowners and their peasants, to bailiffs and mournful doctors, to unhappy wives and mothers. Turgenev captures their tragedies and triumphs, losses and loves in a set of stories that condemned the behavior of the ruling class. Considered subversive writing, Turgenev was confined to his mother’s estate, yet his “Sketches” opened the eyes of many people of his time, proving him not only an artist but also a social reformer whose abilities ultimately affected the lives of countless Russians. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
The Collected Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce
American journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce is one of the most famous and fascinating figures in all of American literature. He led an adventurous and eventful life, beginning with his birth in a log cabin, to his time as a Civil War soldier, followed by his career as an author and journalist, to finally his mysterious disappearance during the Mexican Revolution at age 71. Bierce is perhaps best known for his short stories about the American Civil War, which influenced authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Stephen Crane. He was also an accomplished horror story writer, whose work inspired the tales of H. P. Lovecraft. Bierce’s gift for story-telling is exemplified by his famous “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, which is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer condemned to die by hanging upon the Owl Creek Bridge. It is one of the most anthologized of American short stories and showcases his cutting wit and talent for irony and surprise. This story, along with numerous others, is collected in this representative edition of “The Collected Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce”. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
“The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories” collects six of Tolstoy’s finest short stories into one edition. In “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”, Tolstoy explores this very question through the story of a peasant with an increasing appetite for land—an appetite which becomes his ruin. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, one of Tolstoy’s short masterpieces, tells of the early death of a high-court judge in 19th century Russian. “Family Happiness” explores the female identity within changing romantic relationships. Narrated in first person by the protagonist Masha, the tale is a skilled and engrossing story of a woman’s difficult position in a shifting society. “The Kreutzer Sonata” is an intense tale of love, marriage, sex, and jealousy. Initially banned by the Russian censors, the novella has inspired many films, theater productions, and paintings. In “The Devil”, Evgeni Irtenev struggles with a new inheritance riddled with debts when sudden romance and lust threaten to turn his world upside down. Lastly, “Father Sergius” tells of a young aristocrat who, upon discovery of his fiancé’s infidelity, retreats into the life of a monastic Orthodox Christian, though this radically new life proves to be difficult. This representative collection of short stories exhibits why Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the world’s most renowned authors. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
The Queen of Spades, the Captain's Daughter and Other Stories
By the time Alexander Pushkin was twenty years old, he was already being recognized in the Russian literary scene as a great talent. He was born in Moscow and educated at home and at the Lyceum, studying Latin and eighteenth century French literature. Often seen as the founder of modern Russian literature and the first important Russian Poet, Pushkin’s early works spoke largely to social reform which resulted in his exile to southern Russia until 1826; however, he continued to write unabated for his entire life. His poems and plays incorporated elements of drama, romance and satire that would from then on be associated with Russian literature, and his short stories are deemed by some to be the perfect Romantic tales. This collection of short stories begins with his finest prose story, “The Queen of Spades”, and also includes “The Captain's Daughter”, “The Lady Rustic”, “The Pistol-Shot”, “The Snow-Storm”, “The Undertaker”, “The Station-Master”, and “The Moor of Peter the Great”.