Interactive Media: 1158 books

Bishop Pyotr was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched, his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. And it disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac uttered occasional shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as though in a dream or delirium,...

In the Grasshopper we find a love triangle. Olga, her rather boring husband preoccupied with his work, and a young artist. Olga craves the excitement of the artistic life and finds a new lease on romance with the colourful landscape designer, who takes her on a cruise. But not all is going to plan in...

Big raindrops were pattering on the dark windows. It was one of those disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, last a long time—for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows used to it, and sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness....

One day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of inferior port, felt ill-humoured...

After the festive dinner with its eight courses and its endless conversation, Olga Mihalovna, whose husband’s name-day was being celebrated, went out into the garden. The duty of smiling and talking incessantly, the clatter of the crockery, the stupidity of the servants, the long intervals between...

Golyadkin is a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed. His doctor tells him that his behaviour being dangerously antisocial should improve in cheerful company. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He arrives uninvited at a birthday party and is asked to leave later. On his way home...

Demons, The possessed, or The Devils is one of Dostoyevsky’s rich political novels, a testimonial of life in Imperial Russia in the late 19th century. Dostoyevsky’s life of ideas and spiritual realism concept is presented through his definition of evil as the passion for power. The demons are ideas,...

The novel follows the life of Arkady Dolgoruky, a young intellectual, a child of the controversial and womanizing landowner Versilov. A focus of the novel is the recurring conflict between father and son, particularly in ideology, which represents the battles between the conventional old way of thinking and the new nihilistic point of view of the youth.

A tale of a provincial family desperate to better itself through a marriage of their daughter. The old man is almost forced into a wedding that is expected to last for a short period before he dies and leaves his fortune to the young girl. But not everything is going as planned. The story provides an...

The House with the Mezzanine features a romantic story of a young artist and Eugenia, one of the two sisters living in the house. Eugenia longs to discover the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful though her discovery of the arts and her developing romantic relationship. Lidia, the other sister, does...

Grisha, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his...

A collection of Chekhov's short stories featuring: Talent, Anyuta, The Helpmate, Ivan Matveyitch, Polinka. These stories are rich in characterisation and represent brilliantly observed slices of life. They don’t come to an end, they just peter out inconclusively leaving you to draw your own conclusions.

I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

If anything happens it’s all known at once, nothing is hidden! It's incredible! You can't imagine! Look! My name has been published! Now all Russia knows of me!' A cautionary tale about people wanting and getting fame at any cost.