On the Decay of the Art of Lying is a short essay written by Mark Twain in 1885 for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, Connecticut. In the essay, Twain laments the dour ways in which men of America's Gilded Age employ man's «most faithfull friend.» He concludes...
In «A Letter to a Hindu», Tolstoy argued that only through the principle of love could the Indian people free themselves from colonial British rule. These ideas ultimately proved to be successful in 1947 in the culmination of the Indian Independence Movement. In 1908, Indian revolutionary Taraknath...
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, considered one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s. "Usually classed among the best examples of the novella", The Death of Ivan Ilyich...
A Russian Christmas Party by Leo Tolstoy is about a generous family on the brink of ruin whose mother pins their hopes for restoring their fortune on their son, Nicolas' marriage to a wealthy bride. Nicolas isn't cooperating, for he loves a poor girl named Sonia. Alas! How will they see...
"God Sees the Truth, But Waits" is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1872. The story, about a man sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit, takes the form of a parable of forgiveness. English translations were also published under titles «The...
The Madman, His Parables and Poems is a book written by Kahlil Gibran, which was published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf in 1918, with illustrations reproduced from original drawings by the author. It was Gibran's first book in English to be published, also marking the beginning of...
The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of...
"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in...
"This audiobook collects a magnificent set of works by Russian classical authors: Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bulgakov, Leonid Andreyev, Maxim Gorky, Ivan Turgenev, Aleksandr Kuprin. Each original story, springing from a common...
"Short story “The Blue Cross” is Chesterton's first Father Brown mystery. It introduces the characters Flambeau and Valentin. It is unique among the Father Brown mysteries in that it does not follow the actions of the Father himself, but rather those of Valentin. Brown has been committing...
10 Great Russian Short Story. The Russian short stories that will make a vivid impression on a person: The Mantle by Nikolai Gogol, Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy, Darkness by Anton...
"Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 Sept 1888 – 4 Jan 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary and social critic. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work and marry there. He...
"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (Russian: Сон смешного человека, Son smeshnovo cheloveka) is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky written in 1877. It chronicles the experiences of a man who decides that there is nothing of any value in the world. Slipping into nihilism with the “terrible...
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and...
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of...