Mark Twain's gloriously funny Diary of Adam and Eve, which John Updike recently described as a paradigm of the relations between sexes, is presented here with a number of other Twain pieces on our two oldest ancestors, showing the writer's interest in this most famous biblical story. By giving a voice to Adam and Eve, and by hitting all the notes on the literary scale — from the intimate to the comical, from the journalistic to the idyllic — Twain displays the brilliance and wit for which he is rightly considered one of the greatest satirists of all time.

When the Selfish Giant decides to build a wall around his garden to prevent the children from playing in it, it becomes barren and stuck in perpertual winter. It takes a wonderful event and the heart of a young boy for him to realize the error of his ways. A classic tale for children, The Selfish Giant is presented here with all of Oscar Wilde's other fairy stories — The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Devoted Friend, The Remarkable Rocket, The Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, The Fisherman and His Soul and The Star-Child — brought to life by Philip Waechter's bright and imaginative illustrations.

In Bulgakov's Diaboliad, the modest and unassuming office clerk Korotkov is summarily sacked for a trifling error from his job at the First Central Depot for the Materials for Matches, and tries to seek out his newly assigned superior Kalsoner, responsible for his dismissal. His quest through the labyrinth of Soviet bureaucracy takes on the increasingly surreal dimensions of a nightmare. This early satirical story, reminiscent of Gogol and Dostoevsky, was first published in 1924 and incurred the wrath of pro-Soviet critics. Along with the three other stories in this volume which also feature explorations of the absurd and bizarre, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the artistic development of the author of Master and Margarita.

Filled with dreams of pursuing a career as a poet, the young Alexander Aduev moves from the country to St Petersburg, where he takes up lodgings next to his uncle Pyotr, a shrewd and world-weary businessman. As his ideals are challenged by disappointment in the fields of love, friendship and poetical ambition, Alexander must decide whether to return to the homely values he has left behind or adapt to the ruthless rules and morals of city life. Told in the author's trademark humorous style and presented in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, The Same Old Story — Goncharov's first novel, preceding his masterpiece Oblomov by twelve years — is a study of lost illusions and rude spiritual awakening in the modern world.

Tolstoy knew as he was writing Hadji Murat, his last work of fiction, that it would not be published in his lifetime, and so gave an uncompromising portrayal of the Russians' faults and the nature of the rebels' struggle. In the process, he shows a mastery of style and an understanding of Chechnya that still carries great resonance today. Hadji Murat, one of the most feared and venerated mountain chiefs in the Chechen struggle against the Russians, defects from the Muslim rebels after feuding with his ruling Imam, Shamil. Hoping to protect his family, he joins the Russians, who accept him but never put their trust in him — and so Murat must find another way to end the struggle.

Published a year after The Great Gatsby, this short-story collection showcases many of the celebrated novel's themes, as well as its unique writing style. Two of the most famous tales, the beautifully elegiac 'The Rich Boy' and 'Winter Dreams', deal with wealthy protagonists — the old-money Anson Hunter and the self-made man Dexter Green — as they come to terms with lost love; while 'Absolution', in which a boy confesses to a priest, was initially written as a background piece to The Great Gatsby.

Part of Alma Classics Fitzgerald's mini-series. Lavishly produced edition with flaps and b&w plates. A collection of early short stories which helped make Fitzgerald's name, Tales of the Jazz Age combines period pieces — the most notable of which is the novella-length 'May Day' — with more fanciful creations, such as the fantastical 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', recently made into a Hollywood film.

New translation of one of the most celebrated novels by the author of Fathers and Children. On his way back to Russia after some years spent in the West, Grigory Mikhailovich Litvinov, the son of a retired official of merchant stock, stops over in Baden-Baden to meet his fiancee Tatyana. However, a chance encounter with his old flame, the manipulative Irina — now married to a general and a prominent figure in aristocratic expatriate circles — unearths feelings buried deep inside the young man's heart, derailing his plans for the future and throwing his life into turmoil.

Written in the 1830s and early 1840s, these comic stories tackle life behind the cold and elegant facade of the Imperial capital from the viewpoints of various characters, such as a collegiate assessor who one day finds that his nose has detached itself from his face and risen the ranks to become a state councillor ('The Nose'), a painter and a lieutenant whose romantic pursuits meet with contrasting degrees of success ('Nevsky Prospect') and a lowly civil servant whose existence desperately unravels when he loses his prized new coat ('The Overcoat'). Also including the 'Diary of Madman', this new translation of Petersburg Tales paint a critical yet hilarious portrait of a city riddled with pomposity and self-importance, masterfully juxtaposing nineteenth-century realism with madcap surrealism, and combining absurdist farce with biting satire.

Professor Persikov, an eccentric zoologist, stumbles upon a new light ray that accelerates growth and reproduction rates in living organisms. In the wake of a plague that has decimated the country's poultry stocks, Persikov's discovery is exploited as a means to correct the problem. As foreign agents, the state and the Soviet media all seize upon the red ray, matters get out of hand.

Written between 1920 and 1921 while Bugakov was working in a hospital in the remote Caucasian outpost of Vladikavkaz, Notes on a Cuff is a series of journalistic sketches which show the young doctor trying to embark on a literary career among the chaos of war, disease, politics and bureaucracy.

«Turgenev's final novel, Virgin Soil traces the destinies of several middle-class revolutionaries who seek to «go to the people» by working on the land and instilling democratic ideas in the countryside's locals. They include the daydreaming impoverished young tutor Nezhdanov — employed by the liberal councillor Sipyagin and his vain and beautiful wife Valentina — the naive young radical Maryanna and the progressive factory manager Solomin. Their liaisons, intrigues and conspiracies, set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia, form the matter of Turgenev's most ambitious and elaborate work, which cemented the author's place in the West as Russia's foremost novelist while at the same time proving controversial at home — culminating in the arrest of fifty-two real-life revolutionaries barely a month after it was published.»

After being saved from a suicide attempt by a literary editor, the journalist and failed novelist Sergei Maxudov has a book suddenly accepted for stage adaptation at a prestigious venue and finds himself propelled into Moscow's theatrical world. In a cut-throat environment tainted by Soviet politics, censorship and egomania — epitomized by the arrogant and incompetent director Ivan Vasilyevich — absurdity gradually gives way to tragedy. Unpublished in Bulgakov's own lifetime, Black Snow (also known as A Theatrical Novel) — here presented in a new translation — is peppered with darkly comic set pieces and draws on its author's own bitter experience as a playwright with the Moscow Arts Theatre, showcasing his inimitable gift for shrewd observation and razor-sharp satire.

Set in the year after the 1929 crash and incorporating many autobiographical elements, 'Babylon Revisited' tells the story of the widower Charlie Wales, a reformed alcoholic and successful businessman returning to Paris to convince his in-laws to give him back the daughter he abandoned. As the old haunts of the city he used to carouse in seem more and more alien to him, he finds himself assailed by feelings of guilt and regret.

A Hollywood hack who has fallen on hard times since the end of the Silent Era, Pat Hobby spends his time hanging out in the studio lot attempting to devise schemes — such as pressing his secretary for blackmail material against a studio executive — to get more work and earn on-screen credits. Oblivious to his own shortcomings and filled with feelings of self-importance, he embarks on a course towards ever-increasing humiliation, suffering setbacks on both the professional and romantic fronts. A vivid account of Hollywood and its politics and hierarchies, these stories — which draw from Fitzgerald's own travails as a screenwriter — were first printed in Esquire, although they were written with a view to being published as a cohesive volume.

New, award-winning translation of Goncharov's popular masterpiece. First published in 1859, Oblomov is an indisputable classic of Russian literature, comparable in its stature to such masterpieces as Gogol's Dead Souls, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. The book centres on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman and the reproaches of his friend, the hard-working Stoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments. Rich in situational comedy, psychological complexity and social satire, Oblomov — here presented in Stephen Pearl's award-winning translation, the first major English-language version of the novel in more than fifty years — is a timeless novel and a monument to human idleness.

First published in 1831, Belkin's Stories was the first completed work of fiction by the founding father of Russian literature. Through a series of interlinked stories purporting to have been told by various narrators to the recently deceased country squire Ivan Belkin, Pushkin offers his own variation on themes and genres that were popular in his day and provides a vivid portrayal of the Russian people. From the story of revenge served cold in 'The Shot' to the havoc wreaked by a blizzard on the life of two young lovers, from the bittersweet tones of 'The Station Master' to the supernatural atmosphere of 'The Undertaker', this collection — presented here in a brand-new translation by Roger Clarke — sparkles with humour and is a testament to the brilliance and versatility of Pushkin's mind.

As he approaches his fortieth birthday, the introverted monk Seido Oda is ordered by his superior to leave behind his peaceful, quiet refuge in the remote mountains of Japan and set up a temple in Brooklyn's Little Calabria. There Oda is confronted with an uphill struggle to get to understand the ways of his new host country, and finds his patience and beliefs tested by a motley crew of misguided American Buddhists — a shock which will enable him to come to terms with painful memories of his past and finally experience that sense of belonging he has always sought.

In the Twilight, the third collection of short stories compiled by Anton Chekhov himself, was his first major success and won him the prestigious Pushkin Prize when it was published in 1887. This volume represents a clear milestone in the writer's passage from the youthful Antosha Chekhonte, author of slight comic sketches, to the mature master of the short-story genre.

Inspired by Dostoevsky's own gambling addiction and written under pressure in order to pay off his creditors and retain his rights to his literary legacy, The Gambler is set in the casino of the fictional German spa town of Roulettenburg and follows the misfortunes of the young tutor Alexei Ivanovich. As he succumbs to the temptations of the roulette table, he finds himself engaged in a battle of wills with Polina, the woman he unrequitedly loves. With an unforgettable cast of fellow gamblers and figures from European high society, this darkly comic novel of greed and self-destruction reveals Dostoevsky at his satirical and psychological best.