They show him as a master of compression and a probing analyst, unmasking the mediocrity, lack of ideals, and spiritual and physical inertia of his generation. In these grim pictures of peasant life, and telling portraits of men and women enmeshed in trivialities, in the finely observed, suffocating atmosphere of provincial towns with their pompous officials, frustrated, self-seeking wives, spineless husbands, Chekhov does not expound any system of morality, but leaves the reader to draw what conclusion he will.

    People everywhere saw Paris as the centre of Europe and the hub of culture, fashion and invention. But suddenly France, not least to the disbelief of her own citizens, was gripped in the vice of the Prussian armies and forced to surrender on humiliating terms. Almost immediately Paris was convulsed by the savage self-destruction of the newly formed Socialist government, the Commune.In this brilliant study of the Siege of Paris and its aftermath, Alistair Horne researches first-hand accounts left by official observers, private diarists and letter-writers to evoke the high drama of those ten tumultuous months and the spiritual and physical agony that Paris and the Parisians suffered as they lost the Franco-Prussian war.'Compulsively readable'  The Times'The most enthralling historical work'  Daily Telegraph'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the civil war that still stirs the soul of France'  Evening StandardOne of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

    Set since 1814 until 1914. Set in the revolutionary Europe around 1848, this is the story of two Hungarian brothers who occupy opposing political and ideological camps: Dali, a fiery, freedom-loving romantic, and Antal, a conservative bureaucrat. Throughout the tale, vivid portraits of historical figures appear: Prince Metternich, the Austro-Hungarian chancellor; Tsar Nicholas I; and Lajos Kossuth, the hero of the fight for Hungarian independence. Lajos Zilahy's graphic recreations of the momentous historical events and the passionate private lives of his characters form an unforgettable portrait of 19th-century Europe. Lajos Zilahy was the leading Hungarian novelist of the 20th century; among his books are Two Prisoners and The Deserters.

    Found in a Bottle  - A Tale of the Ragged Mountains - The Sphinx -  The Murders in the Rue Morgue - The Tell-Tale Heart  - The Gold-Bug - The System of Dr. Tarr and  Prof. Fether - The Man That Was Used Up - The Balloon  Hoax - A Descent Into the Maelstrom - The  Purloined Letter - The Pit and The Pendulum - The Cask of  Amontillado

    McPherson deftly narrates the experience of blacks--former slaves and soldiers, preachers, visionaries, doctors, intellectuals, and common people--during the Civil War. Drawing on contemporary journalism, speeches, books, and letters, he presents an eclectic chronicle of their fears and hopes as well as their essential contributions to their own freedom. Through the words of these extraordinary participants, both Northern and Southern, McPherson captures African-American responses to emancipation, the shifting attitudes toward Lincoln and the life of black soldiers in the Union army. Above all, we are allowed to witness the dreams of a disenfranchised people eager to embrace the rights and the equality offered to them, finally, as citizens.

    His celebration of all forms of natural life and his laments for the death of rural England grew directly out of his intimate knowledge of the labourer's life, the wheatfields and hedgerows of his village in Northamptonshire.This authoritative and engaging selection includes poems from every stage of Clare's poetic career, organised by theme, from 'Birds and Beasts' to 'Madhouses, Prisons and Whorehouses'.

    By analyzing the thought and influence of three leading critics of modern Germany, this study will demonstrate the dangers and dilemmas of a particular type of cultural despair. Lagarde, Langbein, and Moeller van den Bruck-their active lives spanning the years from the middle of the past century to the threshold of Hitler's Third Reich-attacked, often incisively and justly, the deficiencies of German culture and the German spirit. But they were more than the critics of Germany's cultural crisis; they were its symptoms and victims as well. Unable to endure the ills which they diagnosed and which they had experienced in their own lives, they sought to become prophets who would point the way to a national rebirth. Hence, they propounded all manner of reforms, ruthless and idealistic, nationalistic and utopian. It was this leap from despair to utopia across all existing reality that gave their thought its fantastic quality.

    Stalin renovated Suvorov's reputation by borrowing his title, the unprecedented rank ""Generalissimo of the Russian Army,"" and by incorporating Suvorov's image into propaganda posters depicting himself. Longworth demonstrates that Suvorov is quite capable of standing magnificently upright in history without Stalin's aid. Coming from a rather middle-class family at a time when wealthy young aristocrats dominated the officer class, Suvorov rose slowly; he did not achieve his greatest eminence until nearly seventy. Nor did he ever really lose touch with the common footsoldier. As a tactician, he broke every rule and abandoned classical strategy in favor of loose organization on the field that allowed for fluid adaptation to events. When slow, deliberate plodding of troops was considered absolutely necessary, he instead struck like a mongoose. He was the bane of fellow officers, and was indeed a vain, impish eccentric...An absorbing portrait of a quixotic pragmatist who never lost a battle.

    Used to roaming the countryside freely with her twin brother, she is now constrained by a life in town, to which her family has just moved so her mother can be closer to her doctor. Her brother is absorbed in his new life at school which excludes her, and spending evenings sitting properly under the noses of her sickly Mama and upright Papa lacks charm. She especially doesn't like the uninspiring classes at the Misses Turner's Select Establishment for Young Ladies. But then, at school Lucy is befriended by Olivia Land, a very romantic and mysterious girl who tells Lucy marvelous tales of the life she led with her actor-parents before their untimely deaths. And Olivia claims that her grandmother, with whom she now lives, is a witch and that she has a friend who is a wizard! When Lucy is finally taken to see the wizard and learns some of the truth behind Olivia's mysterious ways, her faith in her friend is shaken. Will exposing the secrets she promised never to reveal be the best way to help Olivia?

    Trained, well-educated men stayed away from the frontier, sure of easier livings in the rich cities of the East. Except for a chosen few. The dedicated men who went where the need for them was greatest, who deliberately sought out the toughest jobs becaues they knew they could handle anything that came at them. Such men as Walter Judson Ivy and Ted Bodry -- doctors in the Old West. Both doctors were lucky if they got paid in hens or anything else they could put on the table. Both had to deal with everything from broken bones to delivering babies to wounds left from the unspeakable violence of the untamed West. It was a rough, tough, backbreaking job, among people who gave no quarter in a land that ground a man into dust -- or made him bigger than he had ever dreamed he could be.

    "Haslip writes with vividness and immediacy... a serious book which is highly readable." --Edward Crankshaw.