It was said that just before his death he was on the verge of a breakthrough in the transplantation of human organs.Marie Laurent felt privileged to work for the professor’s brilliant associate, Professor Kern. But her feelings turned to shock and revulsion when she entered Kern’s laboratory and discovered—sitting on a table, surrounded by tubes and tanks, its eyes blinking and lips moving—Professor Dowell’s head!Thus begins a classic tale of horror and suspense by Alexander Beliaev, the bestselling Soviet science fiction author of all time, whose work is considered by many readers the equal of Wells’ and Verne’s.Written half a century ago, this prophetic novel foresees not only organ transplants but other disturbing phenomena of our time, such as the use of mental hospitals as prisons and the manipulation of the news media. In the heads that Kern “rescues” from death, we see a poignant parable of mankind’s disembodied life in a high-technology age.The escape of one of the heads—after its transplantation to the body of an opera star—is the catalyst for the story’s hair-raising climax, as Marie Laurent and Professor Dowell’s son race against time to bring Kern to justice. Kern is a cunning adversary, armed with formidable weapons, both real and psychological. Pursuing him means hairbreadth escapes and sudden reversals—with the outcome uncertain right up to the last page.

    His Ordeal (1919-1941) is a book about the Russian people as they forge their way to a new life, about the Russian intelligentsia which, as a result of a long "ordeal", found its place in society. Tolstoy himself wrote of the plan behind his trilogy: "It's time to begin studying the Revolution, it's time for the artist to become a historian and a thinker... I not only acknowledge the Revolution - with such acknowledgement alone it would not be possible even to write a novel - I love its dark majesty, its world-wide scope. And that is the task of my novel - to create this majesty, this scope in all its complexity.

    Stephen Pearl's new translation, the first major English-language publication of Oblomov in more than fifty years, succeeds exquisitely to introduce this astonishing and endearing novel to a new generation of readers.

    This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

    "The Mighty Bogatyr" and "The Eagle-Patron of Arts" are biting satires on autocracy; "The Crow That Went in Search of Truth" and "The Old Nag" picture the misery of the Peasants; the conceited lion of "Bears in Government" with his ludicrous "self-pawed" inscriptions, is a well-aimed thrust at the illiterate resolutions of Tsar Alexander III, while the Bruins in the same tale ridicule the woebegone ministers of tsarist Russia. But the message of the tales and the bitter truth conveyed in them go far beyond the limits of any one epoch, assuming ever new poignancy and actuality. "The sole object of my literary work," wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin, "was unfailingly to protest against greed, hypocrisy, falsehood, theft, treachery, stupidity..." The Tales, which he wrote during the last years of his life (1826-89), epitomize the entire work of the great satirist who did so much for the cause of revolutionary thought in Russia.

    Babel was best known for his mastery of the short story form—in which he ranks alongside Kafka and Hemingway—but his career was tragically cut short when he was murdered by Stalin's secret police. Edited by his daughter Nathalie Babel and translated by award-winner Peter Constantine, this paperback edition includes the stunning Red Cavalry Stories; The Odessa Tales, featuring the legendary gangster Benya Krik; and the tragic later stories, including "Guy de Maupassant." This will be the standard edition of Babel's stories for years to come.

    This edition contains substantial excerpts from the original four-act version which was never produced, as well as the full text of the final three-act version, selections from Wilde's correspondence, and commentary by George Bernard Shaw, Max Beerbohm, St. John Hankin, and James Agate.

    Martin's Press, 1994). Encyclopedic in scope, with more than 800 poems, 100 photographs, a historical chronology, index of first lines, and a bibliography. The Complete Poems will be the definitive English language collection of Akhmatova for many years to come.

    Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon.

    Shalamov himself spent seventeen years there, and in these stories he vividly captures the lives of ordinary people caught up in terrible circumstances, whose hopes and plans extended to further than a few hours. This new enlarged edition combines two collections previously published in the United States as Kolyma Tales and Graphite.

    Includes many poems used in Arseny's son's films (Andrei Tarkovsky). With a bibliography of both Arseny and Andrei Tarkovsky, and illustrations from Tarkovsky's movies.FROM THE INTRODUCTION:Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky was was born in June 1907 in Elizavetgrad, later named Kirovograd. He studied at the Academy of Literature in Moscow from 1925 to 1929, and also worked in the editorial office of the journal Gudok. He was well respected as a translator, especially of the Oriental classics, but was little known as a poet for most of his life, being unable to get any of his own work published during the Stalinist era. His poems did not begin to appear in book form until he was over fifty. His son, the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, made extensive use of his father's in some of his films, and certain of his diary entries indicate the esteem in which the poet was held in the Soviet Union towards the end of his life. An entry written after Andrei had given a talk at the Moscow Physical Institute in 1980, for instance, reproduces the following note from a member of the audience: 'An enormous number of people in this hall admire Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky as a great Russian poet. Please convey our respects to him.' One of the few recorded public appearances of Arseny Tarkovsky was at the funeral of Anna Akhmatova; he was one of three writers deputed to accompany her coffin from Domodedovo to Leningrad, and he read both at her funeral in Komarovo and at the first evening held in her memory in Moscow. He died in 1989 and is now beginning to be recognised as one of the many significant Russian poets of the twentieth century.From Ignatyevo Forest'The last leaves' embers in total immolationRise into the sky; this whole forestSeethes with irritation, just as we didThat last year we lived together.

    It is an important book in social and moral terms, and wonderfully expressive of Herzen's personality.--Isaiah BerlinAlexander Herzen was one of the major figures in Russian intellectual life in the nineteenth century. Who Is to Blame? was his first novel. A revealing document and a noteworthy contribution to Russian literature in its own right, it establishes the origins of Herzen's spiritual quest and the outlines of his emerging social and political beliefs, and it foreshadows his mature philosophical views.

    But to do this they need to outwit the evil General Woundwort.

    George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision of "Negative Utopia" is timelier than ever-and its warnings more powerful in this three-act adaptation.

    Typical targets of Zoshchenko's satire are the Soviet bureaucracy, crowded conditions in communal apartments, marital infidelities and the rapid turnover in marriage partners, and "the petty-bourgeois mode of life, with its adulterous episodes, lying, and similar nonsense." His devices are farcical complications, satiric understatement, humorous anachronisms, and an ironic contrast between high-flown sentiments and the down-to-earth reality of mercenary instincts.Zoshchenko's sharp and original satire offers a marvelous window on Russian life in the 20s and 30s.