 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
THE ART OF THE NOVELLA
Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story—what, exactly is a novella?
This unprecedented new series answers the question and takes a look at the renegade form in all its varieties. It does so in a beautifully packaged and inexpensive line featuring work by some of history’s greatest writers—including many titles never before presented in book form.
THE BEACH AT FALESA
Robert Louis Stevenson
0-9761407-1-3
$9 US/ $13 CAN
128 pages
Originally censored by its British publisher, The Beach at Falesá is a scathing critique of colonialism and economic imperialism that bravely takes on many of the 19th Century’s strongest taboos: miscegenation, imperialism, and economic exploitation.
It does so with a story that features a surprising and beguiling romance between an adventurous British trader and a young island girl, against a background of increasing—and mysterious—hostility. Are the native islanders plotting against the couple, or is it the other white traders? The result is a denouement that is astonishing in its violence. Told in the unadorned voice of the trader, it is a story that deftly combines the form of the exotic adventure yarn with the moral and psychological questing of great fiction
About the author
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1850, the son of a prominent engineer famous for building lighthouses. Although expected to continue the family profession, Stevenson’s earliest interests were literary. He studied law and was admitted to the bar but never practiced. Suffering from lifelong respiratory illness, he traveled extensively in search of a beneficial climate, living in Switzerland, the United States, and the Polynesian Islands. His first book was a travel book about a French canoe trip, but he soon branched out into poetry and fiction, including his massively popular children’s adventures Kidnapped and Treasure Island, as well as more subtle and morally ambiguous work such as his classic science fiction The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He died in Samoa in 1894.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
Rudyard Kipling
0-9761407-0-5
$9 US/ $13 CAN
80 pages
Literature’s most famous adventure story, this stirring tale of two happy-go-lucky British ne’re-do-wells trying to carve out their own kingdom in the remote mountains of Afghanistan has also proved over time to be a work of penetrating and lasting political insight—amidst its raucous humor and swashbuckling bravado is a devastatingly astute dissection of imperialism and its heroic pretensions.
Written when he was only 22 years old, the tale also features some of Rudyard Kipling’s most crystalline prose, and one of the most beautifully rendered, spectacularly exotic settings he ever used. Best of all, it features two of his most unforgettable characters, the ultra-vivid Cockneys Peachy Carnahan and Daniel Dravot, who impart to the story its ultimate, astonishing twist: it is both a tragedy and a triumph
About the Author
Rudyard Kipling was born in India to British parents in 1865. After a Dickensian childhood in an English boarding school, he returned to India and became a journalist. In the late 1880s his short fiction began appearing in inexpensive editions for rail travelers, and he soon became famous. In 1892 he married Caroline Balestier, moved briefly to the U.S., then returned to England after their daughter, Josephine, died of pneumonia. In the aftermath, Kipling wrote some of his best-known books and poems, including The Jungle Book, Kim, and Gunga Din, and in 1907 he became the first Englishman,
and the youngest person ever, to win the Noble Prize. After his only son, John, was killed in World War I, Kipling’s writing decreased, until he died in 1936.
THE ETERNAL HUSBAND
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
0-9761407-3-X
$9 US/ $13 CAN
224 pages
This remarkably edgy and suspenseful tale shows that, despite being better known for his voluminous and sprawling novels, Fyodor Dostoevsky was a master of the more tightly-focused form of the novella.
The Eternal Husband may, in fact, constitute his most classically-shaped composition, with his most devilish plot: A man answers a late-night knock on the door to find himself in tense and puzzling confrontation with the husband of a former lover—but it isn’t clear if the husband knows about the affair. What follows is one of the most beautiful and piercing considerations ever written about the dualities of love: a dazzling psychological duel between the two men over knowledge they may or may not share, bringing them to a shattering conclusion.
About the Author
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in 1821 in Moscow, the son of a tyrannical doctor subsequently murdered by his serfs. After studying engineering, Dostoevsky published his first novel, Poor Folk, in 1846 to great acclaim. Two years later, however, he was sentenced to death for being a member of a secret intellectual society seen as anti-Czarist. While actually standing before the firing squad, Dostoevsky was given a last-minute reprieve, and sent instead to prison in Siberia for ten years. His novels and the political journals he edited would rankle authorities for the rest of his life. This, plus devastating gambling debts, led him to frequently flee to Europe, even as he composed masterworks such as The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. He died in St. Petersburg in 1881.
THE HORLA
Guy de Maupassant
0-9761407-4-8
$9 US/ $13 CAN
96 pages
Translated by Charlotte Mandell
This chilling tale of one man’s descent into madness was published shortly before the author was institutionalized for insanity, and so The Horla has inevitably been seen as informed by Guy de Maupassant’s mental illness. While such speculation is murky, it is clear that de Maupassant—hailed alongside Chekhov as father of the short story—was at the peak of his powers in this innovative precursor of first-person psychological fiction.
Indeed, he worked for years on The Horla’s themes and form, first drafting it as “Letter from a Madman,” then telling it from a doctor’s point of view, before finally releasing the terrified protagonist to speak for himself in its devastating final version. In a brilliant new translation, all three versions appear here as a single volume for the first time.
About the author
Guy de Maupassant was born in Normandy in 1850. At 20 he served in the Franco-Prussian War, then studied writing with his mother’s friend Gustav Flaubert (perhaps believing rumors, which persist, that Flaubert was his father). In 1880 he published his first story, “Boule de Suif,” which was hailed as a masterpiece. He quit his civil service job and soon published the collection, La Maison Tellier. He would go on to publish 300 stories and six novels, including Bel-Ami and Pierre et Jean, while living the life of a bon vivant. In the late 1880s, however, he began to show signs of syphilitic mental illness, and in 1891, was institutionalized after a suicide attempt. He died in a mental asylum in 1893.
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS
Heinrich Von Kleist
0-9761407-2-1
$9 US/ $13 CAN
144 pages
Based on actual historic events, this thrilling saga of violence and retribution bridged the gap between medieval and modern literature, and speaks so profoundly to the contemporary spirit that it has been the basis of numerous plays, movies, and novels.
It has become, in fact, a classic tale: that of the honorable man forced to take the law into his own hands. In this incendiary prototype, a minor tax dispute intensifies explosively, until the eponymous hero finds the forces of an entire kingdom, and even the great Martin Luther, gathered against him. But soon even Luther comes to echo the growing army of peasants asking, Isn’t Kohlhaas right?
Widely acknowledged as one of the masterworks of German literature, Michael Kohlhaas is also one of the most stirring tales ever written of the quest for justice.
About the author
Heinrich von Kleist was born in 1777 in Frankfurt, Germany, to a Prussian military family. He was placed into military service at 15, fought against the French, and resigned his commission at 21. Unable to obtain a civil service job, he started one of Germany’s first daily newspapers, which failed, and he traveled extensively through a Europe engulfed by the Napoleonic Wars. He was hospitalized for several mysterious illnesses, including surgery for an indeterminate sexual problem that led him to break off a marital engagement. Throughout, he wrote revolutionary plays and stories, such as Penthesilea and The Marquise of O—, embracing realism and rejecting the ideals of dominant German humanists such as Goethe. As part of a suicide pact, Kleist shot dead a terminally-ill friend, then himself, In 1811.
The Touchstone, by Edith Wharton
ISBN: 097460786X
Price: $9/$13CAN
100 Pages
Paperback
This sly, masterful, story about a poor young man who finds himself with an opportunity to get rich by selling off love letters from a scorned – now famous – lover is classic Wharton, with social status, money, self-deception and love all intertwine in a deft social and psychological portrait.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle
ISBN: 0974607878
Price: $9/$13CAN
100 pages
Paperback
The most famous of the Sherlock Holmes series (and the one most often made into movies), "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is set on the dark and moody English moors, and features the brilliant, cocaine-addicted detective and his befuddled sidekick Dr. Watson solving the mystery of a terrifying ancient curse in what many consider the best of the Holmes tales.
The Dead, by James Joyce
ISBN: 097496090X
Price: $9/$13CAN
100 pages
Paperback
Often cited as the best work of short fiction ever written, Joyce's elegant story details a New Year's Eve gathering in Dublin that is so evocative and beautiful that it prompts the protagonist's wife to make a shocking revelation to her husband -- closing the story with an emotionally powerful epiphany that is unsurpassed in modern literature.
First Love, by Ivan Turgenev
ISBN: 0974607894
Price: $9/$13CAN
100 Pages
Paperback
One of Russian literature's most renowned love stories -- a vivid and sensitive account of adolescent love, wherein the sixteen year old protagonist falls in love with the beautiful but older woman living next door, plunging him into a whirlwind of changing emotions that are heightened by her capriciousness, and leading to a truly heart-rending revelation.
A Simple Heart, by Gustave Flaubert
ISBN: 0974607886
Price: $9/$13CAN
100 pages
Paperback
Translated by Charlotte Mandell
Often cited as one of the legendary author's most important works, this deceptively simple story of a housemaid and her approach to a lifetime of servitude renders her mundane life with great beauty and psychological integrity, such that her modest existance assumes a wonderful transcendent grandeur.
Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville
0-9746078-0-0
$9US / $13CAN
80 pages
Paperback
Academics hail it as the beginning of modernism, but to readers around the world—even those daunted by MOBY-DICK—BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER is simply one of the most absorbing and moving novellas ever. Set in the mid-19th century on New York City’s Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?
The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine in 18(TK) – to, sadly, critical disdain.
About the author
Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. At 18 he set sail on a whaler, and upon his return, wrote a series of bestselling adventure novels based on his travels, including TYPEE and OMOO, which made him famous. Starting with MOBY-DICK in 1851, however, his increasingly complex and challenging work drew more and more negative criticism, until 1857 when, after his collection PIAZZA TALES (which included "Bartleby the Scrivener"), and the novel THE CONFIDENCE MAN, Melville stopped publishing fiction. He drifted into obscurity, writing poetry and working for the Customs House in New York City, until his death in 1891.
The Devil
Leo Tolstoy
0-9746078-3-5
$9US / $13CAN
100 pages
Paperback
Leo Tolstoy is known for epic novels that brilliantly dissect society, but the novella THE DEVIL may be the most personally revealing -- and startling -- fiction he ever wrote. He thought it so scandalous, in fact, that he hid the manuscript in the upholstery of a chair in his office so his wife wouldn't find it, and he would never allow it to be published in his lifetime.
Perhaps that's because the gripping tale of an aristocratic landowner slowly overcome with unrelenting sexual desire for one of the peasants on his estate was strikingly similar to an affair Tolstoy himself had. Regardless, the tale -- presented here with the two separate endings Tolstoy couldn't decide between -- is a scintillating study of sexual attraction and human obsession.
About the author
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born into the Russian aristocracy in 1828. After a licentious youth, he joined the army to serve in the Crimean War. It proved the inspiration for some of his greatest writing, including WAR AND PEACE. After the war Tolstoy married Sofia Behrs and returned to the family estate, where he fathered 13 children, ran a school for young peasants, and wrote ANNA KARENINA. But in 1879, Tolstoy underwent a spiritual crisis, and denounced the Orthodox Church, private property, and the demands of the flesh. His extreme asceticism caused decades-long tension with his wife. In 1910, after an argument with her, he died while fleeing the estate.
The Lesson of the Master
Henry James
0-9746078-4-3
$9US / $13CAN
96 pages
Paperback
Exemplifying Henry James's famous belief that "Art makes life," THE LESSON OF THE MASTER is a piercing study of the life that art makes. When the tale's protagonist—a gifted young writer—meets and befriends a famous author he has long idolized, he is both repelled by and attracted to the artist's great secret: the emotional costs of a life dedicated to art. Is art, ultimately, demeaning to the artist, or ennobling?
With extraordinary psychological insight and devastating wit, the novella captures the ambiguities of a life devoted to art, and the choices artists must make. They were choices the expatriate James knew well by the time he published the novella in the Universal Review in 1888, and the work reveals him at the height of his powers.
About the author
Henry James was born in New York City in 1843, the son of theologian Henry James, Sr., and brother of philosopher William James. He entered Harvard Law School at 19 but soon quit to write and travel in Europe – to Paris, for example, where he met Flaubert, Turgenev, George Eliot and Zola. Settling in London in 1876, he gained international fame with DAISY MILLER, which scandalized Victorian society and sold thousands of copies. Never again would he equal its popularity, but his increasingly sophisticated and meticulously observed work, such as THE GOLDEN BOWL and THE AMBASSADORS, established him as the first master of psychological fiction. He died in England in 1916.
My Life
Anton Chekhov
0-9746078-2-7
$9US / $13CAN
120 pages
Paperback
Renown as the greatest short story writer ever, Anton Chekhov was also a master of the novella, and perhaps his most overlooked is this gem, MY LIFE -- the tale of a rebellious young man so disgusted with bourgeois society that he drops out to live amongst the working classes, only to find himself confronted by the morally and mentally deadening effects of provincialism.
The 1896 tale is partly a commentary on Tolstoyan philosophy, and partly an autobiographical reflection on Chekhov's own small-town background. But it is, more importantly, Chekhov in his prime, displaying all his famous strengths -- vivid characters, restrained but telling details, and brilliant psychological observation -- and one of his most stirring themes: the youthful struggle to maintain idealism against growing isolation.
About the author
Anton Chekhov was born into a large family in1860 in Taganrog, Russia, the grandson of serfs. He supported the family by writing stories for magazines while simultaneously putting himself through medical school – where, tragically, he contracted tuberculosis. He published his first collection, MOTLEY STORIES, in 1886, and his second, IN THE TWILIGHT, a year later. He continued to practice medicine, often pro bono, leading friends to complain about the line of peasants constantly at his door. He also wrote plays, but when critics attacked THE SEAGULL, he vowed to give up playwriting. He did not, and while staging THE CHERRY ORCHARD Chekhov collapsed, dying shortly thereafter, in 1904.