Fiction

Sevastopol

Lev Tolstoy

In Sevastopol in December, Tolstoy uses second person narrative (with the pronoun 'you') in an introductory tour of life in Sevastopol. The detailed tour is arguably similar to one Tolstoy may have been given upon arrival in Sevastopol in November, 1...

Master and Man

Lev Tolstoy

In this short story, a land owner named Vasili Andreyevich Brekhunov takes one of his peasants, Nikita, for a short journey by sleigh. They are traveling to visit another landowner so that Vasili Andreyevich can purchase a forest. He is impatient and...

What Men Live By, and Other Tales

Lev Tolstoy

A kind and humble shoemaker maker called Simon goes out one day to purchase sheep-skins in order to sew a winter coat for his wife and himself to share. Usually, the little money which Simon earns would be spent to feed his wife and children. Simon d...

Poor Folk

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Varvara Dobroselova and Makar Devushkin are second cousins twice-removed and live across from each other on the same street in terrible apartments. Devushkin's, for example, is merely a portioned-off section of the kitchen, and he lives with several...

The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of Alexei Ivanovich, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is indebted to the Frenchman de Grieux and has mortgage...

White Nights and Other Stories

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The narrator describes his experience walking in the streets of St. Petersburg. He loves the city at night, and feels comfortable in it. He no longer feels comfortable during the day because all the people he is used to seeing are not there. He drew...

The Possessed (The Devils)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A troubled Varvara Petrovna has just returned from Switzerland where she has been visiting Nikolai Vsevolodovich. She berates Stepan Trofimovich for his financial irresponsibility, but her main preoccupation is an "intrigue" she encountered in Switze...

The Grand Inquisitor

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The tale is told by Ivan with brief interruptive questions by Alyosha. In the tale, Christ comes back to Earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition. He performs a number of miracles (echoing miracles from the Gospels). The people recognize him a...

The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain

Tom Canty, youngest son of a very poor family living in Offal Court located in London, has always had a better life, encouraged by the local priest, who has taught him to read and write. Loitering around the palace gates one day, he meets Edward Tudo...

Love of Life, and Other Stories

Jack London

“And, dying, he declined to die.” “Though alone, he was not lost. ” “hard as he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying to think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would surely wait for...