Designed for the language student as well as the lover of fine literature, this convenient dual-language book features eleven great short stories each one appearing in the original Italian, with vivid and accurate English translations on facing pages.
Robert A. Hall, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Italian, Cornell University, has compileda stimulating and representative collection ranging from a 14th-century selection from Boccaccio's The Decameron to Alberto Moravia's "Competition," a 20th-century view of lower-and middle-class Italian life. Among the other works are...

In his stories Guy de Maupassant (1850 1893) blended brilliantly realistic depictions of characters moving against carefully described backgrounds with an objectivity and universality that has earned him a place among the finest of all short-story writers. In this collection of seven of his most popular stories, each tale reflects both the author's intimate familiarity with Paris and the provinces in the Belle Epoque, as well as a nonjudgmental humanism that is one of Maupassant's most attractive qualities.
Included in this volume are his celebrated masterpiece "Boule de Suif," along with...

Nobel prize-winning author Hermann Hesse imagined life inIndia during the lifetime of the Buddha to create this memorable tale about a restless seeker of enlightenment. First published in 1922, Siddhartha employs powerful symbolism to impart its timeless teachings.
The story concerns a young Brahman who quits his comfortable home to join a roving group of holy men in striving to empty their hearts of passion and desire through self-denial and meditation. Discouraged by his failure to find Nirvana after three years of the strictest asceticism, the young seeker turns to the fleshly...

Considered a founder of the realistic school of fiction, prolific French novelist Honore de Balzac (1799 1850) wrote in meticulous detail, depicting ordinary and undistinguished lives in tales that nevertheless abounded in melodramatic plots and violent passions.
This convenient dual-language volume includes six of Balzac's most highly regarded short stories: "An Episode During the Terror," a deftly told tale contrasting material poverty with spiritual riches; "A Passion in the Desert," inspired by Balzac's interest in the Near East and his fascination with Napoleon; "The Revolutionary...

Storytelling has enjoyed a long and glorious tradition in France, perhaps reaching its zenith in the nineteenth century. Influenced by the work of foreign writers in the genre, including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe (translated by Baudelaire), and Turgenev (translated by Merimee), such French authors as Daudet, Maupassant, Flaubert, and Zola brought the short story to a high degree of perfection.
This volume brings together six outstanding tales, each by a different author, originally published between 1829 and 1886. Representing a variety of tenth-century literary trends...

Begun about 1307 and completed in 1321, Dante's sublime poetic masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy, " is one of the world's great works of literature. It comprises an extraordinarily vivid and imaginative account of the poet's allegorical journey through the afterlife. Complementing its depiction of the world beyond, the poem's abundant allusions to earthly history and politics, vivid portrayals of Dante's friends and enemies, and many references to contemporary Italian affairs make it an intensely human, realistic portrait of life on earth.
Led in his travels by the classical poet Virgil,...

The most famous of all Calderon's varied and romantic dramas, this seventeenth-century masterpiece by the great Spanish playwright explores the conflict between free will and predestination as it focuses on the life of Segismundo, a Polish prince imprisoned at birth by his father, the King.The monarch's heartless action, precipitated by astrologers who predict the boy will one day usurp the throne, paves the way for a series of events that turn the son against the father and lead to rebellion. Years later, following a revolution and the peasants' seizure of power, the grim prophecy uttered at...

These 27 world-famous fairy tales have inspired countless adaptations in many languages and all public media and have, for millions of people, become an integral part of childhood. Included are such favorites as "Hansel and Gretel," "The Brave Little Tailor," "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Sleeping Beauty," and "Snow White" as well as less familiar ones: "The Danced-Out Shoes," "The Golden Bird," "The Six Swans," "Mother Holle," and "Straw, Coal and Bean." Stanley Appelbaum provides excellent English translations on pages facing the original German, allowing students to read some of...

At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Prague hosted a cosmopolitan culture whose literary scene abounded in experimental writers. Two of the city's natives are featured in this dual-language volume: Franz Kafka, whose fiction is synonymous with the anguish of modern life; and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose stories unfold in the same transcendent lyricism as his verse.
Twelve of Kafka's stories from the compilation Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor) appear here, along with two tales from Ein Hungerkunstler (A Hunger Artist). Rilke's stories include -Die Weise von...