With his novels, short stories, and plays, Giovanni Verga (1840 1922) achieved renown in the Italian verismo (realist) school of writing. This outstanding selection of 12 short stories most from the Sicilian writer's Vita dei campi (Rural Life) and Novelle rusticane (Rustic Stories) attests to his storytelling skills.
Selections include "Nedda," a short story that initiated Verga's naturalistic depictions of Sicilian peasant life; the much-celebrated "Cavalleria Rusticana" (Rustic Chivalry), a tale of flirtation, jealousy, and a deadly duel; and "L'amante di Gramigna"...

One of the most important Latin-American writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Nicaraguan poet and essayist Ruben Dario (the pen name of Felix Ruben Garcia Sarmiento) is considered the high priest of the modernismo school of literature, known for its dazzling verbal virtuosity and technical perfection. The present volume contains a rich selection of Dario's best poems and stories, carefully chosen from Azul (Blue), Prosas profanas (Worldly Hymns), Cantos de vida y esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope), El canto errante (The Wandering Song), and...

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...

Widely regarded as one of the creators of prose poems, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) was also a forerunner of the Surrealists. The works in this excellently translated collection, written by the author when he was between 15 and 20 years old, became a rallying point of the poetic avant-garde during the late nineteenth century throughout Western Europe and the United States. They have remained a source of inspiration for their youthful, rebellious spirit and unmatched verbal allure. Included among the works are the complete versions of Rimbaud's autobiographical "A Season in Hell"; his entire...

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...

An overnight sensation upon its 1774 publication, "The Sorrows of Young Werther" became one of the first European best-sellers and secured its young author both fortune and fame. Loosely based on Goethe's personal experiences, the novel is written mostly in the form of letters in which Werther recounts his unrequited love for a married woman. Its "Sturm und Drang" style, portraying the rebellion of youthful genius against conventional standards, makes it a perennial favorite with readers of every era. Includes the original German with English translation on the facing pages.

Recipient of the 1956 Nobel Prize for Literature, Jian Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958) ranks among the foremost Spanish poets. The early influences of German Romanticism and French Symbolism led Jimenez to the development of his unique voice, and he became a leader in the vanguard known as the modernistas, who staged a Spanish literary revival at the turn of the twentieth century.
Jimenez's most popular work, Platero y yo, unfolds in his native Andalusia. A series of autobiographical prose poems about the wanderings of a young writer and his donkey, it first appeared in a shorter...

The passionate life and violent death of Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) retain an enduring fascination for readers around the world. Murdered by Nationalists at the outset of the Spanish Civil War, Lorca died at the peak of his creative powers. He remains his country's most widely translated writer, surpassed only by Cervantes in terms of critical commentary.
This selection includes 55 of the 68 poems that comprised Lorca's 1921 Libro de poemas, all of them in their entirety and in their original sequence. Imbued with the spirit and folklore of the poet's native Andalusia, these...

These seventeen stories from the Caribbean and Central and South America encompass a tremendous variety of subjects, settings, moods, and styles -- from worldly sophistication to outright savagery. Ranging in publication dates from 1867 to 1922, each story is by a different writer from a different country. All are well-known names in Spanish-American literature -- Ruben Dario, Jose Marti, Amado Nervo, Romulo Gallegos, and Ricardo Palma -- some of whom are otherwise distinguished as novelists, poets, diplomats, and statesmen.
This dual-language edition features an informative introduction...

Spain's great lyric poet, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870), is famed both for his poetry and his fiction. Becquer's celebrated Rhymes consists of sixty-six of the most splendid poems written in Spain in the nineteenth century. As the Alvarez Quintero brothers said, -All his poetry is moonlight.- And the six tales from Becquer's Legends, shimmering between romance and fantasy, show why his prose is recognized as among the best from the Spanish Romantic tradition.
Editor Stanley Appelbaum provides sensitive, accurate English translations on the pages facing the original...