Showing results by author "Leonid Andreyev" in All Categories

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. The Russian Literary Tradition has justly earned a magnificent reputation. The Russian Empire of the Czars was a huge and disparate patchwork of peoples ruled by an overbearing elite that employed a middle-class bureaucracy to keep the working class firmly underfoot. Within its vaulted ranks are a role call of many of the greatest literary talents of the ages.

Having assumed the form of an American multimillionaire, Satan sets out on a tour through Europe in quest of amusement and adventure. He observes a panopoly of subversive and hypocritical behaviors, the abhorrent cruelty of men and the deceptive innocence of women. Within a short time, Prince of Hell finds himself outwitted, deceived, relieved of his millions, mocked and humiliated, and beaten by man by the use of his own devilish devices.

Centering on the picaresque realism of Nikolai Gogol’s (1809-1852) mid-19th-century visions of the extraordinary in everyday life, this collection mines the ambiance and mind of pre-Revolutionary Russia. These seven stories take us from the Miracle Mile of St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt, and a summer night in a Ukrainian village, to the fantastical psychological geographies of fathers, sons, and madmen. Augmenting Gogol’s visions are two disturbing tales by the foremost storyteller of Russia’s “Silver Age”.

Whilst faith can be practiced anywhere religious faith is usually at a church or temple. The stories in this volume are centered both in houses of worship and with those with a strong association to its calling. Of course, short story authors have a determined belief in their undoubted talents to make us look at this subject from different angles. In this volume they take us on literary journeys that are revealing and challenging yet always entertaining.