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Moonshine springs - is a satirical story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891 - 1940), an outstanding writer, playwright and theatre worker. Bulgakov was a Soviet playwright, novelist, and short story writer best known for his humor and penetrating satire. Because of their realism and humor, Bulgakov's works enjoyed great popularity, but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities.

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The Beauties: Essential Stories is a captivating collection that brings together some of the most remarkable and beloved works by the acclaimed Russian writer Anton Chekhov. This anthology showcases Chekhov's unparalleled talent for depicting the complexities of human nature, the intricacies of relationships, and the nuances of everyday life. Each story in this collection is a testament to Chekhov's unparalleled ability to capture the subtlest emotions and psychological depths of his characters.

In "A Nervous Breakdown", Vasilyev feeling distressed after his visit to few brothels for the first time. Guilt, disgust and shame and of that little voices debating inside his mind that lead him to a symptom of a nervous breakdown. A quirky storytelling, quite distressing but entertaining.

Champagne is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, written in 1887. The story is written in the first person. The young head of a remote railway stop lived with his wife and without children in solitude, amusing himself with vodka and watching passing trains. Life was boring. One day before celebrating the New Year, he sat with his wife at the festive table, drank enough and thought about boredom. We waited for the clock to show the arrival of the New Year. At five minutes to twelve he uncorked the bottle, the cork flew out, and the bottle slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor.

Miguev, a married, intelligent collegiate assessor, is haunted with anxiety and worry. Miguev has a secret that he doesn't want his wife, the town, or his colleagues to discover. His mistress, after becoming pregnant and having his child, has recently tried to extort money from him in exchange for her silence. She threatens to ruin his reputation and divulge his secret shame to everyone unless he pays her. In the height of his fear and worry about his present situation, his fears seem to come alive when he discovers a baby bundled in a blanket on his porch.

Misery by Anton Chekhov is a short story that explores the working-class, human despair, and suffering in Tsarist Russia. Chekhov's brief portrait of working-class life follows a sledge driver named Iona as he attempts to process his grief about his son's untimely death.

In Exile was first published in May 1892 issue of the Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya magazine. The story was inspired by Chekhov's journey through Siberia and his stay in Sakhalin and, in particular, two episodes of this trip. While on Sakhalin, Anton Chekhov met a boatman nicknamed Krasivy, a self-professed 'happy man' who struck him with his own peculiar brand of Tolstovian philosophy. It was Krasivy, apparently, who became a prototype for Semyon Tolkovy, the story's hero.

Doctor Starchenko and Lyzhin, a young deputy examining magistrate, arrive at Syrnya to attend to the case of Lesnitsky, an insurance agent, who, upon arrival to the village three days before, entered the local zemstvo house, ordered himself a samovar, unpacked his food packets, and then all of as sudden shot himself. The suicide was so bizarre, that the inquest was deemed to be necessary.

The Darling is a short story by Russian author Anton Chekhov, first published in the No.1, 1899, issue of Semya (Family) magazine, on January 3, in Moscow. Later, Chekhov included it into Volume 9 of his Collected Works, published by Adolf Marks. The story follows the life of a woman who is referred to by others as "darling" for her generosity and submissive nature.

Kashtanka — Anton Chekov's short story about a dog with two masters — is a fable about the conundrum of the creative life. The dog Kashtanka belongs to a drunken carpenter who takes her out one day, but on the way home loses her in the confusion of a military parade. The story is told by an omniscient narrator who privileges Kashtanka's point of view, so we follow the dog's subsequent adventures largely from her eyes.

Gusev is an 1890 short story by Anton Chekhov. Several discharged soldiers return home from the Far East by ship. Confined to the hospital cabin, they are all apparently dying of consumption and seemingly indifferent to their condition. Among them are Gusev, a mild, racist, slightly dim man, and the mysterious Pavel Ivanovich, an ardent "protester" who often goes on diatribes (many of which Gusev either misunderstands or ignores) about his lifelong commitment to telling people "the truth to their faces".

One great example of Chekhov's minimalism is found in The Beauties, a very short "story" - I use the term loosely, because it is really just two snapshots, two unrelated anecdotes in which a man describes seeing true beauty in two different women. These women are imperfect, yet enigmatically alluring. Chekhov's genius lies in the way he manages to convey with such apparent effortlessness a profound sense of the mystery of beauty, and of the sadness of those who observe and think.

Natalya was once a happy and radiant young woman. Now an older woman, she reflects about her youth. In particular, she thinks about the heavy emphasis she put on her wealth and the relationships and experiences that it cost her. One man, Pyotr, loved her, but they both let their different statuses in society prevent their love from having a chance. After years of unhappiness and regret, Pyotr comes to visit Natalya.

In Sorrow by Anton Chekhov we have the theme of desperation, struggle, guilt, cruelty, hope, loss and self-pity. Taken from his The Complete Short Stories collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and from the beginning of the story it becomes clear to the reader that Chekhov may be exploring the theme of desperation.

The Requiem is an 1886 short story by Anton Chekhov. Andrey Andreyitch, a shopkeeper, comes to the local village church to ask for prayers for his recently deceased daughter Maria, and is chided by the priest for the wrong kind of language that he'd used in his written request. The shopkeeper's daughter was an actress, and quite a well known one, and he simply fails to understand why the clergymen are so offended by the word 'harlot' with which he described her occupation.

"The Whisperer in Darkness" is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.

The God of His Fathers: Tales of The Klondyke. It was written by Jack London in the 1919 year. As a young man in the summer of 1897, Jack London joined the Klondike gold rush. From that seminal experience emerged these gripping, inimitable wilderness tales, which have endured as some of London's best and most defining work. With remarkable insight and unflinching realism, London describes the punishing adversity that awaited men in the brutal, frozen expanses of the Yukon, and the extreme tactics these adventurers and travelers adopted to survive.

The Pearls of Parlay (1911) Parlay, who has become the ruler of the atoll of Hikihoho after marrying the queen there, summons the leading traders of the South Seas to his atoll for an auction of the whole of his fabulous collection of pearls. But that day is precisely at the peak of the hurricane season and when their ships have gathered in the atoll's lagoon the barometer starts going through the floor, as the mother of all hurricanes is on the verge of destroying not only all the ships but the island as well.

An Odyssey of the North is a short story by Jack London that explore the wild and rugged nature of the northern coast of British Columbia. This story is filled with adventure and capture the beauty of nature and the mysteries of the sea. Naass, a young Aleut man, wins a young woman of the tribe, Unga, only to have her stolen from him on the night of their marriage celebration by a seven-foot-tall, yellow-haired white man, Axel Gunderson. Naass spends years tracking his nemesis, determined to claim his bride and take vengeance.