Alma/Oneworld

On a boat in the Thames estuary, Marlow tells his travelling companions of his reconnaissance expedition for a Belgian trading company to its most remote outpost in central Africa, which brought him on the trail of the elusive Kurtz, a brilliant idealist gone rogue. His account relates not only the perils he encounters on his quest, but also the deterioration of his state of mind as he is confronted with a world that is hostile and alien to him.

After a traumatic early childhood spent living in poverty in a Preston cellar, the suddenly orphaned George Silverman grows up convinced that he is at fault for all the misfortunes in his life. Hoodwinked by hypocritical clergymen and exploited by his employer, he finds himself forsaking love and facing professional ruin. One of Dickens's very last writings, 'George Silverman's Explanation' is a dark and psychologically insightful investigation of failure and guilt. This volume also includes two other lesser-known pieces of fiction: the novella for children 'Holiday Romance' and the detective story 'Hunted Down'.

A journalist for National Public Radio in the US, David Greene decides to travel thousands of kilometres from Moscow to Vladivostok on the iconic Trans-Siberian line. On the train and in the many Siberian outposts he stops as he meets a wide range of ordinary Russian people — from a group of Beatles-singing babushkas to soldiers and struggling entrepreneurs — with situations arising that are at times comical, awkward or poignant. Travelling in third class, he learns to adhere to the train's unwritten social codes and to navigate the unfamiliar environment of Siberia, occasionally shadowed by security agents. Conjuring up other famous travellers to the regions such as Anton Chekhov, David Greene manages, through the events he describes and his reflections and conversations on the journey, to construct a complex, compassionate and astute portrait of Putin's Russia far away from the glamour and prestige of Moscow.

May 2011, Afghanistan: Camp Bastion is under attack, The Sun's Defence Editor is about to catch the wrong helicopter, and a famous TV war reporter is missing half his kit and wants his trainers back. Amid the chaos, Christian Hill is preparing to lead his Combat Camera Team on the British Army's first big operation of the Helmand summer, inching through the IED-riddled fields of the notorious Green Zone. As a captain in the Media Operations Group, his job is to promote the war to the British media — and make it look like things are under control and getting better.

Controversial, scandalous, erudite and funny, Ulysses is undisputedly a landmark of twentieth-century modernism. It charts one day — 16th June 1904 — in the lives of three inhabitants of Dublin, the advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, the artist Stephen Dedalus and Bloom's wife Molly. Their peregrinations, thoughts and encounters form the basis of the narrative, which becomes a celebration of all human experience through the lives of specific individuals in a specific place at a specific time. Ulysses is both an experimental novel and a book intimately concerned with the events of modern life.

Throughout his life Rudyard Kipling was fond of dogs, and while they featured prominently in early tales such as 'The Dog Hervey' and 'Garm — a Hostage', he later came up with the innovative idea of writing a story from the perspective of a dog, resulting in the hugely successful 'Thy Servant a Dog', narrated by an Aberdeen terrier named Boots.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of one of the most poignant and enduringly popular novels of the twentieth century, left only a few other pieces of fiction when he died prematurely at the age of sixty. Childhood Memories and Other Stories, here presented in a new translation by Stephen Parkin and including previously deleted passages and the unpublished fragment 'Torretta', collects all of Lampedusa's extant shorter fiction and provides a revealing glimpse into the writer's workshop and the background to the composition of his masterpiece. From the atmospheric recollections of the Palazzo Lampedusa and the Palazzo Filangeri Cuto at the turn of the twentieth century in 'Childhood Memories' to the delightful fable 'The Siren', from the gently humorous, bitter sweet tones of 'Joy and the Law' to 'The Blind Kittens' — the first chapter of what was intended to be a sequel to The Leopard — this volume showcases Lampedusa's unparalleled ob ser vational powers and narrative skills.

This evocative account of the life of the Renaissance's greatest figure traces Leonardo's early development as an artist and court figure to his final years in exile, portraying his loves and sufferings, as well as his intellectual curiosity and tireless loyalty to his ideals. But it is the background to his famous painting La Gioconda and his relationship with the mysterious Florentine woman who modelled for it that are at the heart of the novel — here presented in a new translation — and will make for an engrossing and unforgettable read.

As Mrs Dalloway works on the preparations for a dinner party, her thoughts throughout the day wander from memories of the past to interrogations about the present and lead her to assess the choices she has made in life and love. Her monologue interweaves with the account of the distress, on that same day, of the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith, whose trauma and hallucinations end in tragedy, as the links between the two characters unfold.

The pride of high-ranking Mr Darcy and the prejudice of middle-class Elizabeth Bennet conduct an absorbing dance through the rigid social hierarchies of early-nineteenth-century England, with the passion of the two unlikely lovers growing as their union seems ever more improbable.

Published a year after The Great Gatsby, this short-story collection showcases many of the celebrated novel's themes, as well as its unique writing style. Two of the most famous tales, the beautifully elegiac 'The Rich Boy' and 'Winter Dreams', deal with wealthy protagonists — the old-money Anson Hunter and the self-made man Dexter Green — as they come to terms with lost love; while 'Absolution', in which a boy confesses to a priest, was initially written as a background piece to The Great Gatsby.

Part of Alma Classics Fitzgerald's mini-series. Lavishly produced edition with flaps and b&w plates. A collection of early short stories which helped make Fitzgerald's name, Tales of the Jazz Age combines period pieces — the most notable of which is the novella-length 'May Day' — with more fanciful creations, such as the fantastical 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', recently made into a Hollywood film.

New translation of one of the most celebrated novels by the author of Fathers and Children. On his way back to Russia after some years spent in the West, Grigory Mikhailovich Litvinov, the son of a retired official of merchant stock, stops over in Baden-Baden to meet his fiancee Tatyana. However, a chance encounter with his old flame, the manipulative Irina — now married to a general and a prominent figure in aristocratic expatriate circles — unearths feelings buried deep inside the young man's heart, derailing his plans for the future and throwing his life into turmoil.

Written in the 1830s and early 1840s, these comic stories tackle life behind the cold and elegant facade of the Imperial capital from the viewpoints of various characters, such as a collegiate assessor who one day finds that his nose has detached itself from his face and risen the ranks to become a state councillor ('The Nose'), a painter and a lieutenant whose romantic pursuits meet with contrasting degrees of success ('Nevsky Prospect') and a lowly civil servant whose existence desperately unravels when he loses his prized new coat ('The Overcoat'). Also including the 'Diary of Madman', this new translation of Petersburg Tales paint a critical yet hilarious portrait of a city riddled with pomposity and self-importance, masterfully juxtaposing nineteenth-century realism with madcap surrealism, and combining absurdist farce with biting satire.

The judge Ivan Ilyich Golovin has spent his life in the pursuit of wealth and status, devoting himself obsessively to work and often neglecting his family in the process. When, after a small accident, he fails to make the expected recovery, it gradually becomes clear that he is soon to die. Ivan Ilyich then starts to question the futility and barrenness of his previous existence, realizing to his horror, as he grapples with the meaning of life and death, that he is totally alone. Included in this volume is another celebrated novella by Tolstoy, The Devil, which addresses the conflicts between desire, social norms and personal conscience, providing at the same time a further exploration of human fear and obsession.

Professor Persikov, an eccentric zoologist, stumbles upon a new light ray that accelerates growth and reproduction rates in living organisms. In the wake of a plague that has decimated the country's poultry stocks, Persikov's discovery is exploited as a means to correct the problem. As foreign agents, the state and the Soviet media all seize upon the red ray, matters get out of hand.

Written between 1920 and 1921 while Bugakov was working in a hospital in the remote Caucasian outpost of Vladikavkaz, Notes on a Cuff is a series of journalistic sketches which show the young doctor trying to embark on a literary career among the chaos of war, disease, politics and bureaucracy.

Turgenev's final novel, Virgin Soil traces the destinies of several middle-class revolutionaries who seek to «go to the people» by working on the land and instilling democratic ideas in the countryside's locals. They include the daydreaming impoverished young tutor Nezhdanov — employed by the liberal councillor Sipyagin and his vain and beautiful wife Valentina — the naive young radical Maryanna and the progressive factory manager Solomin. Their liaisons, intrigues and conspiracies, set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia, form the matter of Turgenev's most ambitious and elaborate work, which cemented the author's place in the West as Russia's foremost novelist while at the same time proving controversial at home — culminating in the arrest of fifty-two real-life revolutionaries barely a month after it was published.

After being saved from a suicide attempt by a literary editor, the journalist and failed novelist Sergei Maxudov has a book suddenly accepted for stage adaptation at a prestigious venue and finds himself propelled into Moscow's theatrical world. In a cut-throat environment tainted by Soviet politics, censorship and egomania — epitomized by the arrogant and incompetent director Ivan Vasilyevich — absurdity gradually gives way to tragedy. Unpublished in Bulgakov's own lifetime, Black Snow (also known as A Theatrical Novel) — here presented in a new translation — is peppered with darkly comic set pieces and draws on its author's own bitter experience as a playwright with the Moscow Arts Theatre, showcasing his inimitable gift for shrewd observation and razor-sharp satire.

Set in the year after the 1929 crash and incorporating many autobiographical elements, 'Babylon Revisited' tells the story of the widower Charlie Wales, a reformed alcoholic and successful businessman returning to Paris to convince his in-laws to give him back the daughter he abandoned. As the old haunts of the city he used to carouse in seem more and more alien to him, he finds himself assailed by feelings of guilt and regret.

New, award-winning translation of Goncharov's popular masterpiece. First published in 1859, Oblomov is an indisputable classic of Russian literature, comparable in its stature to such masterpieces as Gogol's Dead Souls, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. The book centres on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman and the reproaches of his friend, the hard-working Stoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments. Rich in situational comedy, psychological complexity and social satire, Oblomov — here presented in Stephen Pearl's award-winning translation, the first major English-language version of the novel in more than fifty years — is a timeless novel and a monument to human idleness.

First published in 1831, Belkin's Stories was the first completed work of fiction by the founding father of Russian literature. Through a series of interlinked stories purporting to have been told by various narrators to the recently deceased country squire Ivan Belkin, Pushkin offers his own variation on themes and genres that were popular in his day and provides a vivid portrayal of the Russian people. From the story of revenge served cold in 'The Shot' to the havoc wreaked by a blizzard on the life of two young lovers, from the bittersweet tones of 'The Station Master' to the supernatural atmosphere of 'The Undertaker', this collection — presented here in a brand-new translation by Roger Clarke — sparkles with humour and is a testament to the brilliance and versatility of Pushkin's mind.

As he approaches his fortieth birthday, the introverted monk Seido Oda is ordered by his superior to leave behind his peaceful, quiet refuge in the remote mountains of Japan and set up a temple in Brooklyn's Little Calabria. There Oda is confronted with an uphill struggle to get to understand the ways of his new host country, and finds his patience and beliefs tested by a motley crew of misguided American Buddhists — a shock which will enable him to come to terms with painful memories of his past and finally experience that sense of belonging he has always sought.

In the Twilight, the third collection of short stories compiled by Anton Chekhov himself, was his first major success and won him the prestigious Pushkin Prize when it was published in 1887. This volume represents a clear milestone in the writer's passage from the youthful Antosha Chekhonte, author of slight comic sketches, to the mature master of the short-story genre.