A man vilified by society and condemned to death for his crime wakes every morning knowing that this day might be his last. Graphically detailed, this first-person chronicle describes both the prisoner's wretched environment and his thoughts, reminiscences, and despair at his impending doom. This edition also includes the companion pieces "A Comedy about a Tragedy" and "Claude Gueux," a real-life account of an executed criminal in France.

Hailed by Jean Cocteau as a "masterpiece," and by the Guardian as "Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, avant la lettre," this taut tale written by a teenager in the form of a frank "confession" is a gem of early twentieth century romanticism. Long unavailable in the U.S., it is here presented in a sparkling new translation.Set in Paris during the First World War, it tells the story of Francois, the 16-year-old narrator, who falls in love with Marthe, an older, mar...

From the moment he arrives at an elegant seaside hotel with his lover, Allan unsettles and obsesses the other guests. Elusive, equivocal, beautiful, he lives, gambles, swims and dances with a strange fierceness that they find intoxicating. Soon he even haunts their dreams.One by one, each guest is fatally drawn to Allan. And, as the hazy August heat fades and summer comes to an end, they gravitate towards self-destruction.Rich, lushly poetic, A Dark Stranger is a dre...

When the young salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into a monstrous insect, his shock and incomprehension are coupled with the panic of being late for work and having to reveal his appearance to family and colleagues. Although over the following weeks he gradually becomes used to this new existence confined within the bounds of the apartment, and his parents and sister adapt to living with a grotesque bug, Gregor notices that their attitudes towards him are changing and ...

Beautiful Emma Rouault yearns for the life of wealth, passion and romance she has encountered in popular sentimental fiction, and when her doctor, the well-meaning but awkward and unremarkable Charles Bovary, begins to pay her attention, she imagines that she may be granted her wish. However, after their marriage, Emma soon becomes frustrated with the boredom of provincial life and finds herself seeking escape and contemplating adultery. As Emma's efforts to make a reality of her fantasies...

Armed only with his poetic sensibility, Petr Král sets out to explore our relationship with the places that we inhabit, and with the apparently unremarkable everyday objects which often inform and enrich our lives.Král bears witness to Flaubert's observation that "in order for something to become interesting, we simply have to look at it for a long time". He reveals, not only the inner life-the very essence-of mundane objects and places, but also simple yet profound truths about our...

Port-au-Prince, another dull morning tinged with violence and black magic. Jeremy Assaël, a Jewish shopkeeper, sees his friend and lover, Lucien, gunned down outside his shop by a vengeful policeman. In a Haiti that exists in the perpetual night of misery and oppression, Jeremy wonders if his only option is exile. His best friend from school, Fresnel, has disappeared in ominous circumstances. So he embarks on a quest to discover his fate. His search leads him to a corrupt pastor, a shady r...

**22 classic short stories and novellas of love and death, betrayal and hope—now collected for the first time in this beautiful 720-page volume!“One of the masters of the short story.” —Guardian**In this magnificent collection of Stefan Zweig’s short stories, the very best and worst of human nature is captured with sharp observation, understanding, and vivid empathy. Ranging from love and death to faith restored and hope regained, these stories present a master at ...

This classic Austrian novella paints a deeply moving portrait of a woman whose quest for passion and purpose comes at a steep priceThe less I felt in myself, the more strongly I was drawn to those places where the whirligig of life spins most rapidly.So begins an extraordinary day in the life of Mrs C—recently bereaved and searching for excitement and meaning. Drawn to the bright lights of a casino, and the passion of a desperate stranger, she disc...

**A NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINALDiscover 9 classic short stories by the giant of French literature—whose work inspired Dostoyevsky, Henry James, and Marcel Proust—with this collection showcasing Balzac’s impressive range.**Characters from every corner of society and all walks of life—lords and ladies, businessmen and military men, poor clerks, unforgiving moneylenders, aspiring politicians, artists, actresses, swindlers, misers, parasites, sexual adventurers, crackpots, and more—...

'I alone know that I am only just beginning to live.'He is distinguished, rich, a member of fashionable society-utterlybored. But, over the course of one fantastic night, a young Baron becomes a thief, unashamed, and awakes to life for the first time.This collection is full of tales of infinite passions, of intense encounters that transform lives, a knock on a door that forces a whole community to take flight, a doomed attempt to save a soul poisoned by addiction, a love sou...

The Other Side tells of a dream kingdom which becomes a nightmare, of a journey to Pearl, a mysterious city created deep in Asia, which is also a journey to the depths of the subconcious, or as Kubin himself called it, 'a sort of Baedeker for those lands which are half known to us'. Written in 1908, and more or less half way between Meyrink and Kafka, it was greeted with wild enthusiasm by the artists and writers of the Expressionist generation. Franz Marc called it a magnificent reckoning...