“Dralyuk’s new translation of Sentimental Tales, a collection of Zoshchenko’s stories from the 1920s, is a delight that brings the author’s wit to life.”—The Economist Mikhail Zoshchenko’s Sentimental Tales are satirical portraits of small-town characters on the fringes of Soviet society in the first decade of Bolshevik rule. The tales are narrated by one Kolenkorov, a writer not very good at his job, who takes credit for editing the tales in a series of comic prefaces. Yet beneath Kolenkorov’s intrusive narration and sublime blathering, the stories are genuinely moving. They tell tales of unrequited love and amorous misadventures among down-on-their-luck musicians, provincial damsels, aspiring poets, and liberal aristocrats hopelessly out of place in the new Russia, against a backdrop of overcrowded apartments, scheming, and daydreaming. Zoshchenko’s deadpan style and sly ventriloquy mask a biting critique of Soviet life—and perhaps life in general. An original perspective on Soviet society in the 1920s and simply uproariously funny, Sentimental Tales at last shows Anglophone readers why Zoshchenko is considered among the greatest humorists of the Soviet era. “A book that would make Gogol guffaw.”—Kirkus Reviews “If you find Chekhov a bit tame and want a more bite to your fiction, then you need a dose of Zoshchenko, the premier Russian satirist of the twentieth century . . . Snap up this thin volume and enjoy.”—Russian Life “Mikhail Zoshchenko masterfully exhibits a playful seriousness. . . . Juxtaposing joyful wit with the bleakness of Soviet Russia, Sentimental Tales is a potent antidote for Russian literature’s dour reputation.”—Foreword Reviews “Superb.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

The documents collected in this volume, first published in 1970, trace the development of novel criticism during one of the most formative periods in the history of fiction: from 1700-1800. The material includes prefaces to collections, translations and original novels; essays written for journals modelled on the Spectat∨ passages taken from miscellanies and from books written primarily for some purpose unconnected with the novel; reviews from the monthly reviews; and introductions to the collected works of certain authors. This volume covers 100 years of criticism and creative writing, and the materials are arranged chronologically. Each of the documents is headed by an Introductory Note and the Editor has provided an important historical introduction.

Encounters in the Arts, Literature, and Philosophy focuses on chance and scripted encounters as sites of tensions and alliances where new forms, ideas, meanings, interpretations, and theories can emerge. By moving beyond the realm of traditional hermeneutics, Jérôme Brillaud and Virginie Greene have compiled a volume that vitally illustrates how reading encounters represented in artefacts, texts, and films is a vibrant and dynamic mode of encountering and interpreting. With contributions from esteemed academics such as Christie McDonald, Pierre Saint-Amand, Susan Suleiman, and Jean-Jacques Nattiez, this book is a multidisciplinary collaboration between scholars from a range of disciplines including philosophy, literature, musicology, and film studies. It uses examples chiefly from French culture and covers the Early Modern era to the twentieth century, while providing a thorough and representative array of theoretical and hermeneutical approaches.