Recommendations based on "Humiliated and Insulted (Oneworld Classics)"

A rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance. An absurd and superbly comic story, this classic novel can also be read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.

Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's verse novel follows the fates of three men and three women. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of other characters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favorite work, and this new translation conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is a fiercely satirical fantasy that remained unpublished in its author's home country for over thirty years. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the acclaimed translators of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. In Soviet Moscow, God is dead, but the devil - to say nothing of his retinue of demons, from a loudmouthed, gun-toting tomcat, to the fanged fallen angel Koroviev - is very much alive. As death and destruction spread through the city like wildfire, condemning Moscow's cultural elite to prison cells and body bags, only a madman, the Master, and Margarita, his beautiful, courageous lover, can hope to end the chaos. Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign and circulated in samizdat form for decades, when The Master and the Margarita was finally published it became an overnight literary phenomenon, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere. This luminous translation from the complete and unabridged Russian text is accompanied by an introduction by Richard Pevear exploring the extraordinary circumstances of the novel's composition and publication, and how Bulgakov drew on carnivalesque folk traditions to create his ironic subversion of Soviet propaganda. This edition also contains a list of further reading and a note on the text. After finishing high school, Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) entered the Medical School of Kiev University, graduating in 1916. He wrote about his experiences as a doctor in his early works Notes of a Young Country Doctor. His later works treated the subject of the artist and the tyrant under the guise of historical characters, but The Master and Margarita is generally considered his masterpiece. If you enjoyed The Master and Margarita, you might like Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, also available in Penguin Classics. 'One of the great novels of the 20th century, a scary, darkly comic allegory' Daily Telegraph

In its adventurous happenings, its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues, A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820s and '30s. In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin, the archetypal Russian antihero, Lermontov's novel looks forward to the subsequent glories and passion of Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.

A tragedy of Shakespearean force and intensity, Dostoyevsky's drama of parricide and family rivalry chronicles the murder of depraved landowner Fyodor Karamazov and the subsequent investigation and trial. Extensive notes explain the many literary and topical allusions and provide background information.

A vivid and compelling account of the final thirteen days of the Romanovs, counting down to the last, tense hours of their lives. On 4 July 1918, a new commandant took control of a closely guarded house in the Russian town of Ekaterinburg. His name was Yakov Yurovsky, and his prisoners were the Imperial family- the former Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexey. Thirteen days later, at Yurovsky's command, and on direct orders from Moscow, the family was gunned down in a blaze of bullets in a basement room. This is the story of those murders, which ended 300 years of Romanov rule and began an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.

An enchanting collection of the very best of Russian poetry, edited by acclaimed translator Robert Chandler together with poets Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, poetry's pre-eminence in Russia was unchallenged, with Pushkin and his contemporaries ushering in the 'Golden Age' of Russian literature. Prose briefly gained the high ground in the second half of the nineteenth century, but poetry again became dominant in the 'Silver Age' (the early twentieth century), when belief in reason and progress yielded once more to a more magical view of the world. During the Soviet era, poetry became a dangerous, subversive activity; nevertheless, poets such as Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova continued to defy the censors. This anthology traces Russian poetry from its Golden Age to the modern era, including work by several great poets - Georgy Ivanov and Varlam Shalamov among them - in captivating modern translations by Robert Chandler and others. The volume also includes a general introduction, chronology and individual introductions to each poet. Robert Chandler is an acclaimed poet and translator. His many translations from Russian include works by Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolay Leskov, Vasily Grossman and Andrey Platonov, while his anthologies of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales are both published in Penguin Classics.Irina Mashinski is a bilingual poet and co-founder of the StoSvet literary project. Her most recent collection is 2013's Ophelia i masterok [Ophelia and the Trowel].Boris Dralyuk is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of St Andrews and translator of many books from Russian, including, most recently, Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry (2014).

The last Tsaritsa of Russia, Alexandra Fyodorovna, was murdered with her family on the night of 16-17 July 1918 by agents acting on behalf of the revolutionary Bolshevik government. The dramatic story of the demise of the Romanov dynasty has been recounted many times and has captivated the imagination of generations of readers throughout the world. The recently declassified 1918 diary of Alexandra - published here for the first time in its entirety - provides something no other account could do: a glimpse of the Tsaritsa's thoughts and activities from 1 January 1918 until the night of her death. As the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Alexandra wrote in English, though her native language was German and she became fluent in Russian after her marriage to Nicholas. The 1918 diary takes us into her private world, revealing the care she lavished on her children during this period of revolutionary turmoil, how she felt toward her husband, Tsar Nicholas, and what she imagined about the profound struggle - between past and present, old and new worlds, the sacred and the profane - then occurring over the destiny of Russia. The diary reveals that even in her most intimate reflections, she remained the representative of a great system of belief that had prevailed for hundreds of years in Russia and that she and Nicholas hoped to perpetuate. We see in painful detail the tragic daily confrontation between this system of belief and the reality of the modern world that had, in every sense, broken free of her and Nicholas's control.

Anecdotes about Balakirev -- Tales of the ancient Poshekhonians / Vasily Berezaisky -- The merry old fellow / Teller of old Moscow tales -- The ancient and modern divinatory oracle / Martin Zadek -- Guak, or unbounded devotion: a knightly tale -- The tale of Vanka Kain -- The new Sterne / A.A. Shakhovskoi -- Traditional songs (late 18th century) -- Ermak Timofeich / Nikolai Polevoi -- Filatka and Miroshka the rivals / Pavel Grigoriev, Jr. -- Ivan Vyzhigin / Faddei Bulgarin -- The little humpbacked horse / Petr Ershov -- The history of Russia told for children / Aleksandra Ishimova -- The battle of the Russians with the Kabardinians / Nikolai Zriakhov -- Etiquette manuals (1849-1911) --Street types -- God save the Tsar / Aleksei Lvov -- Dark eyes / Evgeny Grebenka -- The great Moscow fire / N. Sokolov -- Elegy (Khas-Bulat) / Aleksandr Ammosov and O. Kh. Agrenova-Slavianskaia -- Balagan advertisements / Malafeev Theater (1883) -- The slums of Petersburg / Vsevolod Krestovsky -- How the Russian gave it hot to a German -- Oh those Yaroslavites, what a fine folk / Fedor Ivanich Kuz'ma -- The slums of the female heart -- Correspondence from the Russo-Turkish War / Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko -- War stories from the present-day war with the Turks / M. Evstigneev -- Where is it better? / L.A. Tikhomirov -- A flask of hooch -- Gypsy romances -- Scenes from a third-class car / B.S. Borisov and V.A. Kriger -- Sarah Bernhardt / M.L. Lentovsky -- The queen of diamonds / V.P. Valentinov -- Anecdotes (1840-1917) -- Moscow court reporting / The Moscow Sheet (Early 1880s) -- The terrible wedding night / Aleksei Pazukhin -- The terrible bandit Churkin -- Where the oranges ripen / N.A. Leikin -- Messrs. Businessmen / I.I. Miasnitsky -- The diary of Maria Bashkirtseva -- Ivanov Pavel / V.M. Doroshevich -- Song of the stormy Petrel / Maxim Gorky -- Light-fingered Sonya / M.D. Klefortov -- Revolutionary songs (late 19th century) -- Vaudeville skits (1905-1910) -- Why was I born into this world / Tobolsk prison song -- The poor fellow died / Konstantin Romanov -- Marusia poisoned herself -- Russian sob sister / Olga Gridina -- How the lasses burned a lad in the stove / Al. Aleksandrovsky -- The wrath of God / V.I. Kryzhandrovskaia -- The little Siberian girl (Sibirochka) / Lidiia Charskaia -- The African princess (Vampuka) / M.N. Volkonsky -- Gladiators of our time / N.N. Breshko-Breshkovsky -- Sanin / Mikhail Artsybashev -- The keys of happiness / Anastasia Verbitskaia -- The vanquished / Count Amori -- Do you remember? / Petr Chardynin -- The wrath of Dionytsus / E.A. Nagrodskaia -- The Countess-actress / Count Amori -- The bloody Talisman / Nat Pinkerton, King of detectives -- The headlands of Manchuria -- The heroic feat of the Don Cossack Kuzma Firsovich Kriuchkov -- Jackals / Sergei Sokolsky -- Rasputin's nighttime orgies / V.V. Ramazanov

The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices - including a demonic, gun-toting tomcat - he immediately begins to create havoc. Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves - A masterpiece of magical surrealism, a triumph of the imagination Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Century.