In a German Pension captures the youthful views of esteemed writer, Katherine Mansfield, who jumpstarted her illustrious career with a series of remarkable short stories. It showcases her growth and scope as a formidable nineteenth century writer. A captivating collection of short stories centering the cynical and superficial parts of human nature. In one instance, an expectant father frets over his surroundings, while his wife gives birth. Another...

Covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1999, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a growing shadow.

Vollmann presents a mesmerizing series of intertwined paired stories that compare and contrast the moral decisions made by various figures (some famous, some infamous, some unknown) associated with the warring authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR from 1900-1968.

When The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in 1774, it inspired a mass cult of feelings (and reputedly a few suicides) and made its author one of the first literary celebrities. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's story of a tormented young man whose fixation on an inaccessible woman culminates in tragedy may be read as a celebration of unfettered emotion or as a mercilessly accurate portrait of a man whose dedication to pure feeling turns him into...

This second Library of America volume of Washington Irving brings together for the first time three collections of his stories and sketches. Bracebridge Hall (1822) was published under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, and centers on an English manor, its inhabitants, and the tales they tell. Interspersed with witty, evocative sketches of country life among the English nobility is the well-known tale "The Stout Gentleman" and stories based on English,...

Contains a brief biography of Goethe, a collection of some of his best-known works, and a sampling of his personal correspondence. "One of the towering figures of world literature, Goethe has never held quite as prominent a place in the English-speaking world as he deserves. This collection of his four major works, together with a selection of his finest letters and poems, shows that he is not only one of the very greatest European writers: he is...