His first work, "Poor Folk," was published by the poet Nekrassov, and he found himself an instant celebrity. A brilliant career seemed opened to him, but in 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death.

A member of a group of young men who met to read Fourier and Proudhon, he was accused of "taking part in conversations against the censorshipand of knowing of the intention to use a printing press."

After eight months'' in jail, he was taken to the Semyonovsky Square to be shot. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo; they were unbound, and informed that his Majesty had spared their lives. The sentence was commuted to hard labor -- four years of penal servitude in Siberia, where he began"Dead House," and some years in a disciplinary battalion.

In 1864 he lost first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother''s debts. Weighed down by debt, he wrote at heart-breaking speed, and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife.

In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow and was received with demonstrations of love andhonor. A few months later he died. He was followed to the grave by a vast multitude of mourners.

He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. In the words of a Russian critic, "He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and ourbone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heartwhich we seek that we may learn from it how to live."

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804. He led a shy and rather somber life with little encouragement to write, yet not wholly uncongenial in view of his temperament. His life is reflected in his Twice-Told Tales and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. In these stories, his understanding of men and women was displayed with great subtlety.

He was forty-six years old when The Scarlet Letter appeared. It is considered his best work, and is a good demonstration of his unique and imaginative mind. In 1850, the year The Scarlet Letter appeared, he began The House of the Seven Gables, a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-America as he knew it missing art and the joy of life.

Leo Tolstoy was born on the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana, south of Moscow, in 1828. His parents were of the Russian nobility. They died when he was young, leaving him and his three brothers to be brought up by aunts.

He began the study of law in 1844, but was a poor student and soon dropped out. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he joined the army in the Caucasus. It was about this time he began writing.

Of his early work, perhaps the best known are the three novels of his autobiographical trilogy, Childhood (1852), Boyhood (1854), and Youth (1857). They portray his happy childhood and young manhood.

Tolstoy married Sophia Behrens, 16 years his junior, in 1862. It was a marriage marked by sexual passion and emotion. Even so, their early married life was ostensibly happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to write.

Tolstoy died in 1910, and today is considered one of the giants of Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich and The Kreutzer Sonata.

LOVE STORIES is about love at all ages, from the obsession of a young man in his early twenties for an older woman, to the sentimental journey of an old man, whose wife has recently died, to find the love he left behind him in war-torn England after World War II to return to the States.

In DIANNE, the narrator finds himself obsessing over a beautiful woman he has seen on a train. It intensifies when she accidentally bumps into him on the steps of the New York Public Library a few weeks later. Frightened, not sure he isn''t getting into something that is more than he can handle, he accepts her invitation to accompany her to a penthouse party on New Years eve. The ensuing relationship, filled as it is with beauty and tenderness, leaves him scarred and shaken when Dianne''s own obsession, the mysterious world-traveler Charlie, returns to claim her.

Joe Williams gives up his secure job as a policemen to take over, with the help of his family (wife, father, and two sons), a bankrupt dairy farm in upstate New York during the height of the Great Depression. This is the story of their struggle to survive Told from the viewpoints of the various characters involved, the novel begins with the recollections of twelve-year-old Tracy. Here is that beginning.

Henry James was born in the United States, in New York City, on April 15, 1843 and is considered an American writer, though he spent most of his life in England and, a year before his death in London on February 28, 1916, became a British citizen. He is regarded as one of the key literary figures of the 19th century, writing mainly narrative fiction. He influenced many other writers, most notably Edith Wharton.

James was the son of Henry James, Sr., a well-known intellectual of his day, and the brother of William James. Henry is known especially for the novels in which he portrays Americans encountering Europeans. His style of writing, often verbose and indirect, especially in his later years, can make him difficult to read. Often, too, he writes from the point of view of the characters within a tale, exploring issues related to consciousness and perception. James contributed significantly to literary criticism, especially in his later years when his works were republished with extensive introductions by James. He insisted that writers be allowed the greatest freedom in their writing, and that narrative fiction be true to life, giving readers a view of life that is recognizable. He felt that the only way to judge whether a novel is good or bad is by whether the author is good or bad.

His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue, and narrators who were not necessarily reliable, brought depth and interest to his fiction. The Aspern Papers is one of his most notable short novels, along with The Turn of the Screw. In addition to fiction he published articles, books of travel, autobiography, biography, criticism, and plays. Among his masterpieces are Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1916), available in this series, Classics Condensed by Cowley.

His first work, "Poor Folk," was published by the poet Nekrassov, and he found himself an instant celebrity. A brilliant career seemed opened to him, but in 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death.

A member of a group of young men who met to read Fourier and Proudhon, he was accused of "taking part in conversations against the censorshipand of knowing of the intention to use a printing press."

After eight months'' in jail, he was taken to the Semyonovsky Square to be shot. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo; they were unbound, and informed that his Majesty had spared their lives. The sentence was commuted to hard labor -- four years of penal servitude in Siberia, where he began"Dead House," and some years in a disciplinary battalion.

In 1864 he lost first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother''s debts. Weighed down by debt, he wrote at heart-breaking speed, and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife.

In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow and was received with demonstrations of love andhonor. A few months later he died. He was followed to the grave by a vast multitude of mourners.

He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. In the words of a Russian critic, "He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and ourbone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heartwhich we seek that we may learn from it how to live."

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804. He led a shy and rather somber life with little encouragement to write, yet not wholly uncongenial in view of his temperament. His life is reflected in his Twice-Told Tales and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. In these stories, his understanding of men and women was displayed with great subtlety.

He was forty-six years old when The Scarlet Letter appeared. It is considered his best work, and is a good demonstration of his unique and imaginative mind. In 1850, the year The Scarlet Letter appeared, he began The House of the Seven Gables, a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-America as he knew it missing art and the joy of life.

Leo Tolstoy was born on the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana, south of Moscow, in 1828. His parents were of the Russian nobility. They died when he was young, leaving him and his three brothers to be brought up by aunts.

He began the study of law in 1844, but was a poor student and soon dropped out. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he joined the army in the Caucasus. It was about this time he began writing.

Of his early work, perhaps the best known are the three novels of his autobiographical trilogy, Childhood (1852), Boyhood (1854), and Youth (1857). They portray his happy childhood and young manhood.

Tolstoy married Sophia Behrens, 16 years his junior, in 1862. It was a marriage marked by sexual passion and emotion. Even so, their early married life was ostensibly happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to write.

Tolstoy died in 1910, and today is considered one of the giants of Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich and The Kreutzer Sonata.

LOVE STORIES is about love at all ages, from the obsession of a young man in his early twenties for an older woman, to the sentimental journey of an old man, whose wife has recently died, to find the love he left behind him in war-torn England after World War II to return to the States.

In DIANNE, the narrator finds himself obsessing over a beautiful woman he has seen on a train. It intensifies when she accidentally bumps into him on the steps of the New York Public Library a few weeks later. Frightened, not sure he isn''t getting into something that is more than he can handle, he accepts her invitation to accompany her to a penthouse party on New Years eve. The ensuing relationship, filled as it is with beauty and tenderness, leaves him scarred and shaken when Dianne''s own obsession, the mysterious world-traveler Charlie, returns to claim her.

Joe Williams gives up his secure job as a policemen to take over, with the help of his family (wife, father, and two sons), a bankrupt dairy farm in upstate New York during the height of the Great Depression. This is the story of their struggle to survive Told from the viewpoints of the various characters involved, the novel begins with the recollections of twelve-year-old Tracy. Here is that beginning.

Henry James was born in the United States, in New York City, on April 15, 1843 and is considered an American writer, though he spent most of his life in England and, a year before his death in London on February 28, 1916, became a British citizen. He is regarded as one of the key literary figures of the 19th century, writing mainly narrative fiction. He influenced many other writers, most notably Edith Wharton.

James was the son of Henry James, Sr., a well-known intellectual of his day, and the brother of William James. Henry is known especially for the novels in which he portrays Americans encountering Europeans. His style of writing, often verbose and indirect, especially in his later years, can make him difficult to read. Often, too, he writes from the point of view of the characters within a tale, exploring issues related to consciousness and perception. James contributed significantly to literary criticism, especially in his later years when his works were republished with extensive introductions by James. He insisted that writers be allowed the greatest freedom in their writing, and that narrative fiction be true to life, giving readers a view of life that is recognizable. He felt that the only way to judge whether a novel is good or bad is by whether the author is good or bad.

His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue, and narrators who were not necessarily reliable, brought depth and interest to his fiction. The Aspern Papers is one of his most notable short novels, along with The Turn of the Screw. In addition to fiction he published articles, books of travel, autobiography, biography, criticism, and plays. Among his masterpieces are Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1916), available in this series, Classics Condensed by Cowley.