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In this tragicomic study of deception and disappointment, Italo Svevo - who himself was an undiscovered writer until his old age - parodies elements of his own life and offers an insightful psychological portrait of a person who has lost touch with reality.

When the Basque dragoon Don José meets a Gypsy woman at the factory he is guarding, he is immediately ensnared by her wiles. After she is arrested for injuring a co-worker and he helps her to flee, he is imprisoned and demoted, but she repays him at their next meeting with a day of excess and a night of love. As Carmen continues to exert her spell, José is dragged further and further into a seedy world of smugglers, robbers, fiery passions and uncontrollable jealousy - one that he will find difficult to escape alive.Carmen, the archetype of the amoral femme fatale, is Prosper Mérimée's highest creation, and a model for many subsequent literary heroines. First published in 1846, this story of crime and desire - here accompanied by another famous novella by Mérimée, The Venus of Ille - has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous 1875 opera of the same name by Georges Bizet.

Part of Sade's The Crimes of Love cycle, this shocking tale - which was among the writings banned for publication until the twentieth century - tests the limits of morality and portrays the disastrous consequences of freedom and pleasure.

Presents a first-person chronicle of the final hours of a man sentenced to the gallows. This book offers graphic details of the prisoner's environment and a moving insight into his thoughts, reminiscences and despair at his impending doom.

Combining psychological detail with a strong sense of place and time, The Story of a Nobody bears all the hallmarks of Chekhov's genius, and perfectly captures the political and social tensions of its day.

First published in 1816, this classic of German Gothic fiction has enthralled generations ever since, and has spawned countless interpretations by critics intrigued by it powerful symbolism. Sigmund Freud famously examined the novella in relation to his concept of the "uncanny", and extracts from this analysis are included in this volume.

One of Henry James's most enduringly popular works, Daisy Miller, here published in its original 1879 version, is a masterly, psychologically nuanced dissection of social mores and a merciless critique of convention and staid respectability.

Part of Alma Classics 101 Pages series, The Marquise of O is a masterpiece of psychological literature. This unique edition is accompanied by The Earthquake in Chile and The Foundling, showcasing the range of their author's narrative abilities and his taste for the ambiguous and the paradoxical.

This 1882 novella, a key work in Huysmans' literary development - prefiguring in its protagonist the figure of Jean des Esseintes, the hero of A rebours, written two years later - is accompanied here by another masterly study of human despair, 'M. Bougran's Retirement'.

This unique edition, translated by critically-acclaimed translator Andrew Brown, is one of the earliest examples of the classic murder mystery and it has been an inspiration for a host of thriller and crime writers.

A unique collection of short stories by the master of Italian modernism.

This 1856 novella from the master of fantasy and the supernatural, featuring one of the most hauntingly surreal denouements in nineteenth-century fiction, is a brilliant and witty examination of man's innermost fantasies and fears.

Flush is a genre-defying blend of biography and fantasy, and an accessible yet stylistically innovative jeu d'esprit.

Famed for having killed his cousin Alessandro, the Duke of Florence, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici remains one of the most enigmatic figures of Italian literature. In his masterpiece, Apology for a Murder, he reveals the inner motives behind his act.

First published in 1831 and here presented with the supernatural stories `The Evil Eye' and `The Immortal Mortal', the chilling Gothic tale `Transformation' is a paragon of the genre by the author of Frankenstein. "

Verne, the acclaimed author of immortal tales of adventure and early science fiction, can be seen here in a different light, regaling readers of all ages with a light-hearted satire that, in its warnings about the dangers of scientific experimentation, has a clear and troubling resonance with our times."

The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices is a charming evocation of the adventures Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins experienced on a walking tour of the north-west of England.

Part of Balzac's La Comedie humaine cycle, Colonel Chabert is a poignant tale about the pursuit of justice, as well as a portrait of France's transition from the Napoleonic Empire to the Restoration.

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, The Single Hound contains some of Dickinson's most original and poignant pieces.

Also including the well-known stories `She-Wolf' and `Foxfur', A Life in the Country captures, in an objective, non-judgemental prose, the difficult conditions and personal struggles of the peasant class in his native Sicily at the turn of the twentieth century.

This volume also contains a further selection of Leonardo da Vinci's fragmentary writings, in the form of fables and aphorisms. Taken together, these pieces provide an invaluable insight into the thought processes of one of the Renaissance's most productive minds.

Uncle's Dream is a humorous drawing-room novella, a satire of Russian society that can be enjoyed as a lighter counterpoint to the author's later works.

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, The Frozen Deep is an action-packed tale of vengeance and sacrifice based on an actual doomed mission to the Arctic captained by Sir John Franklin.

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, Three Years is, in the author's own words, " a novel of Moscow life" and an examination of its merchant classes. A powerful story of redemption and the nuances of human relationships, the novella helped cement Chekhov's reputation as a major figure in Russian literature.

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, The Duel is an autobiographical novel which describes Casanova's extraordinary battle to the death with a Polish Count

Here presented with other five short stories focussing on the lives of prostitutes, Boule de Suif is a story about food, sex and politics.

Published posthumously and intended mainly as a satire of its age, this imaginative and entertaining tale - here presented in a lively translation by Andrew Brown - is now considered one of the pioneering works of science fiction."

Initially composed by Poe as a public lecture towards the end his career and considered by him the culmination of all his life's work, Eureka is an extended treatise about the creation, existence and the ultimate end of the world.

These surreal compositions have been considered as forerunners to the theatre of the absurd of the 1950s, as exemplified by Beckett, Ionesco and Adamov. This volume also contains the accompanying illustrations by Picasso himself.

The first of Edith Wharton's works depicting life in "old New York", The Touchstone is an acutely observed novella , and an exploration of the tension between self-serving opportunism and the desire to live a moral life."