Here is the second of the "lost" diaries of young Arthur Conan Doyle, written in 1881 while he was a twenty-two-year-old student at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In this rollicking story of high adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle serves as a British spy along with the legendary Doctor Joseph Bell - who became the real-life inspiration for the world's most famous literary detective, Sherlock Holmes. This diary details how Doyle and Dr. Bell journey to Russia on a secret forensic mission to save Europe from war. Peopled with Doyle's real-life contemporaries - including Dostoyesky and Rasputin, it is an exciting mix of murder, mystery, literary history, and humour sure to please Sherlock Holmes fans everywhere!

A comprehensive diplomatic and military history of the Russian conquest of Central Asia, spanning the whole of the nineteenth century.

Although millions of Russians lived as serfs until the middle of the nineteenth century, little is known about their lives. Identifying and documenting the conditions of Russian serfs has proven difficult because the Russian state discouraged literacy among the serfs and censored public expressions of dissent. To date scholars have identified only twenty known Russian serf narratives. Four Russian Serf Narratives contains four of these accounts and is the first translated collection of autobiographies by serfs. Scholar and translator John MacKay brings to light for an English-language audience a diverse sampling of Russian serf narratives, ranging from an autobiographical poem to stories of adventure and escape. “Autobiography” (1785) recounts a highly educated serf’s attempt to escape to Europe, where he hoped to study architecture. The long testimonial poem “News About Russia” (ca. 1849) laments the conditions under which the author and his fellow serfs lived. In “The Story of My Life and Wanderings” (1881) a serf tradesman tells of his attempt to simultaneously escape serfdom and captivity from Chechen mountaineers. The fragmentary “Notes of a Serf Woman” (1911) testifies to the harshness of peasant life with extraordinary acuity and descriptive power. These accounts offer readers a glimpse, from the point of view of the serfs themselves, into the realities of one of the largest systems of unfree labor in history. The volume also allows comparison with slave narratives produced in the United States and elsewhere, adding an important dimension to knowledge of the institution of slavery and the experience of enslavement in modern times.

Pinocchio, The Tale of a Puppet follows the adventures of a talking wooden puppet whose nose grew longer whenever he told a lie and who wanted more than anything else to become a real boy.As carpenter Master Antonio begins to carve a block of pinewood into a leg for his table the log shouts out, "Don't strike me too hard!" Frightened by the talking log, Master Cherry does not know what to do until his neighbor Geppetto drops by looking for a piece of wood to build a marionette. Antonio gives the block to Geppetto. And thus begins the life of Pinocchio, the puppet that turns into a boy.Pinocchio, The Tale of a Puppet is a novel for children by Carlo Collodi is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio, an animated marionette, and his poor father and woodcarver Geppetto. It is considered a classic of children's literature and has spawned many derivative works of art. But this is not the story we've seen in film but the original version full of harrowing adventures faced by Pinnocchio. It includes 40 illustrations.

Here is the second of the "lost" diaries of young Arthur Conan Doyle, written in 1881 while he was a twenty-two-year-old student at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In this rollicking story of high adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle serves as a British spy along with the legendary Doctor Joseph Bell - who became the real-life inspiration for the world's most famous literary detective, Sherlock Holmes. This diary details how Doyle and Dr. Bell journey to Russia on a secret forensic mission to save Europe from war. Peopled with Doyle's real-life contemporaries - including Dostoyesky and Rasputin, it is an exciting mix of murder, mystery, literary history, and humour sure to please Sherlock Holmes fans everywhere!

A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.