The career of Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of The Master and Margarita - now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century literature - was characterized by a constant and largely unsuccessful struggle against state censorship. This suppression did not only apply to his art: in 1926 his personal diaries were seized by the authorities. From then on he confined his thoughts to letters to his friends and family, as well as to public figures such as Stalin and his fellow Soviet writer Gorky.This ample selection from the diaries and letters of Mikhail Bulgakov, mostly translated for the first time into English, provides an insightful glimpse into the author's world and into a fascinating period of Russian history and literature, telling the tragic tale of the fate of an artist under a totalitarian regime.

Within a decade this former telephone exchange operator was singing on stage at Covent Garden or before royalty at private parties. She must have been fun to know, and from this collection of letters, just over three hundred of them gathered from sources in Britain, America, Canada and Holland, as well as twelve years of her personal diaries, what emerges provides a sunny picture in the gloomy landscape of post-Second World War days."

These editions (1842-1920) are fascinating for the immediacy of John Dee's accounts of his life as a Renaissance scholar.

"A Hero Perished" tells Nile Kinnick's story. This grandson of an Iowa governor, the son of parents who disciplined him to strive for his measure of greatness, became a Heisman Trophy winner and national celebrity through a combination of talent and circumstance. Following his college successes, Kinnick began legal study to prepare for a political career, but with the approach of war he entered the Navy Air Corps to refashion himself as a fighter pilot. Assigned to the carrier USS "Lexington" on its premier cruise, he took off in a defective planeOCoand his death shocked a nation grown almost used to tragic loss. For the first time, Kinnick tells his own tale through his engaging lettersOCoall but one previously unpublishedOCoand his diary, printed in its entirety for the first time. The result is a human, intimate look at the true person behind the myth, revealing both his foibles and his essential principles. "A Hero Perished" also includes a definitive text of Kinnick's moving Heisman Award acceptance speech and his impassioned commencement supper address, calling on the new Iowa graduates to achieve moral courage in a time of depression and war. An illuminating comment on a time and attitude that have passed, "A Hero Perished" is of and about a football player, but it is not a football bookOCoit is far more. This volume displays KinnickOCowho was, despite his great gifts and achievements, a vulnerable and decent young manOCoin a time of great change and peril when a phase of our culture was passing away."

In the midst of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, Etty's writings reveal a young Jewish woman who celebrated life and remained an undaunted example of courage, sympathy, and compassion. Through this splendid translation by Arnold J. Pomerans, commissioned by the Etty Hillesum Foundation, readers everywhere will resonate with the spirit of this amazing young woman.