Among the country's greatest artistic contributions, twentieth-century Russian literature was revolutionary in its approach to realism, injecting characters with human weaknesses familiar to all. It provided fodder for such important concepts as existentialism and even passive resistance, which was rooted in the works of Tolstoy, and practiced resistance, which was rooted in the works of Tolstoy and practiced successfully by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The twelve powerful short stories in this collection are excellent examples of writing by the foremost authors from Russia's Golden Age of Literature.
Included are "The Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin, "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol, "The District Doctor" by Ivan S. Turgenev, "White Nights" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy, "The Clothesmender" by Nicholay Leskov, "The Signal" by Vsevolod M. Garshin, "The Lady with the Toy Dog" by Anton Chekhov, "The White Mother" by Theodor Sologub, "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" by Maxim Gorky, "The Outrage — A True Story" by Aleksandr I. Kuprin, and "Lazarus" by Leonid Andreyev.