New Directions paperbook

This biography begins with Gogol's death and ends with his birth, an inverted structure typical of both Gogol and Nabokov. The biographer proceeds to establish the relationship between Gogol and his novels, especially with regard to "nose-consciousness", a peculiar feature of Russian life and letters, which finds its apotheosis in Gogol's own life and prose. There are more expressions and proverbs concerning the nose in Russian than in any other language...

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes's strange and sinuous tour de force novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna-a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction-there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate...

Free renderings of selections from the works of Chuang-tzŭ, taken from various translations.

The theatre of Tennessee Williams presents, in matching format, the plays of one of America's most consistently influential and innovative dramatists. The first five volumes of this ongoing series contain Williams' full-length plays through 1975 and, in addition to the texts themselves, include original cast listings and production notes. Volumes 6 and 7 contain Williams' collected shorter plays. Now available as a paperbook, Volume 8 adds to the...