Showing results by publisher "Interactive Media" in Classics

Where does love come from? How are questions of personal happiness of consequence in love? This audiobook collection of stories by Anton Chekhov is united by the theme of love, featuring: 'About Love', 'The Helpmate' and 'Polinka'. Read in English, unabridged, and accompanied by orchestral music based on original Antonin Dvorak compositions.

Santa Claus lives in the Laughing Valley, where stands the big, rambling castle in which his toys are manufactured. His workmen, selected from the ryls, knooks, pixies and fairies, live with him, and everyone is as busy as can be from one year's end to another. One would think that our good old Santa Claus, who devotes his days to making children happy, would have no enemies on all the Earth; and, as a matter of fact, for a long period of time he encountered nothing but love wherever he might go.

'Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter the Great...The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted with him. His fellow peasant-proprietors almost worshipped him, and took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him.'

A story of a successful farmer, Ilyas, who grew into one of the wealthiest in the area only to lose it all through series of bad accidents. He finds his happiness, however, only after losing all his possessions and achieving peace for himself and his wife. Read in English, unabridged.

Yegor the huntsman, walking down a country road, accidentally meets his estranged wife, Pelageya, whom he's been married to for 12 years but visited just several times, and even then, drunk and violent. She weeps and, fawning before him, implores him to visit her more often. He tries to explain why he, the best sportsman around, 'a pampered man', enjoying good tea and 'refined conversation', could not bear to live in a village.

Enter the world of mystery with this timeless audiobook adaptation of Leskov's classic ghost story uncovering mysteries of a haunted castle with a reputation going back several centuries. Featuring ghost action and audio effects, it includes a story that takes you through events unfolding in St. Petersburg in 1859 or 1860.

This release also includes another story of mysterious disappearance. A nineteenth-century nobleman goes missing in Turgenev's "Hunting Sketches".

Chekhov has always been huge inspiration for many great writers who came in contact with Chekhov's art. Thomas Mann wrote that Chekhov's short stories attain full epic stature and can even surpass in intensity the great towering novels. 'If I understood that better in later life than in my youth, this was largely owing to my growing intimacy with Chekhov's art; for his short stories rank with all that is greatest and best in European literature,' he concluded.

'Once, as I was wandering about the fields after partridges with Yermolai, I saw some way off a deserted garden, and turned into it. I had hardly crossed its borders when a snipe rose up out of a bush with a clatter. I fired my gun, and at the same instant, a few paces from me, I heard a shriek; the frightened face of a young girl peeped out for a second from behind the trees, and instantly disappeared. Yermolai ran up to me: "Why are you shooting here? There is a landowner living here."'

Smirnov is scared of being robbed. To compensate and deter the cabman from attacking him, he blusters on in a comical way about his fighting abilities, the three revolvers he doesn't have, and how a party of armed friends will join him soon.

Hughie Erskine is in love and wants to marry, but the girl's father will not allow it, since Erskine has no money. Erskine's friend, Alan Trevor, is a painter, and Erskine visits him at his studio one day to find him with a pitiable beggar - the model for his painting. Erskine only has one coin, on which he depends for transportation, but he decides he can walk for a couple of weeks and gives the beggar the coin. Read in English, unabridged.

Женщина ждет вольнолюбивого охотника уже 12 лет, а тот, женившись в пьяном виде, не торопится к ней в дом. Он егерь, лучший стрелок, а она скотница, по мнению мужчины, не могут быть парой. Актуальный рассказ Чехова заставляет задуматься. Сколько женщин страдает в ожидании любимого, который не может нагуляться, насытиться мнимой свободой от семейных обязанностей.

Главный герой рассказа, огромный налим, забился в воде под корягу. Пытаясь выловить его, плотники Герасим и Любим больше часа сидят в воде. Увы, достать рыбину им не удается. На помощь им приходит пастух Ефим, но вытащить налима не получается и у него. В конце концов, в шумный процесс ловли вмешивается барин.

Valentine is preparing to leave Verona for Milan so as to broaden his horizons. He begs his best friend, Proteus, to come with him, but Proteus is in love with Julia and refuses to leave. The play deals with the themes of friendship and infidelity, the conflict between friendship and love, and the foolish behaviour of people in love. This edition of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is an adaptation of Shakespeare's eponymous drama, narrated in plain modern English, capturing the very essence and key elements of the original Shakespeare work.

A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler.

A beautiful Christmas story of love, forgiveness and uneasy life. Set in Chicago on a bitterly cold Christmas night. William considers stealing both to satisfy his hunger and to find excitement in his dull life, but when a woman drops a parcel, he gives it to her instead of running off with it. He feels as if he is a failed thief, in the same manner as he has failed at everything - college, journalism, real estate, performing.

A crafty, boots-wearing cat named Puss and how he made a fortune for his young, not very rich master and made friends with a great monarch, Marquis Carabas. Read in English, unabridged.

Honored sir, father and benefactor, a petty clerk called Nevyrazimov sitting in his office on the Easter Eve in the company of a cockroach scurrying the table, muses upon what he might do to make it in the world. Read in English, unabridged.

'Dostoyevsky is the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn', remarked Friedrich Nietzsche.

Discover the universal truths and wisdoms of Dostoyevsky in this volume of his tales, including: 'An Honest Thief', 'The Heavenly Christmas Tree', and 'The Peasant Marey'.

Madame Nashatyrin is fed up with violent behaviour and foul language emanating from an abusive male guest next door. She has two grown-up daughters and is concerned about their well-being when complaining to the hotel-keeper. 'Either give me other apartments, or I shall leave your confounded hotel altogether! It's a sink of iniquity! Why don't you get rid of the scoundrel?' But as soon as the marital status of the scoundrel is revealed, she meditates and concludes that there's something good in everyone after all.

Lord Murchison recounts to his old friend a strange tale of a woman he had loved and intended to marry, but she was now dead. She had always been very secretive and mysterious. He one day followed her to see where she went and discovered her stealthily going to a boarding house. He suspected there was another man and confronted her the next day. She confessed to having been there but said nothing had happened. He did not believe her and left; she died some time later. Read in English, unabridged.