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Lu Xun remembers his childhood and youth: the Hundred-Plant Garden where he used to play, his old nurse and the book of monsters she gave him, the temple fair he could only see after reciting his lesson. Then come his father's illness, and his student years in Japan with his teacher, Fujino. Ten bittersweet memories, in which we discover the childhood of the greatest modern Chinese writer, and the China of the past. This short book can be read memory by memory, in the language you are learning.

Eleven stories about China in the 1920s. We meet a widow whom the whole village shuns at New Year, a disappointed scholar drinking alone in an inn, a young couple driven apart by poverty, and a man who wants to put out the everlasting lamp in his village temple. After “Call to Arms”, Lu Xun, the greatest modern Chinese writer, offers more intimate stories here, which show with tenderness and clarity a country in the midst of change. The stories are short and can be read one by one, in the language you are learning.

Called out at night in a snowstorm, a country doctor has no horse to make the journey. In a penal colony, an officer proudly shows a visitor a strange execution machine. A hunger artist goes weeks without eating in his cage, while the crowd slowly loses interest. In these three unsettling stories by Kafka, everyday life tips into nightmare without warning, and you do not forget them. Short and written in precise sentences, they can each be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

Tonio Kröger, son of a respected family in Lübeck, grows up feeling different. He admires his schoolfellow Hans Hansen, blond and sure of himself, then falls in love with blonde Inge, who does not notice him. Once he becomes a writer, he feels at home neither among artists nor among the “normal” people he secretly envies. Thomas Mann put a great deal of himself into it: it is a book for everyone who has ever felt like an outsider. This short story reads well in the language you are learning, with the translation always in view.

Around the year 400, Augustine, now Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, tells the story of his life, speaking directly to God. He remembers his childhood, the pears he stole just for the pleasure of doing wrong, his youth in Carthage and his long search for the truth. Until the day when, in a garden in Milan, he hears a child's voice singing: “Take up and read”. This book is often seen as the first great autobiography of the Western world. We meet a man who doubts, makes mistakes and searches for himself, with a sincerity that still moves us today. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great classic in the language you are learning.

Two stories of young love. In “First Love”, a sixteen-year-old boy on holiday in the country falls under the spell of his neighbour, a young princess surrounded by admirers, and learns what love can cost. In “Asya”, on the banks of the Rhine, a traveller meets a free, proud and unpredictable young woman, and is slow to tell her what he feels. Turgenev tells with restraint and nostalgia of these loves we never forget. Written in a clear and gentle style, these two stories are a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

Three stories by Dostoevsky. In “White Nights”, a lonely young dreamer meets, four evenings in a row in the bright nights of St Petersburg, a young woman who is waiting for someone. In “A Gentle Creature”, a man keeps watch over the body of his young wife and tries to understand. In “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”, a man in despair falls asleep and has a dream that changes everything. Tender, tragic or visionary, they show another side of the great Russian novelist. You can read each of these short stories in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In a mining district in the north of Spain, la Nela, a poor orphan girl without beauty, acts as guide to Pablo, a young blind man. He loves her for her kindness and for the way she describes the world to him. One day, a famous surgeon arrives in the village, hoping to give Pablo his sight. A tender and poignant love story that asks a simple question: what will Pablo see when his eyes are opened? It is one of the best loved novels of Galdós, the great Spanish novelist. Its absorbing story and endearing characters make it enjoyable to read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together four of Chekhov's finest stories. In “Ward No. 6”, a provincial doctor starts talking with a patient in his asylum and ends up wondering who is really mad. In “The Lady with the Dog”, a man and a woman, each married to someone else, meet in Yalta and fall into a love they had not foreseen. We also meet a bishop, alone and ill on the eve of Easter, and a young bride-to-be who decides to leave everything behind. Chekhov never judges: in a few pages, he makes you feel a whole life. You can read each of these stories in one sitting in the language you are learning.

Pip, a young orphan, is brought up by his sister and her husband Joe, a kind-hearted blacksmith, in the Kent marshes. One evening in the churchyard, he comes across an escaped convict who terrifies him. Then he is invited to the house of Miss Havisham, an old lady who still wears her wedding dress, and who lives with the beautiful, cold Estella. The day an unknown benefactor offers to make him a gentleman in London, Pip's life is turned upside down. His dreams, his mistakes and his illusions make him one of Dickens's most endearing heroes. Pip tells his own story, and this great novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In St Petersburg, Raskolnikov, a very poor former student, lives in a tiny room under the roof. He has convinced himself that certain exceptional men have the right to break the law, and he kills an old pawnbroker with an axe. From then on, fear and fever never leave him, while the cunning and patient magistrate Porfiry seems to read his thoughts. We know from the start who the murderer is, and yet the suspense never lets up: everything happens in his conscience. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this masterpiece by Dostoevsky in the language you are learning.

In Germany after the First World War, an elegant old gentleman sits down at a gaming table and wins vast sums. His opponents lose without understanding why, as if bewitched. Behind this face hides Dr Mabuse, a criminal mastermind who changes disguises and uses hypnosis to hold others in his power. A public prosecutor sets off after him: it is the start of a breathless duel with one of the most famous criminals in literature. Fast-paced, the novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In a quiet London suburb, twenty-one-year-old Ann Veronica Stanley is stifled by the authority of her father, who forbids her to go to a fancy-dress ball. She leaves home to live alone in London, study biology and run her own life. But money soon runs short, and a young woman's freedom has a price in those days. Wells caused a scandal with the story of this “New Woman”, who dares to claim the right to love and to choose, in the age of the suffragettes. Its lively, determined heroine makes it a gripping read in the language you are learning.

Alone in his house by the Seine, a man keeps a diary. After a fine Brazilian three-master sails past on the river, he sleeps badly, and when he wakes he finds that the water in his carafe has been drunk during the night. He becomes convinced that an invisible being is living beside him. Is he mad, or is something really there? Maupassant never decides, and that doubt is what makes it frightening. The volume also includes other stories by Maupassant. You can read each one in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In Kentucky at the start of the twentieth century, an old mansion stands on Billy-goat Hill, a hill the town is slowly swallowing up. Colonel Bob Carsey lives there with his daughter, nicknamed Miss Lady, a free and joyful girl who has grown up out of doors. She falls in love with Donald Morley, a rich and unsteady young man whom the colonel distrusts. Part love story, part drama, this novel full of humour and tenderness is peopled with colourful characters from the poor part of town. Written with warmth and simplicity, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

One night, on board a liner returning from Asia, a passenger who never sleeps approaches the narrator and tells him his secret. A doctor at a remote post in the Dutch East Indies, he was visited by a European woman, beautiful and proud, who came to ask him for a forbidden operation. He refused, out of pride as much as desire, then set off after this woman like a man seized by madness. That is where the title comes from: amok, the frenzy that, in Malaya, drives a man to run straight ahead. You can read this short story by Stefan Zweig in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In 1908, in a seaside resort in the south of England, Ruth, a former housemaid, marries Ernie Caspar, a working man. He brings up little Alice, born before their marriage, as his own daughter. Children come along, Ernie loses his job and owes the rent to his brother Alf, who still wants Ruth. As strikes spread and war draws near, a trade unionist from the North falls in love with Ruth in his turn. It is a sensitive portrait of a working-class woman, strong and loyal, in England before 1914. Its absorbing story, close to everyday life, is easy to read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together Lu Xun's first stories, written in China in the years after the fall of the empire. A man becomes convinced that his neighbours want to eat him. A poor old scholar comes to drink his wine in a tavern where people laugh at him. A father buys a blood-soaked remedy to save his son. The most famous story follows Ah Q, a village labourer who turns every humiliation into an imaginary victory. In China, “the Ah Q spirit” still means this way of lying to yourself so as not to see your defeats. With the translation always in front of you, these short stories can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

In Vienna, Irene leads a quiet middle-class life with her husband, a lawyer, and their two children. One day, as she leaves the home of her lover, a young pianist, she is stopped by a woman she does not know. The woman accuses her of stealing this man from her, and demands money. The blackmail starts again, over and over, and the fear of being found out invades every moment of her family life. Zweig describes this anguish from the inside, with a tension that never lets the reader go. You can read this short story in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In a guesthouse on the Riviera, a married woman runs off with a young man she met the day before, and the other guests are outraged. Only the narrator defends her. Soon afterwards, an elderly Englishwoman, Mrs C., confides to him a secret she has kept for more than twenty years: a day in her life that began one evening at the Monte Carlo casino, watching the hands of a young gambler. Stefan Zweig is a master of the confession and of sudden passion: little by little we understand how twenty-four hours can turn a whole life upside down. You can read this short story in one sitting in the language you are learning.

During the war of 1870, ten travellers leave Prussian-occupied Rouen in the same stagecoach: local worthies, two nuns, a democrat and a prostitute nicknamed Boule de Suif. She is the only one who shares her food. But at an inn, a Prussian officer detains them and sets his conditions. This is the story that made Maupassant famous: with irony, he shows what fine principles are worth when everyone is thinking of themselves. Around it, the volume gathers eleven other stories about money, marriage and little middle-class arrangements. Short and lively, they can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

In the Caucasus in the 1830s, an old captain tells a traveller the story of Pechorin, a young Russian officer who is brilliant, jaded and dangerous to those who love him. Then the traveller gets hold of his journal. In it we read how Pechorin seduces a princess out of sheer boredom, and how he fights a duel coldly, almost out of curiosity. Lermontov, who himself died in a duel at twenty-six, made Pechorin one of the most fascinating characters in Russian literature: a hero who is no hero. Made up of five short stories, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In a mountain valley in Virginia in the nineteenth century, Sybil Berners, a rich heiress with a passionate nature, has just married a penniless young lawyer whom she adores. Back from their honeymoon, the couple take Rosa Blondelle, a ruined young mother abandoned by her husband, into their home at Black Hall. Little by little, the guest's charm awakens Sybil's jealousy. One evening, Rosa is found dying, and she accuses Sybil in front of everyone. A novel of passion and suspicion that keeps you in suspense right to the end. Full of dramatic twists, it can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.