A new short biography of the author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, by a preeminent Russian scholar?In this compelling new biography Anthony Briggs explores the effect of Dostoevsk
Charlotte Bronte's extraordinary literary talent manifested itself at an early age when she penned a series of imaginative and entertaining tales. Before her untimely death at the age of thirty-eight
Brief Lives offers short, authoritative biographies of the world's best-known literary figures. Both informative and entertaining, each title introduces the modern reader to the early life, writing ca
Wilkie Collins was one of the most popular writers in Victorian England. Au innovator of detective fiction, Collins secured his fame with sensational novels that feature intricate legal plots, mistake
When Newton was not yet twenty-five years old, he formulated calculus, hit upon the idea of gravity, and discovered that white light was made up of all the colors of the spectrum. By 1678, Newton desi
Peter Ackroyd's life of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) opens with his end, his final days. No one knows what happened between the moment when friends saw him off on the steamboat to Baltimore and his disc
Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400, lived a surprisingly eventful life. He served with the Duke of Clarence and with Edward III, and in 1359 was taken prisoner in France and ransomed. Through his wif
