In this series we turn the pages of classic short stories to put together the literary building blocks of how a particular genre or theme began, how it built its foundations to become the well-loved and well-worn genre that it is today.Do authors have the same ideas at more or less the same time? Or can they sniff out an opportunity as to which way the tastes of an audience are moving. Success undoubtedly builds success and in literary terms we can more politely say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the surest way to reach a hungry readership is to build on the fortune and flair of your literary colleagues. Throughout literary history Russian writing has been both applauded and lauded as fiction of the first rank. It’s authors down the decades are many and each of them has consummate talents and knowledge that few, if any, can argue with. In this volume we present stories that explain and reveal Russian Realism, in ways that are absorbing, startling and capture a world with precise and literary verve.01 - Foundations of Fiction - Russian Realism - An Introduction2 - Diary of a Lunatic by Leo Tolstoy3 - Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov4 - An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyevsky5 - Mumu by Ivan Turgenev6 - Old Fashioned Landowners by Nikolai Gogol7 - The City by Leonid Andreyev8 - Twenty-Six Men and a Girl by Maxim Gorky9 - Gentle Breathing by Ivan Bunin10 - The Signal by Vsevolod Garshin11 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev12 - Dethroned by I N Potapenko13 - The General's Will by Vera Jelihovsky14 - Misery by Anton Chekhov15 - The Rendezvous by Ivan Turgenev16 - The Jew by Ivan Turgenev17 - The Bet by Anton Chekhov18 - The Murderer by Mikhail Bulgakov19 - Aloysha the Pot by Leo Tolstoy20 - The Peasant Marey by Fyodor Dostoyevsky21 - Her Lover by Maxim Gorky22 - About Love by Anton Chekhov23 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev24 - Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov25 - Silence by Leonid Andreyev