Written in just fifty-two days in the year 1839, "The Charterhouse of Parma" has since become known as Stendhal's finest work. Evidence of haste is infrequently apparent in this remarkable story, which follows the eventful life of the young Italian nobleman Fabrizio del Dongo. From his childhood in the family castle by Lake Como to the battlefields of Waterloo, Fabrizio proves himself charmingly headstrong and painfully naïve. Upon returning injured...

From the author of The Natural comes a classic short story about a young rabbinical student and his fateful encounter with an enigmatic matchmaker. A co-production with the National Jewish Theater. Recorded before a live audience at Chicago's Guest Quarters Suite Hotel in July 1992. Adapted and Directed by Arnold Aprill Producing Director Susan Albert Loewenberg Shelley Berman as Salzman David Cromer as Leo Finkle Marge Kotlisky as Mrs. Salzman Naama...

First Published in a single volume in 1883, the stories collected in Little Novels of Sicily are drawn from the Sicily of Giovanni Verga's childhood, reported at the time to be the poorest place in Europe. Verga's style is swift, sure, and implacable; he plunges into his stories almost in midbreath, and tells them with a stark economy of words. There's something dark and tightly coiled at the heart of each story, an ironic, bitter resolution that...

Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdulmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellini's vanished masterpiece-a portrait of Mehmed the Conqueror-may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly sent to investigate, but-aware that the sultan's advisers are against any extravagant repurchase of the painting-decides to deploy his disempowered Polish ambassador friend, Palewski, to visit Venice in his stead. Palewski arrives in disguise in...