Classic Fiction

Frog and Toad’s first board book—perfect for little hands! One Frog. One Toad. Two friends. Always together. This sweet homage to Frog and Toad’s famous friendship features iconic illustrations from the original books. This must-have board book for baby showers, first birthdays, friends of all ages, and beyond features a cut-out cover and raised element of the duo for curious...

A collection of 21 of Dr. Seuss's most iconic stories, presented in a simple, stylish slipcase. Dr. Seuss: A Classic Collection is an essential purchase for all Dr. Seuss fans and older readers looking to reconnect with the stories they loved most as a child. The complete stories for 21 of Dr. Seuss's best-loved books, now in a gift collection...

Has any other filmmaker become so famous that he has also become an adjective? A collection of brand new stories directly inspired by the master of suspense. Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with...

From the author of The Ashes of London, comes a new historical mystery set in the last days of WWII. ‘A grand piece of work – a triumph and one of Taylor’s best’ MICK HERRON 'A wonderfully unique novel from the master of historical crime fiction. Beautiful, haunting, and quite brilliant' LAURA SHEPHERD-ROBINSON ‘As good as I’d expect from a...

Fans of When Dimple Met Rishi will love this charming, slow-burn YA romance about all the ways you can honour tradition while still giving it a modern flair. When it comes to romance, Maya still believes in meet-cutes, but she's done with boys wasting her time. After her freshman romance refuses to put a label on their relationship, Maya decides...

Bestselling author Laura Wood brings the adventures of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy to even more readers in this beautiful retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age classic. Little Women, the charming story of the brave and resilient March sisters, has been adored by generations of readers who have identified with the struggles of kind and pretty Meg; gentle, delicate Beth;...

Puffin Classics - the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation, including this thrilling edition of King Solomon's Mines. Following a mysterious ancient map, a small group of men trek into southern Africa in search of a lost friend and the fabled diamond mines of...

My name is Hercule Poirot, and I am probably the greatest detective in the world. Do you have the skills to seek the truth within? Put your understanding of order and method to good use to crack the case as you travel around the world collecting mysterious bundles of puzzles. From France to Istanbul and beyond, have your map (and...

A swoony, heart-melting YA romance from beloved author Rebekah Weatherspoon about two awkward teens who decide to practice dating in order to be good at the real thing. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Jenny Han. Sixteen-year-old Bethany Greene, though confident and self-assured, is what they call a late-bloomer. She's never had a boyfriend, date, or first kiss. She's...

Hearts Still Beating, now available in paperback, is an immersive and romantic post-apocalyptic sapphic novel perfect for fans of Krystal Sutherland, Adam Silvera, and The Last of Us. Mara is dead—mostly. Infected with a virus that broke the world and turned her into a monster, Mara awakens in a facility to learn a treatment has been found. No longer a...

Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child. Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation—including this thrilling edition of Gulliver's Travels. In the strange countries of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver meets some extraordinary people and remarkable creatures. From a race of miniature folk to...

Do you ever look at the sky and think that’s where we belong? Like maybe the world is the wrong way around, and we’re meant to be up there, floating? Sixteen-year-old Therese lives in a small town on a small island. Her Aunt Kath calls her Tiger. Her friends call her Resey. The boy she loves calls her Champ. She’s...

Regarded as one of the most influential horror stories of all time and the inspiration for countless literary spin-offs, the tale of the young Englishman Jonathan Harker’s journey into the very heart of Count Dracula’s evil realm remains a compelling read to this day. A thriller of hypnotic power, a dark exploration of human passion, mythology and the paranormal, and...

A gripping and gruesome retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein brought to life for a new generation of readers by Carnegie Medal winning author Tanya Landman. A thrilling gothic tale of hubris gone badly wrong. A young man’s search for the secret of the spark of life leads him to a horrific experiment in which he creates a gigantic creature from...

Discover our collectable Puffin Clothbound Classic edition of David Copperfield. Puffin Clothbound Classics are stunning collectable hardback editions of some of the best-loved classics in the world - including this irresistible 175th anniversary edition of David Copperfield. Of all my books, I like this the best - Charles Dickens. Full of tragedy and comedy in equal measure and based in...

The Man Who Died Seven Times tells the story of Hisataro, a young member of the wealthy Fuchigami family, who possesses a mysterious ability. Every now and then, against his will, he falls into a time-loop in which he is obliged to re-live the same day nine times. Little does he know how useful this ability will be until one...

Soon to be adapted into the Netflix series The Haunting of Bly Manor Recently adapted into the major motion picture The Turning starring Finn Wolfhard Recently adapted into an opera in London's West End No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more...

The Tree of Heaven follows the fortunes of the Harrison family as the children grow up in the shadow of the First World War. Dorothy's brothers go off, one by one, to the trenches, while she becomes involved with the suffrage movement and later joins a version of the Women's Social and Political Union. Published at a time when women...

One of the masterworks of Japanese literature, ranking with The Tale of Genji, in a groundbreaking new edition. From the acclaimed translator of The Tale of Genji, a groundbreaking rendering of Japan's great martial epic. The fourteenth-century The Tale of the Heike is Japan's Iliad—a moving depiction of the late twelfth-century wars between the Heike and Genji clans. No work...

Since his first literary appearance in 1886, the murderous Mr Hyde has embodied the evil that even good men – including his alter ego, Henry Jekyll – are capable of when the constraints of civilised life are loosed. This chilling anthology also collects nine of Stevenson's best-known tales of horror, including The Body Snatcher, Markheim, Thawn Janet, The Bottle Imp,...

Discover the mesmerizing tale of two personalities in a war over the soul of one man. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a tale of Victorian horror. The personalities of the pleasant Dr. Jekyll and the violent Mr. Hyde vie for control over a single body. This gothic horror novel is presented alongside five short stories...

A secret terrorist group infiltrates the household of a government official’s son, with a view to spying on the father and, ultimately, assassinating him. But the young man entrusted with the task – an ailing, world-weary “nobody” – seized with the purposelessness of life and a sense of his own impending death, gradually becomes disillusioned with his mission, and decides...

The Snow Queen and Other Winter Tales is a captivating anthology that gathers 100 tales sharing the winter theme of Hans Christian Andersen's classic. This collection includes not only stories by Andersen and the Brothers Grimm but also works by literary luminaries such as Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, and Oscar Wilde. Additionally, the book features selections from Andrew Lang's...

In the vast literature of love, The Seducer's Diary is an intricate curiosity—a feverishly intellectual attempt to reconstruct an erotic failure as a pedagogic success, a wound masked as a boast, observes John Updike in his foreword to Søren Kierkegaard's narrative. This work, a chapter from Kierkegaard's first major volume, Either/Or, springs from his relationship with his fiancée, Regine Olsen....

The Scarlet Letter is so terrible in its pictures of diseased human nature as to produce most questionable delights. The reader's interest never flags for a moment... Hawthorne, when you have studied him, will be very precious to you. He will have plunged you into melancholy, he will have overshadowed you with black forebodings, he will almost have crushed you...

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the villagers of the Carpathian mountains lead a simple life, much as they have always done. The modern world has yet to reach the inhabitants of this remote region of the Habsburg Empire. Among them is Piotr, a bandy-legged peasant, who wants nothing more from life than an official railway cap, a cottage,...

The young women studying at the Grimaldi yearn for new kinds of life. Monitored by the nuns who run the college, eight of them form a close group, sharing confidences and hopes for the future. But each, too, has her private secrets— a child from an early love affair, frustrated artistic ambitions, burning desires, and petty jealousies. With the passing...

Therese Raquin is a clinically observed, sinister tale of adultery and murder among the lower orders in nineteenth-century Paris. Emile Zola’s dispassionate dissection of the motivations of his characters, mere 'human beasts' who kill in order to satisfy their lust, is much more than an atmospheric Second Empire period-piece. Therese Raquin stands as a key early manifesto of the French...

The Reign of Greed (1891) is a novel by Jose Rizal. Published in Belgium, the novel was a sequel to Touch Me Not (1887), both of which were written in Spanish. Blending aspects of his own life story with his critique of Spanish imperialism in the Philippines, Rizal continues the journey of Crisostomo Ibarra from centrist reformer to revolutionary leader....

The Rabbits, as they call themselves, are Archie Mannering, his sister Myra, Samuel Simpson, Thomas of the Admiralty, Dahlia Blair, and the narrator, with occasional guests. Their conversation is almost entirely frivolous, their activity vacillates between immensely energetic and happily lazy, and their social mores are surprisingly progressive. Originally published as sketches in Punch, the Rabbits' escapades are a charming...

The Queen of Spades is Pushkin's prose masterpiece, a gripping tale of avarice, obsession, madness, and cards. This wonderful collection also includes the keenly and sympathetically observed story The Stationmaster; the narrative poem The Bronze Horseman; a selection of Pushkin's lyric poems; the ribald saga of Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters; and excerpts from Yevgeny Onegin and Mozart and...

Serialised in 1909-1910, The Poison of Polygamy is a rare gem of Australian literature. The first novel of the Chinese-Australian experience, it follows the fortunes of a young man who leaves his wife behind in southern China to seek his fortunes in the Victorian goldfields. In a rollercoaster tale of blackmail, murder, and betrayal, he encounters all manner of perils,...

Summoned from London, journalist Edward Malone, narrator of Arthur Conan Doyle’s prehistoric-adventure novel The Lost World, finds himself reunited with his erstwhile travelling companions at the country home of their leader, the indomitable Professor Challenger. Confined in a sealed room with the cylinders of oxygen they have brought at his request, Professor Challenger informs them that the Earth is passing...

Nachman of Bratslav, descended from the founder of the Hasidic movement, carved a unique path as a Jewish spiritual leader. Towards the end of his life, he lost his young son, prompting him to turn increasingly inward and seek consolation from the world of the creative imagination. The result was the thirteen fascinating tales in this collection. A landmark in...

In this third volume of a planned five-volume series, David Roy provides a complete and annotated translation of the famous Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of His-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. This work, known primarily for its erotic realism, is...

In this third volume of a planned five-volume series, David Roy provides a complete and annotated translation of the famous Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of His-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. This work, known primarily for its erotic realism, is...

In the first volume of a five-volume set, the author provides a complete and annotated translation of The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous 16th-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. This...

LARGE PRINT EDITION. Dorian Gray is arrogant. He is pompous, selfish, devastatingly narcissistic, and for much of his life, he has never had to think twice about the ramifications of his actions. When the arrival of artist Basil Hallward forces Gray to confront his deepest insecurities, Dorian's most vulnerable self is imminently revealed. After trading his righteousness for riches, Dorian...

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the captivating tale of Dorian Gray, whose portrait is being painted by Basil Hallward, an artist charmed by his looks. However, when Sir Henry Wotton visits, he seduces Dorian into the worship of youthful beauty with an intoxicating speech. Dorian makes a wish that he will live to regret: that all the marks of...

Dive into a gothic world of obsession, excess, and debauchery with this stunning edition of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Artist Basil Hallward has sent a gift—a portrait that perfectly captures young Dorian Gray's handsome features. When Lord Henry tempts Dorian with a new lifestyle of hedonism and pleasure, he realises that he would sell his soul for...

Explore Wilde's lavish world of Gothic fiction and his study of lost innocence, full of captivating characters, with this gorgeous, jacketed hardcover edition. Artist Basil Hallward has sent a gift—a portrait that perfectly captures young Dorian Gray's handsome features. When Lord Henry tempts Dorian with a new lifestyle of hedonism and pleasure, he realises that he would sell his soul...

This classic collection features 25 tales shaped by gothic's mood of menace and the macabre. In addition to the world-famous title novel, the anthology includes Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, which launched the gothic novel craze. It also features stories by renowned authors including H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Arthur Machen, Louisa May Alcott, E. T....

Filled with passion, love, and suspense, The Phantom of the Opera is a thrilling classic. Rumours abound that the Paris Opera House is haunted by a ghost. Nobody has ever seen it, but it makes itself known through malevolent acts. First published in book form in 1911, this gothic novel by Gaston Leroux has been fascinating readers for more than...

This is no dusty relic, but instead something sparkling and modern — Armando Iannucci In a wildly eventful life, David Copperfield moves from the cruelty of his stepfather's care to the heights of success as a beloved and respected novelist. On his journey through Victorian society, he endures bitter treatment as a labourer, wins the approval of his formidable aunt,...

The Peppermint Tea Chronicles is the thirteenth book in the delightful 44 Scotland Street series, by worldwide bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith. It is summer in Scotland Street (as it always is), and for the habitués of Edinburgh's favourite street, some extraordinary adventures lie in waiting. For the impossibly vain Bruce Anderson—he of the clove-scented hair gel—it may finally be...

NOW A MAJOR HULU ORIGINAL SERIES, AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON DISNEY+ THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION ‘One of the biggest reads of the summer, and for good reason’ INDEPENDENT ‘Enormously fun . . . A joyous thrill ride of a book’ VOX ‘Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie crossed with Jordan Peele’s...

When their father's death leaves them with no money and a dim future, the Madden sisters, Alice, Virginia, and Monica, must negotiate the gender roles and class constraints of 1890s Victorian London. Virginia and Alice have aged out of the possibility of marriage and seemingly the idea of love itself. They find themselves with few prospects and little hope. Remaindered...

The Night Falling is set in Puglia, Italy, in 1921. Leandro returns home as a wealthy man accompanied by his glamorous American wife, determined to make his mark. But questions loom about how he gained his wealth and what burdens haunt his outwardly exuberant spouse. Boyd, a quiet English architect, is hired to construct Leandro's dreams. Yet, why is he...

The New York Trilogy is an astonishing and original book: three cleverly interconnected novels that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. In each story, the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes...

“Those bitter sorrows of childhood! When sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.” Raised in the idyllic setting of Dorlcote Mill, the wild and wilful Maggie Tulliver adores her elder brother Tom and is forever trying to gain...

The Martian (1898) is a novel by George du Maurier. Published posthumously, du Maurier's final novel is a semi-autobiographical account of his struggle with vision loss, incorporating elements of fantasy and fairy tale fiction. Originally serialized in Harper's Magazine, The Martian is a powerful story of romance, tragedy, and redemption. "When so great a man dies, it is generally found...

The Mark of Zorro (1924) is a novel by Johnston McCulley. Originally published as The Curse of Capistrano (1919), McCulley's novel was re-released to capitalise on the success of the 1920 silent film of the same name starring Douglas Fairbanks. Beloved by generations of readers and moviegoers alike, Zorro is recognised as a symbol of justice and rebellion throughout the...

Max Reddick, a novelist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter, has spent his career struggling against the riptide of race in America. Now terminally ill, he has nothing left to lose. An expat for many years, Max returns to Europe one last time to settle an old debt with his estranged Dutch wife, Margrit, and to attend the Paris funeral of his...

She had saved her. But at what a cost! Her position, her name, her character – she had given them all, but Clarissa was hers. Upon the death of her mother, Agatha Bodenham finds herself alone for the first time in her life. Solitary and socially awkward by nature, she starts to dream about her imaginary childhood friend – the...

Everything you need to know about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s globally beloved classic This is the story of a timeless tale for readers both young and old; it is the chronicle of a philosophical fable that has marked—and changed—the lives of generations of enthusiastic readers. It is the saga of a cult classic, second only to the Bible as the world’s...

A New York Review Books Original. Writers are professional killers of conceptions. The logic of the Letter Killers Club, a secret society of "conceivers" who commit nothing to paper on principle, is strict and uncompromising. Every Saturday, they meet in a fire-lit room hung with blank black bookshelves to present their "pure and unsubstantiated" conceptions: a rehearsal of Hamlet hijacked...

Monroe Stahr is a film producer at the height of his career, revered by the industry and in control of every aspect of his business empire. In his ruthless rise to the top, the young widower has had little time for sentiment, until he meets the beguiling Kathleen Moore and the two embark on an intense but ill-fated relationship. Told...

Saddened with his country’s loss of freedom, disillusioned with life and racked with loneliness and ennui, university student Jacopo Ortis can only find some comfort in the company of his friends and in his love for Teresa. But when his studies call him back to Padua and he is separated from her, Jacopo’s torments become unbearable, and he feels that...

A man and woman fall in love in a seaside town. The only trouble is, they're both married to other people. A schoolmaster is scandalized by his sweetheart riding a bicycle. A woman falls in love with a series of men, each of whom leaves her in different ways. Chekhov's stories capture Russian provincial life in the late nineteenth century...

'Mary Renault's portraits of the ancient world are fierce, complex and eloquent, infused at every turn with her life-long passion for the Classics' - Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe. The true parentage of Theseus, grandson of the King of Troizon, has always been shrouded in mystery. Rumours swirl that his father is Poseidon himself. But when he learns the...

Walter Tevis is widely regarded as a master for both his gritty poolhall novels and his brilliant rendering of the world of competitive chess. This long overdue collection establishes Tevis's rightful place as a maestro of the short form, as well. Including previously unpublished stories from journals and magazines, this entertaining collection showcases Tevis's characteristic perceptiveness, empathy, and range. In...

“Be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men.” Jia Khan has always lived like this. A successful lawyer, her London life is a long way from the grubby Northern streets she knew as a child, where her father headed up the Pakistani community and ran the local organised crime syndicate. Often his Jirga rule—the...

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. When, at sixteen, Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams—who offers...

Martin's novels include An Australian Girl (1890) and The Silent Sea (1892). The Incredible Journey, her last novel, published in 1923, is the story of two Aboriginal women venturing through desert country to retrieve a little boy kidnapped by a white man. Catherine Edith Macauley Martin (1847-1937) was born in Scotland and arrived with her family in Adelaide in 1855....

The Impersonators portrays the breakdown of family relationships and the endurance of love in a materialistic age sensitively, perceptively, and humorously. When Sylvia Foley returns to Australia after twenty years, she finds her father, Jack Cornock, ill. This and his obstinate silence provoke speculation about his will among the families of his two marriages. Sylvia becomes enmeshed in the webs...

Dick Young is lent a house in Cornwall by his friend Professor Magnus Lane. During his stay, he agrees to serve as a guinea pig for a new drug that Magnus has discovered in his biochemical researches. The effect of this drug is to transport Dick from the house at Kilmarth to the Cornwall of the 14th century. There, in...

... marvellous skill a writer who can knock spots off most of her contemporaries. The Guardian A tragi-comedy published in 1971 that looks at the experience of a woman escaping a broken marriage and trying to make a new home for grown-up children who no longer need her. Dealing with themes of abandonment, loneliness, liberation, and love, Eleanor's emotional journey...

LARGE PRINT EDITION. The Hollow Needle (1910) is a novel by Maurice Leblanc. Originally serialized in Je sais tout, a popular French magazine, The Hollow Needle is a crime and adventure novel featuring the legendary Arsène Lupin. Partly based on the life of French anarchist Marius Jacob, Lupin first appeared in print in 1905 as an answer to Sir Arthur...

This brand-new unabridged audio book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved The Hobbit is read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director and author, Andy Serkis. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen...

A remarkable blood-soaked stranger upends the lives of two Lake District ramblers; a lonely tavern offers its guests something much more disturbing than a post-walk pint; a night hike on the Fens takes a terrifying turn when the fog rolls in. From the darkly humorous to the chillingly sinister, tales of the haunted trail are as old as time. We...

Oscar Wilde's children's stories explore timeless themes of good and evil, freedom and responsibility, love and death, beauty and self-sacrifice. Featuring princesses, ogres, and talking animals, the questions they pose are as pertinent now as they were at the turn of the century. The Happy Prince poses the question, what is love? The Nightingale and the Rose asks, how do...

'Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant' COSMOPOLITAN 'A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack' SARAH WATERS 'Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining' SUNDAY TIMES Not one of them, if she could help it, was going to marry a broker or a banker or a cold-fish corporation lawyer... New York, 1930. Eight Vassar graduates meet in New York...

A one-of-a-kind, beautifully packaged and illustrated gift edition of the original 1925 printing of The Great Gatsby. Considered perhaps the greatest American novel of all time, and a true classic of twentieth-century literature, The Great Gatsby tells the story of the wealthy, quixotic Jay Gatsby and his obsessive love for debutante Daisy Buchanan. Originally published in 1925, this special gift...

No writer portrayed America's Jazz Age as vividly as F. Scott Fitzgerald. In his effervescent tales of ingenues on the prowl for husbands, Ivy League heirs en route to futures of idle entitlement, and endless alcohol-fuelled dance parties at ritzy country clubs, he limned a culture giddy with excess and as reckless as it was refined. Gifted with remarkable powers...

Invited to an extravagantly lavish party in a Long Island mansion, Nick Carraway, a young bachelor who has just settled in the neighbouring cottage, is intrigued by the mysterious host, Jay Gatsby, a flamboyant but reserved self-made man with murky business interests and a shadowy past. As the two men strike up an unlikely friendship, details of Gatsby’s impossible love...

Invited to an extravagantly lavish party in a Long Island mansion, Nick Carraway, a young bachelor who has just settled in the neighbouring cottage, is intrigued by the mysterious host, Jay Gatsby, a flamboyant but reserved self-made man with murky business interests and a shadowy past. As the two men strike up an unlikely friendship, details of Gatsby’s impossible love...

LARGE PRINT EDITION. Following his service in the First World War, a young Yale graduate moves to New York City for work. Living on Long Island, Nick Carraway meets a magnanimous millionaire named Jay Gatsby, who attempts to attract him to his hedonistic lifestyle. The Great Gatsby is the story of a lost generation, a novel of fortune and failure...

'Perhaps we shall not see each other again. I will write to you, though, and tell you, as best I can, the story of your family. A glass-blower, remember, breathes life into a vessel, giving it shape and form and sometimes beauty; but he can with that same breath, shatter and destroy it.' Faithful to her word, Sophie Duval reveals...

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916) is a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. Published at the height of his career as a popular Spanish author, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was adapted into a 1921 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino and later into a 1962 feature directed by Vincente Minelli. In 1919, the novel became a bestseller in...

Professor Persikov, an eccentric zoologist, stumbles upon a new light ray that accelerates growth and reproduction rates in living organisms. In the wake of a plague that has decimated the country's poultry stocks, Persikov's discovery is exploited as a means to correct the problem. As foreign agents, the state, and the Soviet media all seize upon the red ray, matters...