Old House Other Tales

The Old House and Other Tales are stories by Fyodor Sologub, a Russian writer and poet. His stories are dark prose and introduce some morbid, pessimistic elements characteristic of European fin de siècle literature. Nevertheless, a reader is captivated by suspended storylines and the fascinating adventures of the characters.

A collection of eleven stories by the Russian Symbolist author reprinted from the authorised English translation of 1916.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Among the records of the English state trials are to be found many strange stories; which would; as the phrase is; make the fortune of a modern novelist. But there are also numerous cases; not less stimulating to imagination and curiosity; which never attained more than local notoriety; of which the law was able to take but comparatively small cognizance; although they became subjects of much unofficial discussion and mystification. Among these cases none; perhaps; is better worth recalling than that of David Poindexter. It will be my aim here to tell the tale as simply and briefly as possible—to repeat it; indeed; very much as it came to my ears while living; several years ago; near the scene in which its events took place. There is a temptation to amplify it; and to give it a more recent date and a different setting; but (other considerations aside) the story might lose in force and weight more than it would thereby gain in artistic balance and smoothness.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.