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One of the most celebrated and popular historical romances ever written, The Three Musketeers tells the story of the early adventures of the young Gascon gentleman D’Artagnan and his three friends from the regiment of the King’s Musketeers -Athos, Forthos and Aramis.Under the watchful eye of their patron M. de Treville, the four defend the honour of the regiment against the guards of Cardinal Richelieu, and the honour of the Queen against the machinations of the Cardinal himself as the power struggles of seventeenth-century France are vividly played out in the background.But their most dangerous encounter is with the Cardinal’s spy, Milady, one of literature’s most memorable female villains, and Alexandre Dumas employs all his fast-paced narrative skills to bring this enthralling novel to a breathtakingly gripping and dramatic conclusion.

Set in Hardy’s Wessex, Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic.It tells of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d’Urberville. In her search for respectability her fortunes fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy. It explores Tess’s relationships with two very different men, her struggles against the social mores of the rural Victorian world which she inhabits and the hypocrisy of the age.In addressing the double standards of the time, Hardy’s masterly evocation of a world which we have lost, provides one of the most compelling stories in the canon of English literature, whose appeal today defies the judgement of Hardy’s contemporary critics.Издание на английском языке.

Far from fading with time, Kenneth Grahame`s classic tale of fantasy has attracted a growing audience in each generation. Rat, Mole, Badger, and the preposterous Mr. Toad (with his `Poop-poop-poop` road-hogging new motor-car), have brought delight to many through the years with their odd adventures on and by the river, and at the imposing residence of Toad Hall. Grahame`s book was later dramatised by A.A.Milne, and became a perennial Christmas favourite, as `Toad of Toad Hall`. It continues to enchant and, above all perhaps, inspire great affection.

Far from fading with time, Kenneth Grahame’s classic tale of fantasy has attracted a growing audience in each generation. Rat, Mole, Badger and the preposterous Mr Toad (with his ‘Poop-poop-poop’ road-hogging new motor-car), have brought delight to many through the years with their odd adventures on and by the river, and at the imposing residence of Toad Hall. Grahame’s book was later dramatised by A. A. Milne, and became a perennial Christmas favourite, as Toad of Toad Hall. It continues to enchant and, above all perhaps, inspire great affection.

With an Introduction and Bibliography by Stephen Matterson, Trinity College, Dublin.Walt Whitman’s verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice. It reflects the unique vitality of the new nation, the vastness of the land and the emergence of a sometimes troubled consciousness, communicated in language and idiom regarded by many at the time as shocking.Whitman’s poems are organic and free flowing, fit into no previously defined genre and skilfully combine autobiographical, sociological and religious themes with lyrical sensuality. His verse is a fitting celebration of a new breed of American and includes ‘Song of Myself’, ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’, the celebratory ‘Passage to India’, and his fine elegy for the assassinated President Lincoln, ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’.

The Jungle Book introduces Mowgli, the human foundling adopted by a family of wolves. It tells of the enmity between him and the tiger Shere Khan, who killed Mowgli’s parents, and of the friendship between the man-cub and Bagheera, the black panther, and Baloo, the sleepy brown bear, who instructs Mowgli in the Laws of the Jungle. The Second Jungle Book contains some of the most thrilling of the Mowgli stories. It includes Red Dog, in which Mowgli forms an unlikely alliance with the python Kaa, How Fear Came and Letting in the Jungle as well as The Spring Running, which brings Mowgli to manhood and the realisation that he must leave Bagheera, Baloo and his other friends for the world of man.

Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury.This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The young mother of an illegitimate child confronts her Puritan judges.However, it is not so much her harsh sentence, but the cruelties of slowly exposed guilt as her lover is revealed, that hold the reader enthralled all the way to the book’s poignant climax.

Книга «Schindler’s Ark.». Издательство: Sceptre. Год выпуска: 2016. Переплет: Мягкий переплет. Количество страниц: 416. Автор: Keneally, Thomas. Стандарт: 10. Возрастная категория: отсутствует. Страна производитель: Соединенное королевство.

In these delightful tales, Oscar Wilde employs all his grace, artistry and wit. The Happy Prince tells of the statue of a once pleasure-loving Prince which, with the help of a selfless Swallow helps people in distress. As well as The Nightingale and the Rose, The Devoted Friend and The Remarkable Rocket, this collection contains The Selfish Giant, a remarkable story of the redemptive power of love.

In these ‘scientific romances’ H. G. Wells sees the present reflected in the future and the future in the present. His aim is to provoke rather than predict. The Sleeper falls into a trance, waking up two centuries later as the richest man in a world of new technologies, power-greedy leaders, sensual elites, and brutalised industrial slaves. Arriving in the year 802,701, the Time-Traveller finds that humanity has evolved into two drastically different species; going farther still, he witnesses the ultimate fate of the solar system. The Chronic Argonauts, the original version of The Time Machine, pits a scientist with daring views of time and space against superstitious villagers. In all three works Wells laces vivid adventure stories with the latest ideas in biology and physics.

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Andrew Frayn, Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University.In these two compelling novels H.G. Wells imagines terrifying futures in which civilisation itself is threatened.The narrator of The War of the Worlds is quick to discover that what appeared to be a falling star was, in fact, a metallic cylinder landing from Mars. Six million people begin to flee London in panic as tentacled invaders emerge and overpower the city. With their heat-ray, killing machines, black gas, and a taste for fresh human blood, is there anything that can be done to stop the Martians?In The War in the Air, naive but resourceful Bert Smallways is thrilled by speed and fascinated by the new flying machines. His curiosity sweeps him away by accident into a German plan to conquer America, beginning with the destruction of New York. The ease of movement in aerial warfare means that nothing and nobody is safe as Total War erupts, civilisation crumbles, and Bert’s hopes of getting back to London to marry his love seem impossibly distant.

A Christmas Carol is the most famous, heart-warming and chilling festive story of them all. In these pages we meet Ebenezer Scrooge, whose name is synonymous with greed and parsimony: ‘Every idiot who goes about with «Merry Christmas» on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart’. This attitude is soon challenged when the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley, returns from the grave to haunt him on Christmas Eve. Scrooge is then visited in turn by three spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future, each one revealing the error of his ways and gradually melting the frozen heart of this old miser, leading him towards his redemption. On the journey we take with Scrooge we encounter a rich array of Dickensian characters including the poor Cratchit family with the ailing Tiny Tim and the generous and jolly Fezziwig.When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 he fashioned an enduring gift to the world, capturing the essence of the love, kindness and generosity of the Christmas season. It is a timeless classic and the story’s uplifting magic remains as potent today as when it was first published.

Black Beauty is a perennial children’s favourite, one which has never been out of print since its publication in 1877. It is a moralistic tale of the life of the horse related in the form of an autobiography, describing the world through the eyes of the creature. In taking this anthropomorphic approach, the author Anna Sewell broke new literary ground and her effective storytelling ability makes it very easy for the reader to accept the premise that a horse is recounting the exploits in the narrative.The gentle thoroughbred, Black Beauty, is raised with care and is treated well until a vicious groom injures him. The damaged horse is then sold to various masters at whose hands he experiences cruelty and neglect. After many unpleasant episodes, including one where he becomes a painfully overworked cab horse in London, Black Beauty finally canters towards a happy ending. Although Anna Sewell’s classic is set firmly in the Victorian period, its message is universal and timeless: animals will serve humans well if they are treated with consideration and kindness.There have been many film and television adaptations of the story, but it is only the novel that captures the authentic voice of the central character.

Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty was an immediate success on its publication in 1877, and has gone on to sell an estimated 50 million copies.Black Beauty is a horse with a fine black coat, a white foot and a silver star on his forehead. Seen through his eyes, the story tells of his idyllic upbringing and the hardship and cruelty he suffers subsequently, before finding security and happiness in a new home.Black Beauty is one of the most popular children’s books ever written.

Harbour Street is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope series — which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn as Vera.A silent community. A murderer among them . . .As the snow falls in Newcastle, Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie travel home on the busy Metro. When the train stops unexpectedly due to bad weather, Jessie notices that one woman doesn’t leave and when trying to wake her they find that the passenger has been fatally stabbed.With no witnesses DI Vera Stanhope looks into the victim’s past and discovers she lived for years on Harbour Street, in a rundown Northumberland fishing town. As she questions the local residents Vera begins to suspect they know more than they are letting on, and the killer is hiding in their midst.Enjoy more of Vera Stanhope’s investigations with The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, Silent Voices, The Glass Room, The Moth Catcher, The Seagull and The Darkest Evening.Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann CleevesVal McDermid

In 1994 fledgling journalist Louis Theroux was given a one-off gig on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, presenting a segment on apocalyptic religious sects. Gawky, socially awkward and totally unqualified, his first reaction to this exciting opportunity was panic. But he’d always been drawn to off-beat characters, so maybe his enthusiasm would carry the day. Or, you know, maybe it wouldn’t…In Gotta Get Theroux This, Louis takes the reader on a joyous journey from his anxiety-prone childhood to his unexpectedly successful career. Nervously accepting the BBC’s offer of his own series, he went on to create an award-winning documentary style that has seen him immersed in the weird worlds of paranoid US militias and secretive pro-wrestlers, get under the skin of celebrities like Max Clifford and Chris Eubank and tackle gang culture in San Quentin prison, all the time wondering whether the same qualities that make him good at documentaries might also make him bad at life.As Louis woos his beautiful wife Nancy and learns how to be a father, he also dares to take on the powerful Church of Scientology. Just as challenging is the revelation that one of his old subjects, Jimmy Savile, was a secret sexual predator, prompting him to question our understanding of how evil takes place. Filled with wry observation and self-deprecating humour, this is Louis at his most insightful and honest best.

Леди Джессика Уитморленд всегда четко представляла себе, как пройдет ее дебютный сезон в лондонском высшем свете — она найдет подходящего джентльмена, выйдет за него замуж и займет достойное место в обществе.Эйден Торнтон, герцог Торнбери, — легкомысленный повеса, который и не думает остепениться. Одной мимолетной встречи с ним хватило, чтобы леди Джессика вычеркнула высокомерного грубияна из списка потенциальных женихов. Вот только Эйден не может забыть умную, дерзкую и острую на язык дебютантку, и вскоре герцог уже готов на все, лишь бы добиться любви и расположения девушки…

— От автора романов «Сияние»» и «Зеленая миля».— Стивен Кинг — один из самых популярных писателей современности. Он создал свыше семи десятков бестселлеров, которые переведены на 44 языка, изданы в 80 странах мира и разошлись по свету тиражом свыше 400 000 000 экземпляров.— Бестселлер по версии Publishers Weekly.— Номинант на Британскую премию фэнтези и на премию Брэма Стокера.— В данный сборник вошли рассказы «Смиренные сестры Эллурии», «Секционный зал номер четыре», «Верхом на пуле» и «1408».— В 2007 году рассказ «1408» лег в основу одноименного фильма с Джоном Кьюсаком и Сэмюэлем Л. Джексоном в главных ролях.— Издание в серии «Эксклюзивная классика» — в удобном карманном формате и узнаваемом оформлении.

– Книга «Лидерство» отвечает на вопрос, как именно несколько человек сумели развернуть историю в другую сторону: Киссинджер показывает, как Аденауэр восстанавливал послевоенную Германию, де Голль преобразовывал Францию, Никсон и Садат меняли конфигурацию Холодной войны, Ли Куан Ю строил Сингапур, а Тэтчер проводила болезненные реформы в Британии.– Для каждого из шести героев автор описывает исходный кризис, набор личных качеств и стратегических решений, а потом показывает, к чему это привело страну и мир; получается не просто серия биографий, а практический разбор подходов к власти и реформам.– Важно, что Киссинджер пишет не как сторонний исследователь: с каждым из этих политиков он был знаком лично, участвовал в переговорах, видел, как они ведут себя за закрытыми дверями, – и делится наблюдениями практикующего дипломата.– В книге много конкретики: кризисы, соглашения, реформы, внешнеполитические шаги, экономические реформы, внутренние конфликты – на их примере автор показывает, как лидер находит баланс между национальными интересами, мировым порядком и собственными убеждениями.– Российское издание в серии «Эксклюзивная классика» предлагает удобный карманный формат и единое качественное оформление для домашней библиотеки.

– Книга «Сказки Волшебной Страны» подойдeт тем, кто любит повесть «Хоббит» и роман «Властелин колец» и хочет увидеть, как устроен мир Толкина за пределами большого эпоса: здесь и истории о Томе Бомбадиле, и отдельные сказки о драконах, деревнях, художниках и странствующих псах.– Сборник сочетает несколько жанров: веселую деревенскую пародию в «Фермере Джайлсе из Хэма», философскую притчу о художнике и его картине в «Листе Ниггла», камерную космическую сказку «Роверандом» и поэтический цикл «Стихи из Алой книги» с хоббитами, эльфами и морскими чудовищами.– Благодаря этому книга хороша и как первая встреча с Толкином, и как дополнение к уже знакомому Средиземью: главы можно читать по отдельности, возвращаться к любимым сказкам, перечитывать стихи вслух детям или искать в них отсылки к «большим» романам.– Для читателя это не просто дополнение к легендариуму, а цельная книга о волшебстве, смехе, страхе, верности и фантазии, написанная рукой автора, которого называют одним из родоначальников современного фэнтези.

– Для фанатов повести «Хоббит» и романа «Властелин колец»: книга «Сказки Волшебной Страны» через небольшие истории расширяет фэнтезийный мир Толкина.– В сборнике собрано несколько жанров: веселая деревенская пародия в «Фермере Джайлсе из Хэма», философская притча о художнике и его картине в «Листе Ниггла», камерная космическая сказка «Роверандом» и поэтический цикл «Стихи из Алой книги» с хоббитами, эльфами и морскими чудовищами.– Книга хороша и как первая встреча с Толкином, и как дополнение к уже знакомому Средиземью: можно возвращаться к отдельным сказкам или искать отсылки к «большим романам».– «Сказки Волшебной Страны» — не просто дополнение к легендариуму, а самодостаточная книга о волшебстве, смехе, страхе, верности и фантазии, написанная одним из родоначальников современного фэнтези.