Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. His works also include fantasy and science fiction, as well as plays, romances, non-fiction and historical novels. The Lost World tells the story of a journalist Edward Malone who decides to join the dangerous but exciting expedition to a world populated by dinosaurs. The Land of Mist is a novel about Professor Challenger, heavily inspired by the ideas of Spiritualism. This book contains a brilliant story about exploring the world of supernatural through the series of fascinating seances.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785—1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. The final novel of Thomas Love Peacock followed the others after a silence of 30 years, its typical Peacockian format intact an idyllic, country house setting, a genial host, many opinionated guests, and a romantic love interest. Like all of Peacocks novels, Gryll Grange dissects the philosophy, manners, and culture of his day through a sparkling cocktail of dialogue and poetry.

Сергей Васильевич Максимов (1831-1901) — знаменитый русский путешественник, писатель, этнограф, диалектолог и знаток народного быта. «За Кавказомъ» — это сборник путевых заметок и воспоминаний автора. В 1862-1863 годах исследователь посетил юго-восток России, прибрежья Каспийского моря и Урала. Изучив быт разных народов, Максимов планировал создать серьёзный труд по этнографии «Год на Юге». Однако замысел писателя так и остался незавершённым.

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. One of the Cooper’s European trilogy, The Headsman is set in Switzerland. The novel was inspired by one of Cooper’s trips during his European travels in 1832. It explores a number of themes related to how society structures itself, including justice, authority, friendship, parental relationships, love and marriage.

Вера Ивановна Крыжановская (1857–1924) – русская романистка, известная многочисленными женскими, историческими и оккультными произведениями. Роман «Рекенштейны» – незабываемая история, которая переносит читателя в старинный замок, над которым нависло страшное древнее проклятие, и погружает в атмосферу мистики и тайны, столь характерную английской готической прозе.

История развития литературы — понятие куда более обширное, чем можно предположить, и куда более сложное, чем может вообразить студент-первокурсник филологического факультета. Неизменно всякий выбор «лучших книг» и «обязательных к прочтению» писателей сопровождается беспощадным отсечением жемчужин мысли от одобренной нормы и «золотого стандарта». За бортом остается множество гениев, признанных и непризнанных, и шедевров мировой литературы. Книги серии «World Classics Books» — попытка расширить устоявшееся в умах понятие классических книг и обязательных для образованного человека авторов, предложив читателю произведения, о которых он либо совсем не слышал, либо знаком очень издалека. Однако представленные в серии труды — в некотором роде веховые этапы на сложном пути развития мировой литературы, без которых трудно составить представления о различных жанрах, литературных школах и целых эпохах развития мировой культуры. На обложке представлена репродукция картины Франческо Баттальоли «Вид на дворец Аранхуэс», 1756, музей Прадо, Испания.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic novels, one of the most influential ghost story writers of the nineteenth century. «The Purcell Papers» is a collection of early works of the author, united by one vivid dark theme. All these stories are a prime example of Victorian Gothic art, which inspired a whole genre.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811—1863) was a British author and novelist mostly known for his satir-ical works such as «Vanity Fair» that showed an ironic representation of the British society of those times. «The History of Henry Esmond» is a historical novel that tells the story of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne of England. Most of the major events of the book happen between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, specifically English Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Hamilton—Mohun Duel and the Hanoverian Succession.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 — 1896) was an American abolitionist and a writer. She is best known for her novel «Uncle Tom’s Cabin,» which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. «The Pearl of Orr’s Island» is her lesser-known, but still beautiful novel. It is a heartwarming story of a young girl’s struggle to belong and fit in. The novel reflects Stowe’s awareness of the complexity of small-town society.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer, and essayist. His most famous works are «Treasure Island» and «The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.» Now he is one of the most translated authors in the world. Praised by many as a potential masterpiece, «Weir of Hermiston» tells the story of young Archie Weir from a rich Edinburgh family. Having abandoned all attempts to get along with his father, Archie is banished from his family and sent to live as the local landlord on family property in the Borders hamlet Hermiston. There Archie meets and falls in love with a young local girl named Kirstie.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. His works also include fantasy and science fiction, as well as plays, romances, non-fiction and historical novels. This volume is the first and best collection of stories about the legendary sleuth. Venture back in time to Victorian London to join literature’s greatest detective team — the brilliant Sherlock Holmes and his devoted assistant, Dr. Watson.

Edith Wharton (1862—1937) was an American novelist and short story writer. Her works show the lives of people of the late nineteenth century, the times of decline in American history. She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. Wharton also was familiar with many famous people of the time, including President Theodore Roosevelt. «The Glimpses of the Moon» tells the story of two young and poor New Yorkers, Nick Lansing, and Susy Branch, who are in love and want to marry but can’t decide to do this without the wealth. They both agree to separate when even one of them finds a wealthy partner. However, as they honeymoon with wealthy friends goes on, jealousy and conscience make the idyll crumble.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic novels, one of the most influential ghost story writers of the nineteenth century. «In a Glass Darkly» is a collection of mystery stories presented as cases of the occult detective Dr. Martin Hesselius, who believes that ghosts can be real.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer, and essayist. His most famous works are «Treasure Island» and «The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.» Now he is one of the most translated authors in the world. This book includes two wonderful short stories: mysterious and unpredictable «The Sire de Maletroit’s Door» and witty and inspiring «Providence and the Guitar.»

Edith Wharton (1862—1937) was an American novelist and short story writer. Her works show the lives of people of the late nineteenth century, the times of decline in American history. She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. Wharton also was familiar with many famous people of the time, including President Theodore Roosevelt. Set in the small town of North Dormer, New England, the novel «Summer» follows eighteen-year-old librarian Charity Royall during her sexual awakening against the background of the cruel treatment by the father of her child, Lucius Harney, who doesn’t want to marry her. Written in Wharton’s firm style, the prose of this novella turns reading into sheer pleasure.

Daniel Defoe was an English trader, writer, pamphleteer and journalist. He is most famous for his novel «Robinson Crusoe», which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. The third book about Crusoe, Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, is a collection of Daniel Defoe’s essays on moral topics. The name of Crusoe used to spur the public’s interest in this work.

Samuel Richardson (1689—1761) was an English writer, best known for his epistolary novels. He also worked as an established publisher who printed almost 500 different books and magazines. Regarded by many as a masterpiece, the novel «Clarissa; or, the History of a Young Lady» tells the story of a young woman named Clarissa Harlowe, whose way to happiness is constantly endangered by her own family. Pressured to marry a wealthy man, she leaves her home with Robert Lovelace. Even then she can’t find peace, because Lovelace shows himself untrustworthy, spewing vague promises of marriage without any attempts to move from words to deeds.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. His works also include fantasy and science fiction, as well as plays, romances, non-fiction and historical novels. Round the Red Lamp is a collection of medical and detective stories by Doyle, where he focused on the problems that present themselves to physicians and surgeons at the time. The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales is a collection of early Doyle’s short stories. It includes stories of mystery, comedy, shipwrecks and fantasy.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer, and essayist. His most famous works are «Treasure Island» and «The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.» Now he is one of the most translated authors in the world. «Lay Morals and Other Papers» is a wonderful collection of essays including works like «The Great North Road» and «The Young Chevalier.»

Николай Гаврилович Чернышевский (1828—1889) — русский философ-материалист XIX века, революционер-демократ, теоретик критического утопического социализма, учёный, энциклопедист, литературный критик, публицист и писатель. «Лессинг» — уникальная исследовательская работа, посвященная немецкому поэту и драматургу XVIII века Готхольду Лессингу. В книге представлено мнение Чернышевского об историческом значении произведений Лессинга в мировой литературе, а также рассматриваются вопросы истории и культуры Германии XVIII века, которая, по мнению автора, имела очень много общего с Россией.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer, and essayist. His most famous works are «Treasure Island» and «The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.» Now he is one of the most translated authors in the world. «Lay Morals and Other Papers» is a wonderful collection of essays including works like «Father Damien,» «The Pentland Rising» and «The Day After Tomorrow.»

Jack London was an American novelist, journalist and social activist. Pioneering the genre of magazine fiction and prototyping science fiction, he became one of the first writers, who gained worldwide fame and a large fortune. On the Makaloa Mat is a collection of seven short stories that describes life on the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. Full of descriptions of local nature and sea, it dives into the lives of characters and the effect that the contact with Western civilization causes. The Road is an autobiographical memoir full of London’s experiences living as a hobo during the economic crisis in the United States, hopping freight trains, begging for money or food, and making up stories for the police to avoid prison term.

Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby himself struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama.

William Shakespeare (1564—1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, considered by many as the greatest English writer. Hundreds of specialists were able to translate his works into every major language, and most of the plays are performed more often than those of any other author. The plot of the play «Measure for Measure» Shakespeare borrowed from the collection «Hecatommithi» by Giovanni Battista Giraldi. Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, realizing that during his reign there was a fall in morals, declares that he is going on a diplomatic mission outside his domains and leaves the strict judge Angelo in charge. Angelo soon uses his power and decides to execute the young nobleman Claudio, because he and his beloved pregnant Juliet aren’t married. This event forces Isabella, Claudio’s sister, to try to make a deal with an incorruptible judge.

В нашем новом проекте вы найдете как книги из «золотого фонда» классической русской литературы, так и редкие, почти забытые, произведения авторов, оставшихся в тени своих великих современников. Эти книги не утратили самобытной актуальности, сегодня, как и сто лет назад, они определяют пути русской культуры, ищут ответы на «проклятые вопросы». Без этих книг невозможно понять кто мы, кем мы были, куда движемся. Мы отобрали для вас самые важные тексты русских классиков, представили их в наиболее полных редакциях, без каких либо сокращений и цензурных изъятий, и составили серию RUGRAM-КЛАССИКА. Вашему вниманию представляется книга Константина Михайловича Станюковича «Беспокойный адмирал».

Daniel Defoe was an English trader, writer, pamphleteer and journalist. He is most famous for his novel «Robinson Crusoe», which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. This volume contains some of his less famous novels. Colonel Jack is the supposed autobiography of an English gentleman who begins life as a child of the London streets. He and his brothers are brought up as pickpockets and highwaymen, but Jack seeks to improve himself. Kidnapped and taken to America, he becomes first a slave, then an overseer on plantations in Maryland. Also, following the success of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe composed a further tale of high adventure at sea, The King of Pirates, a story of pirate life.

F.S. Fitzgerald was an American writer, whose works illustrate the Jazz Age. An oddity in F. S. Fitzgerald’s career, his play The Vegetable was a satirical attack on the presidency of Warren Harding. An ordinary, incompetent man, taunted for his lack of ambition by his family, realises his dream of ruling the United States of America.

Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humourist. My Life and Times is an autobiography novel, an entertaining account of Jerome’s life including an experience of his family falling into poverty owing to bad investments. He published it in 1926 being in his late sixties.

Daniel Defoe was an English trader, writer, pamphleteer and journalist. He is most famous for his novel «Robinson Crusoe», which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. Moll Flanders details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. Daniel Defoe created a female character-narrator who recounts, from a woman’s point of view, her life and adventures, portraying critically the society in which she lived.

F. S. Fitzgerald was an American writer, whose works illustrate the Jazz Age. Tales of Jazz Age VIII is a collection of brilliant short stories, including Two Wrongs and an ironic The Night of Chancellorsville in which a trainload of light ladies is catapulted unawares into the realities of the Civil War.

Генри Джеймс — не только один из самых известных классиков литературы XIX-XX веков, но и ярчайший представитель модернизма, обладающий изысканным слогом. Роман «Женский портрет» по праву считается вершиной американского психологического реализма и одним из величайших произведений на английском языке. Главную героиню безумно и неистово любят, весь мир лежит у её ног. Осталось лишь выбрать достойного спутника жизни. Но что делать, если сердце ошиблось? Если мир не такой радужный, и ты рискуешь поспасть в капкан? Читайте зарубежную литературу в оригинале!

Herbert George Wells (1866 — 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, but he is now best remembered for his science fiction novels. «The World Set Free» is a futuristic novel, written in 1913 and first published the following year. It was incredibly prophetic on a major scale, since Wells predicted nuclear warfare years before research began and described a weapon of enormous destructive power, that is used from the air and that would wipe out everything for miles.

William Sydney Porter, known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American short story writer. His wit and plot twists were adored by his readers, but often panned by the critics. The Four Million is his second collection of short stories published in 1906. The title refers to the population of New York City at that time; it is where all of the stories in this volume are set.

Herbert George Wells (1866 — 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, but he is now best remembered for his science fiction novels. «The Wheels of Chance» is his early comic novel. It is a humorous account of a young man’s cycling holiday in the south of England, somewhat in the style of «Three Men in a Boat» by Jerome K. Jerome.

Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens’s maturity. When Arthur Clennam returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother’s seamstress, and in the affairs of Amy’s father, William Dorrit, a man of shabby grandeur, long imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea prison. As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many, from the kindly Mr Panks, the reluctant rent-collector of Bleeding Heart Yard, and the tipsily garrulous Flora Finching, to Merdle, an unscrupulous financier, and the bureaucratic Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 — 1930) was an English writer best known for his detective stories about Sherlock Holmes. Serving as the successor to the stories of a world-famous detective, «Uncle Bernac» tells a murder mystery set at the end of Napoleon’s era and involves a man returning to his homeland, France, to join the Emperor’s ranks.

Jack London was an American novelist, journalist and social activist. Pioneering the genre of magazine fiction and prototyping science fiction, he became one of the first writers, who gained worldwide fame and a large fortune. As an autobiographical novel adopting the name of an old English folk song, John Barleycorn tells the story of the author’s struggles with alcoholism at different stages of his life. It also includes a variety of themes like masculinity, friendship, general life experiences and the literary fame. Jerry of the Islands is a story of an Irish terrier named Jerry and his adventures on a ship Arangi, engaged in delivering slaves.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 — 1930) was an English writer best known for his detective stories about Sherlock Holmes. As an adventure novel, «The Tragedy of The Korosko» tells the story of European tourists on a trip to Egypt, sailing up the River Nile in a boat called the Korosko. During a morning tour of the desert, they are taken hostage by a group of Dervish warriors. The book raises the themes of imperial sovereignty, invasive foreign policy, and even religious extremism.

Herbert George Wells (1866 — 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, but he is now best remembered for his science fiction novels. «The New Machiavelli» is a 1911 novel, the story of Richard Remington who appears to be a man to envy. But underneath his superficial contentment, he is far from happy with either his marriage or the politics of his party. The novel describes the disarray into which his life is thrown, when he meets the young and beautiful Isabel Rivers and becomes tormented by desire.