Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859 —1927) was an English writer and humourist. «Malvina of Brittany» is a highly entertaining work that describes the life of Malvina, the Queen’s attendant. This is a early shortstory collection of Jerome, which includes «Malvina of Brittany», «The Street of the Blank Wall», «His Evening Out», «The Lesson», Sylvia of the Letters», and «The Fawn Gloves».

Thomas Love Peacock (1785—1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. Peacock’s retelling of the legend of Robin Hood is as fresh today as it was when he penned it, nearly two hundred years ago. Here are all the heroes and villains we know and love, recast by a keen Victorian wit Robin Hood and Maid Marian; Friar Tuck, Little John, and Richard the Lionhearted; Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. The heroes are heroic and just a little self-serving, though generous the villains are villainous. The tale is told as keenly as it can be.

Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859 —1927) was an English writer and humourist. This volume answers on such questions like «Are we as interesting as we think we are?», «Should women be beautiful?», «When is the best time to be merry?», «Should married men play golf?» and other funny.

Henry James (1843—1916) was an American author regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism. «The Spoils of Poynton» describes the struggle between Mrs. Gereth, a widow of impeccable taste and iron will, and her son Owen over a houseful of precious antique furniture. The story is largely told from the viewpoint of Fleda Vetch, a young woman in love with Owen but sympathetic to Mrs. Gereth’s anguish over losing the antiques she patiently collected. Henry James created a work of exquisite ambiguity in his depiction of three women fighting for the allegiance of one weak-willed man.

Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. «Plain Tales from the Hills» was his first volume of prose fiction. Vignettes of life in British India give vivid insights into Anglo-India at work and play, and into the character of the Indians themselves. Witty, wry, sometimes cynical, these tales with their brevity and concentration of effect are landmarks in the history of the short story as an art-form.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785—1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. «Headlong Hall» like most of Peacock’s novels, it assembles a group of characters Mr Cranium, Miss Poppyseed, Mr Treacle and others who, while eating and drinking to abandon, discuss topics which were then of interest to Peacock and his circle of intellectual friends. Peacock uses the work to parody contemporary thinking in a variety of disparate areas, including utilitarianism, vegetarianism, aesthetics, music, poetry, art criticism, and so on. In the meantime there is dancing and drinking and falling in love.

Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859 —1927) was an English writer and humourist. A charming story in which fiction is intertwined with autobiographical motifs, and humor goes side by side with delicate lyricism. How true to an English gentleman, burdened not only with self-esteem, but also with three teenage children, settle in a country house? Is it easy to turn a modest building into a historical landmark? On these and many other questions you will find the most unexpected and amusing answers in a novel «They and I».