Dickens had already achieved renown with «The Pickwick Papers». With «Oliver Twist» his reputation was enhanced and strengthened. The novel contains many classic Dickensian themes — grinding poverty, desperation, fear, temptation and the eventual triumph of good in the face of great adversity.
«Oliver Twist» features some of the author’s most enduring characters, such as Oliver himself (who dares to ask for more), the tyrannical Bumble, the diabolical Fagin, the menacing Bill Sykes, Nancy and «the Artful Dodger».
For any reader wishing to delve into the works of the great Victorian literary colossus, «Oliver Twist» is, without doubt, an essential title.
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With an Introduction and Notes by John M.L. Drew, University of Buckingham.Wilde’s only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in ‘art for art’s sake’, to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design.Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the ‘note of doom’ which runs like ‘a purple thread’ through its carefully crafted prose.

Translated by Mary Alice Murray. The story of the walking and talking puppet Pinocchio is one of the best-loved children’s tales of all time. Carved by old Gepetto, Pinocchio has an enormous nose which grows even longer whenever he tells a lie. Pinocchio is such a scamp that he gets into all sorts of mischief. He runs away to join a puppet show, he teams up with a rascally fox and wily cat, and plays truant from school which has dreadful consequences. Eventually the conscience of a talking cricket and Pinocchio’s guardian fairy restore him to good behaviour, obedience and care for others.

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Полный, неадаптированный текст знаменитой трагедии Вильяма Шекспира «Ромео и Джульетта». Издание выполнено современным, удобным для чтения шрифтом.Рекомендуется для лиц владеющих основами английского языка.

Первый опубликованный роман знаменитой английской писательницы Джейн Остен представляет собой комедию нравов Англии конца XVIII — начала XIX века. Две сестры, олицетворяющие собой противоположные начала, здравомыслие и чувственность, борются за свое место под солнцем, пытаясь устроиться в жизни за счет притворства и приспособленчества. Издание рассчитано на лиц, владеющих основами английского литературного языка и желающих усовершенствовать свои знания.

«Tender is the Night» is a story set in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the ‘Roaring Twenties’. A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver — her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the Divers’ troubled marriage, and their circle of friends, includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstrom of interpersonal conflict, «Tender is the Night» has a poignancy and warmth that springs from the quality of Fitzgerald’s writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the novel is based. Six years separate «Tender is the Night» and «The Last Tycoon», the novel Fitzgerald left unfinished at his death in December 1940. Fitzgerald lived in Hollywood more or less continuously from July 1937 until his death, and a novel about the film industry at the height of ‘the studio system’ centred on the working life of a top producer was begun in 1939. Even in its incomplete state «The Last Tycoon» remains the greatest American novel about Hollywood and contains some of Fitzgerald’s most brilliant writing.

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story. This collection displays his lively diversity, with tales that vary in theme and tone, ranging from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce.In a lucidly direct style, he provides unflinching realism and sceptical irony. He depicts the deceptions, hypocrisies and vanities at different levels of society. Prostitution is frankly described, while the harshness of war is deftly exposed.His tales have been televised and have influenced films, operas and rock music. Unillusioned but humane, Maupassant remains our contemporary.

‘Surely no man would take up my profession if it were not that danger attracts him.’In The Casebook, you can read the final twelve stories that Sir Arthur Gonan Doyle wrote about his brilliant detective. They are perhaps the most unusual and the darkest that he penned. Treachery, mutilation and the terrible consequences of infidelity are just some of the themes explored in these stories, along with atmospheric touches of the gothic, involving a bloodsucking vampire, crypts at midnight and strange bones in a furnace.The collection His Last Bow features some of Sherlock Holmes’ most dramatic cases, including the vicious revenge intrigue connected with ‘The Red Circle’ and the insidious murders in ‘The Devil’s Foot’. The title story recounts how Sherlock Holmes is brought out of retirement to help the government foil a German plot on the eve of the First World War.These two fascinating sets of stories make a glorious farewell to the greatest detective of them all and his erstwhile companion, Dr Watson.

It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and Prance struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister ‘Indian runner’, they find help in the persons of Hawk-eye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe.Cooper’s novel is full of vivid incident — pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality — but reflects also on the interaction between the colonisers and the native peoples. Hawk-eye’s moral code is dictated neither by white nor by native notions of honour and self-interest, and through him Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier and the eclipse of the indigenous cultures.Издание на английском языке.

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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.

Gaskell’s last novel, widely considered her masterpiece, follows the fortunes of two families in nineteenth century rural England. At its core are family relationships — father, daughter and step-mother, father and sons, father and step-daughter — all tested and strained by the romantic entanglements that ensue.Despite its underlying seriousness, the prevailing tone is one of comedy. Gaskell vividly portrays the world of the late 1820s and the forces of change within it, and her vision is always humane and progressive.The story is full of acute observation and sympathetic character-study: the feudal squire clinging to old values, his naturalist son welcoming the new world of science, the local doctor and his scheming second wife, the two girls brought together by their parents’ marriage.

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’.

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.