Зарубежная классическая проза

6404 кн. Подписаться на жанр

Сортировать по:

дате добавления

названию

году выхода

количеству скачиваний

Oliver Twist (with an Introduction...

Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist (with an Introduction by Edwin Percy Whipple)

Originally serialized in “Bentley’s Miscellany” between February 1837 and April 1839, “Oliver Twist,” is Charles Dickens’s second novel, the classic story of the struggles of a young orphan in 19th century England. When his mother dies in childbirth, Oliver Twist finds himself in a situation of dire poverty. At the time, those who could not afford to provide for themselves were often forced into servitude under the harsh Poor Laws of 19th century England. At the age of nine, Oliver is set to...

Автор

Charles Dickens

Arthurian Romances

Chretien de Troyes

Arthurian Romances

Chretien de Troyes was a French poet in the late 12th century whose work represents some of the best examples of Arthurian legend from medieval times. Contained in this volume are the author’s four completed Arthurian romances. The first of these stories is that of “Erec and Enide”, which recounts the story of Erec, one of King Arthur’s knights, and the conflict between love and knighthood he experiences in his marriage to Enide. The second romance is the tale of the knight “Cligès” and his love...

Автор

Chretien de Troyes

Moby-Dick (Illustrated by Mead Scha...

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick (Illustrated by Mead Schaeffer with an Introduction by William S. Ament)

A renewed interest in “Moby-Dick” in the early 20th century would help to establish it as an outstanding work of Romanticism and the American Renaissance, firmly placing it amongst the greatest of all American novels. Based on the real life events depicted in the “Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex” and the legend of “Mocha Dick”, an albino sperm whale whose killing is described in the May 1839 issue of “The Knickerbocker” magazine, it is the...

Автор

Herman Melville

David Copperfield (with an Introduc...

Charles Dickens

David Copperfield (with an Introduction by Edwin Percy Whipple)

The eighth novel of Charles Dickens, which was first published serially between May 1849 and November 1850, “David Copperfield,” is viewed as one of the most autobiographical of all the author’s novels. A classic coming-of-age story, it is the tale of its titular character from childhood to maturity which chronicles the struggle between the emotional and moral aspects of his life. Central to the theme of the novel is the idea of the disciplined heart. Dickens suggests that people basically fall...

Автор

Charles Dickens

The Tain

Anonymous

The Tain

“The Tain”, also known as “Tain Bo Cuailnge” or “The Cattle Raid of Cooley”, is a heroic and legendary tale from early Irish literature. Earliest manuscripts of this epic story survive from the 12th century and versions of this ancient tale have been found in Old Irish, Middle Irish, and Modern Irish translations. “The Tain” is set in a pre-Christian age of heroes in Ireland, sometime around the first century, and is the central tale in the Ulster Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish...

Автор

Anonymous

North and South (with an Introducti...

Элизабет Гаскелл

North and South (with an Introduction by Adolphus William Ward)

Set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England, “North and South” is Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1855 novel that contrasts the different ways of life in the two respective regions of England. In the North the emerging industrialized society is sharply contrasted with the aging gentry of the agrarian based South. The plot of “North and South” centers around the main character Margaret Hale, the daughter of a non-conformist minister who moves his family to an industrial town in the...

Автор

Элизабет Гаскелл

The Idiot (Translated by Eva M. Mar...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Idiot (Translated by Eva M. Martin)

First published serially between 1868 and 1869, “The Idiot” is Dostoevsky’s most deeply personal work, which he remarked was his own personal favorite. It follows the journey of the title character, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, who is actually intelligent but is cynically referred to as an “idiot” by his fellow characters for his moralistic purity. Prince Myshkin is a young man from an ancient noble Russian family who is returning home after a two year stay at a Swiss clinic for treatment of...

Автор

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Our Mutual Friend (with an Introduc...

Charles Dickens

Our Mutual Friend (with an Introduction by Edwin Percy Whipple)

First published serially between 1864 and 1865, “Our Mutual Friend” is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens. The death of a wealthy miser, who is estranged from all except his trusted employees, Nicodemus and Henrietta Boffin, brings his son John Harmon back to London in order to claim his inheritance. The patrimony carries with it one condition, that he marries a woman he has never met, Miss Bella Wilfer. When a body is found floating in the Thames, it is presumed to be John, and the...

Автор

Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby (with an Introduc...

Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby (with an Introduction by Edwin Percy Whipple)

Though only Dickens’ third novel, “Nicholas Nickleby” is a well-crafted and significant precursor to his other great works. The tale follows the fortunes of a young man, the son of an imprudent gentleman who leaves his family without resources. Fiercely devoted to his mother and sisters, as well as his true friends, Nicholas is occasionally emotional and even violent, yet always idealistic. He seeks the aid of his villainous uncle, Ralph Nickleby, who comes to hate his nephew and wishes him...

Автор

Charles Dickens

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Гарриет Бичер-Стоу

Uncle Tom's Cabin

The second best-selling book of the 19th century, behind only the Bible, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic anti-slavery novel. First published in 1852, the work is a seminal piece of abolitionist literature which helped spur the country towards Civil War. The story centers on the lives of several slaves of a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby. Mounting debts forces the farmer to sell two of his slaves, Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the...

Автор

Гарриет Бичер-Стоу

The Life and Opinions of Tristram S...

Laurence Sterne

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (with an Introduction by Wilbur L. Cross)

“The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”, when originally published from 1759 to 1767, was an experimental novel far ahead of its time. The titular character, Shandy narrates the story of his life, beginning with his conception and focusing on his family, particularly his unconventional father Walter and his gentle Uncle Toby. One of the recurrent jokes in the novel, Shandy cannot explain anything concisely and Sterne utilizes many narrative devices to accommodate Shandy’s...

Автор

Laurence Sterne

The Portrait of a Lady (with an Int...

Генри Джеймс

The Portrait of a Lady (with an Introduction by Charles R. Anderson)

First published serially in “The Atlantic Monthly” between 1880 and 1881, Henry James’ “The Portrait of a Lady” is widely regarded as one of the author’s finest literary achievements. As is common with James’ work a contrast is drawn between the cultural and social differences between America and Europe through the portrayal of American expatriates in Europe. The titular lady in question is that of Isabel Archer, a spirited young American woman who inherits a large sum of money and subsequently...

Автор

Генри Джеймс

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Transl...

Victor Hugo

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood)

Though written at the beginning of the Romantic era, this remarkable French historical romance takes place in medieval Paris at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It is there that the deformed Quasimodo has gone deaf ringing the grand church’s bells for his adoptive father Dom Claude Frollo. The severe priest, though he looks after the grotesque Quasimodo, ignores the public persecution that the man suffers whenever he leaves the Cathedral, and it is at just such a moment of vulnerability that the...

Автор

Victor Hugo

The Decameron (Translated with an I...

Джованни Боккаччо

The Decameron (Translated with an Introduction by J. M. Rigg)

Written in the middle of the 14th century as the Bubonic Plague decimated the population of Europe, “The Decameron” is a satirical and allegorical collection of stories by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. Constructed as a series of “frame stories,” or stories within a story, the narrative follows seven young women and three young men who take refuge in a secluded villa outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death. During ten evenings of their stay, each of travelers takes turns as...

Автор

Джованни Боккаччо

Madame Bovary (Translated by Eleano...

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary (Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling with an Introduction by Ferdinand Brunetiere)

Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” is the classic tale of its title character, Emma Bovary, the second wife of Charles Bovary, a well meaning yet plodding and clumsy doctor. Emma is an educated young woman who longs for the luxury and romance that she reads about in the popular novels of the day. When the two attend an elegant ball given by the Marquis d’Andervilliers, her longing for something more than the dullness provided by her own marriage can no longer be contained. In order to escape the...

Автор

Gustave Flaubert

Ivanhoe (Illustrated by Milo Winter...

Sir Walter Scott

Ivanhoe (Illustrated by Milo Winter with an Introduction by Porter Lander MacClintock)

One of Sir Walter Scott’s most popular and influential works, “Ivanhoe” is the story of one of the last remaining Saxon noble families. At the beginning of the novel we find its titular character, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who has been disinherited by his father for his allegiance to the Norman king, Richard the Lionheart, and for falling in love with the Lady Rowena, returning from the Third Crusade. Wilfred’s father, Cedric, had planned to marry Lady Rowena to the powerful Lord Athelstane, in...

Автор

Sir Walter Scott

Germinal (Translated by Havelock El...

Emile Zola

Germinal (Translated by Havelock Ellis)

Originally published in serial form in 1884 to 1885, “Germinal” is Émile Zola’s realistic depiction of the coalminers’ strike in northern France in the 1860s. In this faithful translation from the original French by Havelock Ellis, the story centers on Étienne Lantier, a young migrant worker who arrives at the coalmining town of Montsou in search of work. Set against a backdrop of extreme poverty and oppression, “Germinal” is the story of the idealistic but naive Étienne, who embraces the ideals...

Автор

Emile Zola

The Wreath

Sigrid Undset

The Wreath

Published in 1920, “The Wreath” is the first book in the “Kristin Lavransdatter” trilogy by the Nobel Prize winning Norwegian author Sigrid Undset. Beloved for its historical and cultural accuracy, the stories follow the life of the main character, Kristin Lavransdatter, a fictional Norwegian woman living in the 14th century in the Gudbrand Valley in Norway. In “The Wreath” readers are introduced to Kristin at a young age at her family’s prosperous farm. Kristin often clashes with her loving...

Автор

Sigrid Undset

The Adolescent

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Adolescent

“The Adolescent” is Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1875 novel which tells the story of the life of a 19-year-old intellectual, Arkady Dolgoruky, and his conflict with his father. Arkady is the illegitimate child of the controversial and womanizing landowner Versilov and was raised by one of Versilov’s serf, the pious Makar Dolgoruky. The novel’s primary tension arises between Arkady and Versilov, when Arkady becomes an adult and joins Versilov’s family in St. Petersburg. Arkady has been away at boarding...

Автор

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment (Translated by...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment (Translated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction by Nathan B. Fagin)

Raskolnikov is an impoverished former student living in Saint Petersburg, Russia who feels compelled to rob and murder Alyona Ivanovna, an elderly pawn broker and money lender. After much deliberation the young man sneaks into her apartment and commits the murder. In the chaos of the crime Raskolnikov fails to steal anything of real value, the primary purpose of his actions to begin with. In the period that follows Raskolnikov is racked with guilt over the crime that he has committed and begins...

Автор

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Mysterious Island

Жюль Верн

The Mysterious Island

First published in 1874, «The Mysterious Island» is French author Jules Verne’s exciting adventure which begins amidst the siege on Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. Five northern prisoners plan an unconventional escape by hijacking a hot air balloon. What is in store for them is more than they bargained for. Cyrus Harding, an engineer in the union army; his servant Nebuchadnezzar, a former slave; sailor Bonadventure Pencroft; his protege Herbert Brown; and the journalist Gideon...

Автор

Жюль Верн

Daniel Deronda (with an introductio...

George Eliot

Daniel Deronda (with an introduction by Esther Wood)

First published in 1876, “Daniel Deronda” was George Eliot’s final novel. Controversial in its time for its morally ambiguous characterizations and its sympathy for the proto-Zionist movement, the novel is regarded today as one of the great social satires of the Victorian era. The story begins with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and the beautiful but stubborn and selfish, Gwendolen Harleth, whom he witnesses loses all her money at a game of roulette. The following day, Gwendolen learns that her...

Автор

George Eliot

The Voyage Out

Virginia Woolf

The Voyage Out

First published in 1915, “The Voyage Out”, Virginia Woolf’s first novel, may be her most accessible. It is a witty social satire that chronicles the maturity of the young Englishwoman Rachel Vinrace as she takes a long voyage to South America from London on her father’s ship. Rachel encounters an eclectic array of passengers on the boat and through them Woolf satirizes Edwardian life. This physical passage also becomes a journey of self-discovery for Rachel. She takes both a literal and mythical...

Автор

Virginia Woolf

Lazarillo de Tormes and The Swindle...

Francisco de Quevedo

Lazarillo de Tormes and The Swindler

Combined in this volume are two famous Spanish picaresque novels, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's «Lazarillo de Tormes» and Francisco de Quevedo's «The Swindler.» «Lazarillo de Tormes» portrays the clever ploys of a young Salamancan boy determined to outsmart his long string of masters. This Spanish novella was first published in 1554, during the Spanish Inquisition, by an author who wished to remain anonymous due to the work's heretical content. Scholars now attribute the authorship...

Автор

Francisco de Quevedo

←
1
2
...
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
→
стр.

Для правообладателей и по всем вопросам knigism.info@yandex.ru