Historyczna
The Forged Coupon and Other Stories
Leo Tolstoy
At the beginning of the story, walking along an incline, some of Tolstoys characters lie, commit robberies and even killings. The author allows his heroes to experience feelings of satisfaction and complete impunity, after they have committed terrible atrocities. Pelageyushkin, going to the massacres, is content with one own impunity. Tolstoy conducts his heroes in hellish circles: all terrible crimes are uncovered. The punishment for the crime hangs with a Damocles sword over the heads of Tolstoy literary characters. It is also interesting that the writer selects his heroes from each social group.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Inspired by Dostoevskys own gambling addiction and written under pressure in order to pay off his creditors and retain his rights to his literary legacy, The Gambler is set in the casino of the fictional German spa town of Roulettenburg and follows the misfortunes of the young tutor Alexei Ivanovich working in the household of an imperious Russian general. He begins gambling to win enough money to become a rich man and therefore win the favor of the woman that he loves. In the disastrous love affairs and gambling adventures of Alexei Ivanovich, Dostoevsky explores the irresistible temptation to look into the abyss of ultimate risk that he believed was an essential part of the Russian national character. In The Gambler, Dostoevsky reaches the heights of drama with this stunning psychological portrait
Honoré de Balzac
The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy. Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de Langeais. The three stories are frequently combined under the title The Thirteen. It tells the story of a rich and ruthless young man in nineteenth century Paris caught up in an amorous entanglement with a mysterious beauty. Henri de Marsay, a young dandy who is obsessed with appearances, a physically beautiful but spiritually empty young man who devotes all his time to the pursuit of sensation and sensual pleasure. He develops a burning lust for the inaccessible golden-eyed girl of the title, Paquita Valdes. He becomes determined to win her love, regardless of whatever, or whoever, stands in his path. If you enjoy the works of Honoré de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.
Henry James
This is the biography of Henry Morgan, the pirate admiral. In his youth, he spent several years in slavery, later became famous as a skilled warlord and vice-governor of Jamaica. The central theme of the novel ingenious assault, lightning capture and ruthless looting of the Golden Cup so called Panama, which was the richest city in the West Indies.
The Great Stone Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains
Nathaniel Hawthorne
In The Great Stone Face, Hawthorne compares different types of human activity. Most of them are aimed at finding success in society. But Hawthorne believes that the success of the Finnish businessman or general, who turned military affairs into a means of his personal career, or a clever politician who is uncleanly making his way to power, is an imaginary success. Even the poet, the creator of beautiful works of art, still retains a lot of vicious individualism and self-love, and only the humble young man Ernst, who devoted his life to serving people, selflessly doing good, won the favor of the author he gives preference to him and his selfless altruism proclaims the ideal of human life.
May Agnes Fleming
There was nobody on the road except herself. Late time after all, it was almost midnight and an increasing storm kept pedestrians at the door of that gloomy March night. From time to time she passed cottages in which lights were still burning, but most of the houses were shrouded in silence and darkness. And still during the night, and the storm, and the gloom, the wanderer answered, with ruthless rain beating across her face, cold explosions from her thin shabby clothes and long wild black hair. Nevertheless, not stopping, not resting, never taking his gaze away from a distant city like a lost soul, hurrying to death.
The House of the Dead. Or, Prison Life in Siberia
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Aleksandr Petrovich lives through a spiritual re-awakening that culminates with his release from the prison camp. The narrator has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia and ten years of hard labor for murdering his wife. Published in 1861, House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical work based upon Dostoevskys exile to Siberia where he was punished with hard labor after he was initially convicted to be punished by death by firing-squad for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts. Dostoyevsky skillfully portrays the inmates of the prison with sympathy for their plight, and admiration for their energy, ingenuity and talent. The book is a loosely-knit collection of facts, events and philosophical discussion organized by theme rather than as a continuous story.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
In the novel The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the founders of American literature, once again, after a series of short stories and the famous Scarlet Letter, addresses the Puritan past and present of his homeland, New England. Legends and legends from national and family history, animated by the authors fantasy on Gothic themes, add up to the chronicle of the age-old confrontation of two families, which is implicated in greed, perjury and a tribal curse and which can only stop the love of young heroes...