Lost Face

Jack London

Jack London, as part of his Nordic Tales series, raises a problem that is difficult to articulate clearly. This is a situation when a person is faced with the inevitability of a terrible painful death. A choice arises before him, which is worse: to accept a painful end, clinging to life until the last breath, or to die voluntarily. The peculiarity of the story is that the main character is a citizen of the Russian Empire, a participant in the Polish uprising, exiled by the tsar to Siberia.

Autorki. Obrazek sceniczny w jednym akcie

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Henryk Sienkiewicz to nie tylko autor niezapomnianych powieści i nowel, lecz także twórca sztuk scenicznych. Laureat literackiej Nagrody Nobla był także świetnym dramaturgiem. Sztuka Autorki ukazuje dwie dwunastoletnie siostry cioteczne Marynię i Helenkę. Panny postanowiły napisać nieprzyzwoitą powieść, wydać ją drukiem, a następnie zabawić się w dorosłych, którzy odebraliby im tę lekturę jako niedozwoloną dla młodzieży.

The Night Born

Jack London

Romance and adventure, the majestic nature and extreme conditions, strong and independent heroes Jack Londons stories are extremely popular, more than a hundred adaptations of works are known. In a small work, Born in the Night, the author shows how the benefits of civilization are inferior to the forest and to a huge concept called Freedom. A woman who stumbles upon abandoned bags of gold does not become a noble lady with a wardrobe, but leads a small tribe.

Bajki i przypowieści

Ignacy Krasicki

Zbiór Bajek i przypowieści został wydany przez Ignacego Krasickiego w 1779 r. Składa się ze 117 krótkich bajek epigramatycznych, podzielonych na cztery główne części i Przydatek (11 utworów), poprzedzonych wierszami Do dzieci i Wstęp do bajek. W większości są to utworzy oryginalne, chociaż niektóre nawiązują do bajek orientalnych, starożytnych (Ezop, Fedrus) i nowożytnych (Jean de La Fontaine, Christian Fürchtegott Gellert). Krasicki śmieje się w bajkach z ludzkich wad, głupoty i pospolitych przywar. Stara się jednocześnie wskazywać właściwe metody postępowania. Z lektury bajek wyłania się z nich dość ponury obraz rzeczywistości oraz wad Polaków. Wizja ta zostaje jednak przez poetę złagodzona humorem i ostrzem satyry. Bajki ujmują też czytelnika swą prostolinijnością, prostotą i jasnością konstrukcji.

Macierz

Maria Rodziewiczówna

Dramatyczne perypetie Pokotynki młodej dziewczyny, która po kłótni z ojcem porzuca rodzinny dom. Od tej chwili musi radzić sobie sama. Los nie szczędzi jej kłopotów i rozczarowań. Pokotynka zmaga się z brutalną rzeczywistością. Stacza się, by ostatecznie odnieść życiowy sukces. Powieść o wytrwałej i wielkiej miłości oraz macierzyństwie, które staje się dla Pokotynki i treścią życia.

Złota dola i inne opowiadania

Maria Rodziewiczówna

Zbiór opowiadań Marii Rodziewiczówny, w których ujawnia się zamiłowanie autorki do dusz rogatych oraz uroku włóczęgi po szerokim gościńcu świata. W tytułowym opowiadaniu zbioru została znakomicie ukazana postać wiejskiej piękności, Marynki, którą cechuje niepohamowana wręcz żywiołowość zmysłów. Surowość życia i charakterów wiejskich ma tu zresztą i poza tym barwy niemal naturalistyczne. Zbiór zawiera utwory: Złota dola, Znachor, Myśl, Południca, Czarny chleb, Jezioro, Kolega Szoll, Pierścień, Starzec, Pierwsza kula i Jedna noga.

La Comédie humaine. Volume V. Scenes de la vie de Province. Tome I

Honoré de Balzac

Quest-ce qui pourrait tre pire lorsquun jour, vous réalisez quune personne qui semblait toujours amicale et attentionnée vous déteste vraiment avec toutes les fibres de son âme?! Cest avec cela quau cours de sa vieillesse, il a rencontré une petite bagatelle ordinaire, de bonne humeur et aimante, quil sagisse dun feu dans une cheminée ou dun fauteuil confortable, le vicaire François Biros. Apres la mort de son ami labbé Chaplu, le rve de François se réalise il sinstalle dans la maison de son regretté ami, dans une maison dont la situation lui faisait jadis une envie blanche.

The Custom of the Country

Edith Wharton

Edith Whartons 1913 novel is a devastating critique of American upward mobility, told through the journey of Undine Spragg from fictional Midwestern Apex City to New York to Paris. Undine Spragg is one of the most ruthless characters in all of literature, as selfishly unscrupulous as she is fiercely beautiful. As Undine climbs the social ladder through a series of marriages and affairs, she shows little concern for who she has to step on to get anything and everything she desires. Wharton weaves an elaborate plot that renders a detailed depiction of upper class social behavior in the early twentieth century. By utilizing a character with inexorable greed in a novel of manners, she demonstrates some of the customs of a modern age and posits a surprising explanation for divorce and the social role of women, which still resonates for the modern reader today.

Selected Stories

Talbot Mundy

The Soul Of A Regiment(Adventure, February 1912) SO long as its colors remain, and there is one man left to carry them, a regiment can never die; they can recruit it again around that one man, and the regiment will continue on its road to future glory with the same old traditions behind it and the same atmosphere surrounding it that made brave men of its forbears. So although the colors are not exactly the soul of a regiment, they are the concrete embodiment of it, and are even more sacred than the person of a reigning sovereign.The Pillar Of Light(Everbodys Magazine, Dec 1912)No birds twittered. There was nothing, either animal or human, amid the awful desolation of the Twelve Apostles, that seemed glad to greet the dawn. Aloes were the only thing that grew there, unless you count the sickly-looking patch of vegetables, some twenty feet by twenty, that succeeding reliefs of sergeants had coaxed on to the bald, hot hideous rock to make them homesick.Sam Bagg Of The Gabriel Group(The Saturday Evening Post, Mar 11, 1916)He was an even-tempered man, but it was not considered wise to approach him when he stood in that place, in just that attitude; and Luther, the imported half-breed missionary, hid himself among the plantains that formed the outer fringe of Baggs little garden, round the thatched bungalow.The Real Red Root(The Crescent, Jun 1919)BY birth and speech Dan Ivan is United States American, descended probably from Russian exiles, although he denies it and weaves theories to prove another derivation of his name. I met him first six thousand feet above sea level, where the lions were hungry on account of frosty nights and water was scarce; and hearing his voice before he came in view I thought at first it was a womans, for it was suggestive of a song about ideals.The Bell On Hell Shoal(The Passing Show, Jul 15, 1933)JOE MOLYNEUX told this story. We were sprawling on my rug on a Florida beach, staring at Hell Shoal, where the big new bell-buoy swam. The gulls and terns were waiting for the tide, half asleep on the abandoned hulk of Sharpes million-dollar yacht.The Avenger(This Week, May 16, 1937)"THERES only one thing worse than corruption when it comes to enforcing the law, and thats sentiment, said Quinn. He glanced through my library window at the distant row of eucalyptus. If I wasnt your friend, Id have raided that queer group at the end of your garden long before this. Theyre all tramps. Now I have a warrant for the one they call Sirdarhis right name is Duleep Singh. What makes you think hell be here tonight? Companions In Arms(Adventure, Nov 1937)John Lawrence Burnham joined the regiment in Flanders, nineteen, green from an English public school and Woolwich, rushed through special courses for the war. He had been born in Rajputana. The first words he had ever learned to speak were Rajasthani. His father, who had commanded the regiment, was killed near Dargai, and the only son, aged seven, went to England with his mother, to be schooled and, if he pleased, to forget and to be forgotten. He remembered. He used Rajasthani in his dreams, that were all of turbaned, bearded horsemen, the smell of harness, and the thunder of lance-shod squadrons knee-to-knee.Making 10,000(McClures Magazine, April 1913)"Said hed no time for hereditary boneheadsdashed if I know what a bonehead is, exactly, but Ill bet its something rudeand that he wouldnt let his daughter marry one on any terms! Said there were boneheads enough in the States, without coming across the water to find one! He added a lot of tommy-nonsense about the idea of an aristocracy being all wrong anyhow. So I asked him whether hed have liked me any better if Id been a brick-layer! The Lady And The Lord(The All-Story Magazine, Jun 1911)An actress who is not exactly in the first flight is bound to be more or less of a nomad; so there was nothing particularly astonishing in not hearing from Mrs. Crothers for several months. True, she might have written; but if she were ever to become famous, her autograph would be valuable for its very rarity, for she seldom wrote to anyone.Kitty Burns Her Fingers (The All-Story Magazine, Jul 1911)KITTY CROTHERS perennially hard up working at her profession for a few months, doing one-night stands all over the country, and returning to spend her hard-earned savings along Broadway we all of us knew and understood; but Kitty Crothers with money was something to make the gods on Olympus sit up and take notice.The Hermit And The Tiger(American Cavalcade, Nov 1937)It was many months before I saw a tiger, in full moonlight, in the graveyard at Mount Abu in Rajputana, where the legends on more than half the tombstones read from wounds inflicted by a tiger. He was insolent, arrogant, splendid, and I think he knew I watched him. At intervals he stood snarling and muttering as if he sneered at the names on the tombs of the men who had died of wounds from his ancestors fangs. It was a weird experience. I had no rifle. I could only watch.Mystic India Speaks(True Mystic Science, Dec 1938)MANY years ago, in Rajputana, the writer climbed several thousand feet above sea level for a moonlight view of an historic landscape. He was, in those days, an opinionated young Englishman, rather recently from public school, educated in the traditional white mans burden theory of empire and in the Church of England attitude toward religion. After months of wandering in India, it was only just beginning to dawn on his not very observant, nor particularly critical, but rather idly curious mind, that virtue is neither racial, national, nor even international, but universal; and that possibly lots of Western theories are wrong.

Weihnacht!

Karl May

Die Handlung der als Reiseerzählung abgefassten Geschichte ist teils in Deutschland, teils im Wilden Westen der USA angesiedelt und beschreibt Erlebnisse der Hauptfiguren Winnetou und Old Shatterhand, die im Zusammenhang mit Ereignissen stehen, die letzterer während seiner Studentenzeit in Europa erlebt hat. Durch Zufall stößt er dort auf Frau Hiller, deren Ehemann, ein Fellhändler, von feindlichen Krähenindianern gefangengehalten wird und sie bittet Old Shatterhand, ihn zu suchen. Zusammen mit seinem Blutsbruder Winnetou macht er sich auf den Weg ins Felsengebirge.

Red Devil of the Range

George Owen Baxter

Seattle-born author who worked as a cowhand in California, attended Berkeley, joined then deserted the Canadian Army, and finally settled down to writing full-time. He was incredibly prolific and wrote numerous books under his birth name (Frederick Faust) and a variety of pseudonyms. Today he is best known for his work published as Max Brand. Red Devil Of The Range is one of his Western fiction. When young Ever Winton loses the two most important things in his life, his Uncle Clay and Red Pacer the wildest, most untamable horse in the West he must ride with the notorious Timberline outside the law, doing whatever it takes to get his horse and his uncle back.

Zwierciadlana zagadka

Deotyma

Zwierciadlana zagadka to powieść słynnej improwizatorki romantycznej Jadwigi Łuszczewskiej, działającej pod pseudonimem Deotyma. Pisarka osadziła utwór w rozwijającej się powoli konwencji fantastycznonaukowej. Opowiada w nim zaskakującą historię lustra, które zapamiętuje wszystkie odbicia i dzięki temu umożliwia obserwację przeszłości. Jakie perypetie mogą z tego wyniknąć?

Na jasnym brzegu

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Akcja utworu toczy się we Włoszech. Przedstawia perypetie blisko pięćdziesięcioletniego Polaka, artysty malarza Świrskiego. Mężczyzna zakochuje się w trzydziestopięcioletniej wdowie Helenie Elzen. Kobieta przyjmuje jego oświadczyny malarza, mimo że ma wielu wielbicieli. Wkrótce Świrski przekonuje się, jaką egoistką jest jego wybranka. Porzuca ją i wiąże się ze swoją modelką, Marynią, Włoszką polskiego pochodzenia.

Les Enfants du capitaine Grant

Jules Verne

Le capitaine Grant sest embarqué dans un voyage dangereux pour établir une colonie écossaise sur les îles du Pacifique. Mais son navire est en ruine et seule une note moitié floue dans la bouteille contient des fragments dinformations concernant Grant. Lord Glenarvan ses risques et périls et poursuit une qute en emmenant avec lui les enfants du capitaine Mary et Robert. Le chemin des braves voyageurs séleve travers les montagnes et les pampas du continent américain, de la Nouvelle-Zélande, de lAustralie et des vastes étendues de locéan Pacifique, o de nombreuses aventures les attendent.

Sylvie and Bruno

Lewis Carroll

The main character is in front of 2 worlds. One is the real world. Another is a world that occurs during sleep. In real life, an ordinary man will introduce a quiet life. Communicates with friends, leads discussions. And in a dream, he dreams of meeting a ten-year-old princess Sylvie and her five-year-old brother Bruno. Sylvie and Bruno find out that their father is actually a fairytale king, and therefore they are a fairytale prince and princess. In the end, the two stories unite as Sylvie and Bruno begin to appear in the real world.

Die Macht der Drei

Hans Dominik

Im Jahr 1955 droht das britische Empire zu zerfallen, denn Kanada und Australien wollen einen Zollverbund mit den USA bilden. Letztendlich erklären nach kriegerischen Provokationen die Briten den USA den Krieg. In diesem Moment greift die Macht der Drei ein: Drei Männer (der Deutsche Sylvester Bursfeld, der Schwede Erik Truwor und der Inder Soma Atma) mit einer neuartigen, gefährlichen Waffe, dem telenergetischen Strahler. Sämtliches Kriegsgerät der Erde wäre wirkungslos gegen die Macht dieses Strahlers. Mit den telenergetischen Strahlen ist es möglich, jeden Punkt der Erde zu sehen und zu erreichen, Brände zu entfachen, Explosionen auszulösen und dadurch in Kämpfe einzugreifen. Die Drei möchten ihre Macht einsetzen, um der Erde einen neuen Krieg zu ersparen. Doch sie haben einen gefährlichen Gegner: Ein Amerikaner mit hypnotischen Fähigkeiten versucht mit allen Mitteln, die Macht an sich zu greifen.