The Secret Agent. A Simple Tale

Joseph Conrad

Mr Verloc, the secret agent, keeps a shop in Londons Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. Verloc is part of a group of anarchists who believe in overthrowing the government and who also function as somewhat ineffective terrorists. The group mainly produces anarchist pamphlets called F.P. (The Future of the Proletariat) and hold private meetings among themselves. The agent is secretly employed by a foreign embassy, probably Russia, to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. The Secret Agent is a a story set earlier (1886) telling an allegory of terrorists and anarchists based in Edwardian England. The complicated plot is masterful, the prose sophisticated, and the characterizations full and engrossing. The death of an innocent is heartrending. Joseph Conrad is often considered the best writer of the 19th century.

Potop

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Potop to druga z trzech powieści historycznych będących częścią Trylogii Henryka Sienkiewicza. Akcja utworu rozgrywa się w latach 16551657 w okresie potopu szwedzkiego. W powieści przeplata się wątek walk polsko-szwedzkich z historią miłosną Andrzeja Kmicica i Oleńki Billewiczówny. Zaręczony z Oleńką Billewiczówną chorąży orszański Andrzej Kmicic opowiada się początkowo po stronie kolaborującego ze Szwedami potężnego rodu magnackiego Radziwiłłów. Uznany przez szlachtę i narzeczoną za zdrajcę, zaczyna poniewczasie rozumieć, że Radziwiłłom chodzi nie o dobro ojczyzny, lecz o własne interesy. Aby odkupić winy, pod przybranym nazwiskiem Babinicz bierze udział w obronie Jasnej Góry, własną piersią osłania króla Jana Kazimierza przed wrogami i bohatersko walczy z nieprzyjacielem.

Skin and Bones

Thorne Smith

Thorne Smiths imaginative novel Skin and Bones takes the concept of suffering for ones art to a whole new level. This classic book contains the humorous and fantastical story of Mr. Quintus Bland, the eminent photographer, whose efforts to perfect X-ray film had, one evening, the unfortunate effect of leaving Mr. Bland in the position of an X-ray film himself; in other words, him found himself no more than a walking skeleton. Blands flesh does not merely become invisible but intangible. Can he make a life worth living with this condition? A great read, this book is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of any home, where it is sure to become a family favorite.

Leone Leoni

George Sand

Le roman Leon Leoni raconte comment son personnage principal est victime de sa fatale passion pour les cartes et comment son désintéressement sans fin pour lamour féminin souffre de son égosme et de sa dépravation. Juliette est une jeune fille. Elle est belle, pleine de désirs et despoirs, de rves de mariage heureux. Il apparaît ici lhorizon.Pas un homme, mais un idéal. Mais avec lavenement de Leone, toutes les aventures commencent.

Samuel Zborowski

Juliusz Słowacki

Utwór ukazuje wcielenia duchowe Eoliona, które ujawniają się w wizjach sennych, oraz opętnie jego ojca przez obcego ducha. Akcja dramatu rozgrywa się w niebie, na ziemi i w piekle, a wszystkie wątki łączy ze sobą postać Lucyfera, który ukazany jest jako duch buntu.

The Incredulity of Father Brown

G.K. Chesterton

The Incredulity of Father Brown is the third collection of short mysteries by G.K. Chesterton about that character. In The Incredulity of Father Brown, all the stories involve murders and conflicts between Catholicism and atheism and spiritualism. We find the usual Chesterton moral landscape -- in which the author paints a picture of nature somehow mirroring the fact that something is very wrong. In The Incredulity of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton treats us to another set of bizarre crimes that only his stumpy Roman Catholic prelate has the wisdom and mindset to solve. As usual, Chesterton loves playing with early twentieth-century class distinctions, common-sense assumptions, and the often anti-Catholic biases of his characters.

An Old Maid

Honoré de Balzac

Immerse yourself in the inner workings of a quaint French village in this charming novel from Honoré de Balzac, an early master of literary realism. The work was dedicated to Balzacs brother in law, an engineer in the corps royal des ponts et chaussées, Eugene Midy de la Greneraye Surville. Brimming with finely observed details and Balzacs trademark insight into human motivations and morality, An Old Maid, the first book in The Jealousies of a Country Town, follows several men who have designs honorable and not-so-honorable on one of the villages wealthiest bachelorettes. Balzac takes time to carefully describe the house of Mademoiselle Cormon, in the city of Alençon, before entering directly into the heart of the matter. The portrait of Mademoiselle Cormon is one of the most successful in The Human Comedy. The author delivers in this novel one of his most nuanced analysis of a provincial towns social, political and financial affairs.

Tales of Unrest

Joseph Conrad

This collection of short works. Despite the fact that these are short stories, the author never ceases to amaze with his approach to his characters. The scene from Brittany Idiots is perhaps his most significant work. Here, Conrad describes a family cursed by a mental illness in a French village, and how the embryo difficulties affect parents.

Payable To Bearer

Talbot Mundy

Ikey Hole began to engage in his own business at the age of sixteen as an industrial climber, and when he was twenty, he was already a serious master of his profession. But since at that time in New York signboards began to go out of fashion, he began to master the specialty in the manufacture of firearms, because he was far-sighted and moved with time and progress.

Prince Otto

Robert Louis Stevenson

In the historical novel "Prince Otto", the romance of adventure is combined with the exact recreation of local color and historical setting. This novel is about Prince Otto, who is not very concerned about government affairs and problems, and he devotes all the time to hunting and other entertainments. Once during a hunt, he stumbles upon ordinary peasants who did not recognize him and agreed to shelter him for the night. During the evening dinner, the unrecognized prince tries to find out from the peasants what they think about their ruler, and those, as ordinary people, told him everything they think about Prince Otto.

Bosambo of the River

Edgar Wallace

Many years ago the Monrovian Government sent one Bosambo, a native of the Kroo coast and consequently a thief, to penal servitude for the term of his natural life. Bosambo, who had other views on the matter, was given an axe and a saw in the penal settlement and told to cut down and trim certain mahogany trees in company with other unfortunate men similarly circumstanced. Those who love classic adventure especially set against an African backdrop will discover a rich vein of reading pleasure in Bosambo of the River. Another exciting title in the Sanders of the River adventure series, featuring Commissioner Sanders.

The Battle of Basinghall Street

E. Phillips Oppenheim

The story of a young man, Lord Sandbrook, who takes revenge against the directors of a company he holds responsible for the deaths of his father and mother. The battlefield is Basinghall Street, where the offices of Woolito, Limited, are situated. A textile business is the center of strange machinations suicides, failures, conflagrations, disaster to various directors, finally a raid on the stock, and the president is a ruined man. In this story Mr. Oppenheim takes a vacation from international intrigue in a Monte Carlo setting and devotes himself to describing a big business battle in London. The story is told with the usual Oppenheim flourish, a great deal of action, many details of personality and adventures.

Sherlock Holmes. Z Tajnych Akt Światowej Sławy Detektywa (Tom 6). Sherlock Holmes. Z Tajnych Akt Światowej Sławy Detektywa. Tom 6: Katastrofa budowlana

anonimowy

Sherlock Holmes to jeden z tych bohaterów popkultury, którego nikomu przedstawiać nie trzeba. Katastrofa budowlana to jedno z wielu nieautoryzowanych przez Arthura Conan Doylea opowiadań o przygodach legendarnego londyńskiego detektywa i jego ucznia Harryego Taxona. Holmes rozwiązuje kryminalną zagadkę, nie tylko wykorzystując swoje niezwykłe talenty w dziedzinie dedukcji i szeroką wiedzę z zakresu chemii i psychologii, lecz także bezpośrednio stawiając czoła przemocy przy użyciu... pięści. Zagadkowe morderstwa, tajemnicze zaginięcia, zuchwałe kradzieże sprawiają, że czytelnik poczuje, że jest otoczony przez wszechogarniające zło.

The Wrecker

Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne

Conspiracy, murder, smuggling, gold and a raging, merciless sea. All this is an exciting novel by the famous English writer R. L. Stevenson The Wrecker. Two friends, Dodd and Pinkerton, decide to buy a stranded ship at auction, but its price suddenly increases by 500 times. What is hidden behind this?

Old Friends an New Fancies. An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen

Sybil G. Brinton

This is a continuation of the story of Jane Austen. It develops slowly and comes to an amazing outcome. Among the large number of characters Darcy paid the most attention, but Brinton also did a wonderful job of reviving Kitty Bennett. This book shows that we dont always have to like people.

Carmens Messenger

Harold Bindloss

Jake Foster wanted to change something in his own country with small steps. To do this, he had to marry Alice, who is ready to invest in his business, in his idea. After the signing of the contract, he feels relieved because now he can increase income of his country. But is it worth the sacrifices for which he went?