The Essays

Michel de Montaigne

Montaignes The Essays is an unusual book, largely due to the authors attitude to it. This is an exclusively everyday book, suitable for everyday use, in which the author does not discuss how the world works and where everything goes, but discusses the essential: how to raise children, how to build a married life, how to spend leisure time, etc. At the same time, Montaigne does not have a very high opinion of himself, although he praises him for his non-commitment to excesses and the measuredness of being.

Казаки (Kozacy). Кавказская повесть 1852 года

Лев Николаевич Толстой, Lew Nikołajewicz Tołstoj

Повесть величайшего русского писателя Льва Николаевича Толстого (181820131910) рассказывает о переломном этапе в жизни инфантильного молодого человека из московского общества, живущего мечтами и грезами. Главный герой повести, Дмитрий Оленин, близок автору и по духовному опыту, и по нравственным устремлениям. Как и Толстой, он оказывается на Кавказе в попытке начать новую жизнь, 201eв которой уже не будет больше ошибок, не будет раскаяния, а наверное будет одно счастье201d. Среди казаков, в окружении природы, в условиях, далеких от комфорта и роскоши, Оленин переосмысливает свое отношение к жизни, ощущает внутреннюю трансформацию. Герою повести предстоит увидеть настоящую жизнь и ощутить себя чужим в нетронутом цивилизацией мире.

Le Péché de Monsieur Antoine. Tome 12

George Sand

Le roman, construit, comme toujours avec George Sand, sur la base dintrigues amusantes, reflétait sa recherche de solutions utopiques la réorganisation sociale de la société. Lhistoire et les nouvelles racontent le monde des sentiments des Français ordinaires paysans, marins, employés des postes, racontent leur vie, leurs coutumes et leur morale. Au centre de lhistoire, un jeune garçon, Horace, un provincial qui, apres avoir perçu le dernier sou et mme pris une dot de sa sur, a été envoyé par la derniere force étudier le droit Paris dans lespoir quil deviendrait une personne digne. Mais la capitale a tourné la tte dun jeune homme.

A Fight for Fortune. Or, The Tiger of Batol

T.C. Bridges

A pair of seventeen-year-old boys leaves the house to make their way to fate in the Far Eastern seas. It must be my hands that are at fault, then, replied Clive. Ive been trying everywhere for the past three weeks, and cant get taken on. I came down here to look up Captain Brereton, an old friend of my fathers. Hes skipper and part owner of a tramp steamer, the Sphinx. I hoped to cadge a passage to Australia, where I thought I might find a job.

Old Saint Pauls

William Harrison Ainsworth

This is a historical novel describing the events of the Great Plague in London and the Great Fire of London. The protagonist is Leonard Holt, apprentice of our grocer Stephen Blundel, he is madly in love with the grocers daughter Annabelle, who is not madly in love with him, she is madly in love with Lord Rochester.

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.

Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser is a famous American prose writer, publicist and public figure. This is the story of the rise of the main character, the young provincial Caroline Meeber, achieved at the cost of numerous moral compromises, and the descent of the manager of a prestigious bar, George Hurstwood, to the bottom of life.

Dr. Delmores Secret

Fenton Ash

Dr. Delmores Secret is an absorbing tale of mystery by Fenton Ash, author of at least three Lost-World novels. Little is known about Aubrey/Atkins. He was involved in a scandal at the turn of the century and sentenced to nine months imprisonment for obtaining money by deception. After leaving prison he dropped the name Frank Aubrey and in his early 60s, following a three-year hiatus began writing as Fenton Ash.