'Thus, gentle Reader, I have given thee a faithful History of my Travels for Sixteen Years, and above Seven Months; wherein I have not been so studious of Ornament as of Truth.
[lire la quatrième du livre Gulliver's Travels]
'The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals, humanised animals...' A shipwrecked Edward Prendick finds himself stranded on a remote Noble island, the guest of a notorious scientist, Doctor Moreau.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Island of Doctor Moreau]
The Penguin English Library Edition of Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin'My hour is come ... the clock of eternity is about to strike, but its knell must be unheard by mortal ears!'This violent, profound, baroque and blackly humorous novel is the story of Melmoth, who has sold his soul in exchange for immortality in a satanic bargain, and now preys on the helpless in their darkest moments, [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Melmoth the Wanderer]
Tod Hackett is a brilliant young artist - and a man in danger of losing his heart. Brought to an LA studio as a set-designer, he is soon caught up in a fantasy world where the cult of celebrity rules.
But when he becomes besotted by the beautiful Faye, an aspiring actress and occasional call-girl, his dream rapidly becomes a nightmare.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Day of the Locust]
The French Terror is raging, and few are safe from the threat of the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney, a foppish Englishman, decides to rescue imprisoned aristocrats before they can be executed. Showing great daring and aided by a band of brave comrades, he disguises himself as the formidable Scarlet Pimpernel.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Scarlet Pimpernel]
Eminent politician Paul Lessingham is the toast of Westminster, but when 'the Beetle' arrives from Egypt to hunt him down, the dark and gruesome secret that haunts him is dragged into the light. Bent on revenge for a crime committed against the disciples of an Egyptian goddess, the Beetle terrorizes its victims and will stop at nothing until it has satisfaction.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Beetle]
With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette.
There she struggles to retain her self- possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Villette]
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins'Here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond - bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man'When Rachel Verinder's birthday present - the ...
[lire la quatrième du livre The Moonstone]
When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy her freedom, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a rich prize waiting to be taken.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Portrait of a Lady]
A cylinder from space lands in south-west London, and naïve locals approach it armed with a white flag - only to be instantly incinerated by an all-destroying heat-ray, as tentacled Martians emerge. Soon the whole of humanity is under threat, as the invaders build gigantic killing machines that chase and feast on human prey.
H. G.
[lire la quatrième du livre The War of the Worlds]
The triffids are grotesque and dangerous plants, over seven feet tall, originally cultivated for their yield of high-grade oil. So long as conditions give the mastery to their human directors, they are a valuable asset to mankind. But when a sudden universal disaster turns those conditions upside down, then the triffids, seizing their opportunity, become an active and dreadful [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre The Day of the Triffids]
The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit.
[lire la quatrième du livre Brideshead Revisited : The Sacred and Profane [...]]
Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her.
[lire la quatrième du livre Wide Sargasso Sea]
When Miss Mary Morstan is invited to meet a secretive stranger, she asks Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to help her. Captain Morstan has disappeared from his hotel without a trace.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Sign of the Four]
Shipwrecked on an uncharted island, the Swiss Family Robinson—mother, father, and four young boys—make the most of their predicament, adapting to the island and turning the absence of civilization to their advantage. Through perseverance, hard work, and self-reliance, they become masters of their new environment. Their experience is colorful, creative, and filled with exciting adventures.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Swiss Family Robinson]
A beautiful clothbound edition of Anne Brontë's most enduring novel, to accompany her sisters' greatest books in Penguin Hardcover Classics
Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Tenant of Wildfell Hall]
"May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you - haunt me, then"
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord.
[lire la quatrième du livre Wuthering Heights]
"Jason and a crew of heroes sail on the 'Argo' to the Black Sea; their dangerous mission is to find and bring back the Golden Fleece to Greece. The Argonauts must battle against giants, huge birds and sea monsters before their journey ends." - back cover.
[lire la quatrième du livre Jason and the Argonauts + audio CD/CD-ROM]
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Woman in White]
With A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens created a modern fairy tale and shaped our ideas of Christmas. The tale of the solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of the season by a series of ghostly visitors and given a second chance, was conjured up by Dickens during one of his London night walks, who "wept and laughed" as he composed it.
[lire la quatrième du livre A Christmas Carol]
Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Two men - Kim, a boy growing into early manhood, and the lama, an old ascetic priest - are fired by a quest. Kim is white, although born in India. While he wants to play the Great Game of imperialism, he is also spiritually bound to the lama and he tries to reconcile these opposing strands.
[lire la quatrième du livre Kim]
Trollope's witty, satirical story of a quiet cathedral town shaken by scandal - as the traditional values of Septimus Harding are attacked by zealous reformers and ruthless newspapers - is a drama of conscience that pits individual integrity against worldly ambition.
In The Warden Anthony Trollope brought the fictional county of Barsetshire to life, peopled by a cast of brilliantly [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre The Warden]
And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact'. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man's rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Related [...]]
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Wings of the Dove]
Language readers; Classic fiction (pre c 1945); ELT: learning material & coursework
[lire la quatrième du livre Wuthering Heights + audio CD]
Arthur Miller's extraordinary masterpiece, Death of a Salesman changed the course of modern theatre, and has lost none of its power as an examination of American life. 'A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away'Willy Loman is on his last legs.
[lire la quatrième du livre Death of a Salesman : Certain Private [...]]
Carson McCullers’ prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Heart is a Lonely Hunter]
Virginia Woolf wanted to write about the vast unknown uncertain continent that is the world and us in it' Jeanette Winterson, from her introduction to The Waves The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Waves]
Stepping far afield from his medical studies, Victor Frankenstein brings to life a human form he has fashioned from scavenged body parts. Horrified by his achievement, he turns his back on his creation, only to learn the danger of such neglect.
[lire la quatrième du livre Frankenstein]
Emma Woodhouse believes herself to be an excellent matchmaker, though she herself does not plan on marrying. But as she meddles in the relationships of others, she causes confusion and misunderstandings throughout the village, and she just may be overlooking a true love of her own.
[lire la quatrième du livre Emma]
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland transports you down the rabbit-hole into a wondrous realm that is home to a White Rabbit, a March Hare, a Mad Hatter, a tea-drinking Dormouse, a grinning Cheshire-Cat, the Queen of Hearts and her playing card retainers, and all manner of marvelous creatures.
[lire la quatrième du livre Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the [...]]
A Mulliner collectionA private detective who can make the guilty confess simply by smiling at them. An artist so intimidated by his morally impeccable cat that he feels compelled to wear formal attire at dinner. A devotee of Proust whose life is turned upside down when he inadvertently subscribes to a correspondence course on How to Acquire Complete Self-Confidence and an Iron Will.
These [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Mulliner Nights]
A Mulliner collectionIn the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest, Mr Mulliner tells his amazing tales, which hold his audience of drinkers (referred to only as Pints of Stout and Whiskies-and-Splash) in the palm of his expressive hand. Here you can discover what happened to The Man Who Gave Up Smoking, share a frisson when the butler delivers Something Squishy on a silver salver ('Your serpent, Sir,' [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Mr Mulliner Speaking]
In the Angler's Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs. Mr Mulliner, his vivid imagination lubricated by Miss Postlethwaite the barmaid, has fabulous stories to tell of the extraordinary behaviour of his far-flung family: in particular there's Wilfred, inventor of Raven Gypsy face-cream and Snow of the Mountain Lotion, who lights on the formula for [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Meet Mr Mulliner]
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde.
[lire la quatrième du livre Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]
