Livres Classiques

"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]

'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]

Emerging from the grit and stigma of poverty to a life of fairytale privilege under the wing of her aunt, the beautiful and financially ambitious Kate Croy is already romantically involved with promising journalist Merton Densher when they become acquainted with Milly Theale, a New York socialite of immense wealth.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Wings of the Dove]

The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Cop and the Anthem and Other Stories]

'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]

Eliot surrounds her main figures with a gallery of characters drawn from every social class, from laborers and shopkeepers to the rising middle class to members of the wealthy, landed gentry. Together they form an extraordinarily rich and precisely detailed portrait of English provincial life in the 1830s.
[lire la quatrième du livre Middlemarch]

For Mary Morstan has received several large pearls - one a year for the last six years - and now a mystery letter telling her she is a wronged woman. If she would seek justice she is to meet her unknown benefactor, bringing with her two companions.

But unbeknownst to them all, others stalk London's fog-enshrouded streets: a one-legged ruffian with revenge on his mind - and his [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre The Sign of Four]

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]

After seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set.
[lire la quatrième du livre A Handful of Dust]

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]

he Penguin English Library Edition of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad'The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time.
[lire la quatrième du livre Heart of Darkness]

In this sensational, hard-hitting and passionate tale of marital cruelty, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall sees a mysterious tenant, Helen Graham, unmasked not as a 'wicked woman' as the local gossips would have it, but as the estranged wife of a brutal alcoholic bully, desperate to protect her son.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Tenant of Wildfell Hall]

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]

As usual with the Sherlock Holmes stories it is very hard to say which are the best - but there are many stories here which would get the vote - ranging from The Boscombe Valley Mystery to the wonderful Adventure of Silver Blaze, from the Adventure of the Norwood Builder to A Case of Identity, but above to the uniquely strange and macabre Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb.
[lire la quatrième du livre The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb and Other [...]]

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]

Set partly in America, which Dickens had visited in 1842, the novel includes a searing satire on the United States. Martin Chuzzlewit is the story of two Chuzzlewits, Martin and Jonas, who have inherited the characteristic Chuzzlewit selfishness. It contrasts their diverse fates of moral redemption and worldly success for one, with increasingly desperate crime for the other. This powerful [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Martin Chuzzlewit]

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]

As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, [...]
[lire la quatrième du livre Bleak House]

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]

Milton's celebrated epic poem, now in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectable editions are bound in high-quality, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.In Paradise Lost Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time.
[lire la quatrième du livre Paradise Lost]

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]

- The Adventure of the Yellow Face
- The Adventure of the Resident Patient
- The Problem of Thor Bridge
- The Adventure of the Gloria Scott
- The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
- The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk
- The Adventure of the Crooked Man
- The Adventure of the ...
[lire la quatrième du livre The Adventure of the Six Napoleons and Other Cases]

"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]

The crew of the whaling ship the Pequod is bound by its Captain Ahab to a single, bloody goal: the killing of the whale Moby-Dick, the giant albino that has taken his leg and on which he has sworn vengeance. Driven, perhaps doomed, by his dangerous monomania, they sail in pursuit of the monster.
[lire la quatrième du livre Moby-Dick]

The Penguin English Library Edition of Howards End by E. M. Forster'The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer.

We rich can''Only connect.
[lire la quatrième du livre Howards End]

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]