«These volumes represent each author's best and most famous writings. This finely crafted and affordable series offers the works of these world-renowned authors to a wider audience. Includes «Alice in Wonderland, «The Hunting of the Snark, «Sylvie and Bruno, and «Through the Looking Glass.»

These volumes represent each author's best and most famous writings. This finely crafted and affordable series offers the works of these world-renowned authors to a wider audience.

The dictionary defines 'macabre' as something that is 'grim, gruesome and grotesque'. This definition sums up splendidly the flavour and the content of the excellent stories you will find in this collection. Here are tales written by masters of the genre which feature ghosts, monsters, magic, and horror — everything and anything which is out of kilter with the norm and challenges the imagination, while creating that special tingle of fear which is generated by uncertainty. In reading these pleasantly disturbing stories it is as though one is looking at the world through a glass darkly. This wonderfully potent brew of macabre titbits is guaranteed to entertain and enthral.

Изящное подарочное издание небольшого формата в тканевом переплете красного цвета и суперобложке. Обрез книги вызолочен с трех сторон. Издание дополнено шелковым ляссе. Somerset Maugham's short stories are among the best-loved in all of English literature. Written at the peak of the author's powers in the 1920s and 30s, this collection includes the immortal South Sea saga, RAIN, famous tales from Malaya THE LETTER, and whimsical stories from the old country including THE COLONEL'S LADY and THE ROUND DOZEN. These classics retain an astonishing freshness, reminding us that the most popular writer of his generation can now be counted among the most enduring storytellers of all time.

«The Beautiful and Damned», F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, tells the story of Anthony Patch, a 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune, the relationship with his wife Gloria, his service in the army, and alcoholism. The novel provides an excellent portrait of the Eastern elite as the Jazz Age begins its ascent, engulfing all classes into what will soon be known as Cafe Society. As with all of his other novels, it is a brilliant character study and is also an early account of the complexities of marriage and intimacy, largely based on Fitzgerald's relationship and marriage with Zelda Fitzgerald.»

«The Collector's Colour Library» takes the favourite illustrated titles of «The Collector's Library» and presents them in full colour. Original colour illustrations are faithfully reproduced, and where illustrations and decorations were originally black and white they have been sensitively coloured by Barbara Frith, one of Britain's most accomplished colourists. When Alice tumbles down a rabbit hole one hot summer's afternoon in pursuit of a White Rabbit she finds herself in Wonderland. Wonderland is no ordinary place and the characters that populate it are quite unlike anybody young Alice has ever met. «Through the Looking-Glass» continues her bizarre adventures, and she meets more outlandish creations including the Red and the White Queens, Humpty Dumpty and the White Knight. Sir John Tenniel's magical illustrations have been delicately coloured by Barbara Frith.»

The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays written in English by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Khalil Gibran. The prophet Al-Mustafa is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses many issues of life and the human condition. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

Some of the most exciting and haunting stories ever written are to be found in this collection of Poe's work, ranging from the poetic to the mysterious to the darkly comic, and all with the quality of the grotesque that defined Poe's writing. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' are key works in the horror canon, while in the 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and 'The Mystery of Marie Roget' we find the origins of modern detective fiction.

A young prince meets with his father's ghost, who alleges that his own brother, now married to his widow, murdered him. The prince devises a scheme to test the truth of the ghost's accusation, feigning wild madness while plotting a brutal revenge. But his apparent insanity soon begins to wreak havoc on innocent and guilty alike. Hamlet's combination of violence and introspection is unusual among Shakespeare's tragedies. It is also full of curious riddles and fascinating paradoxes, making it one of his most widely discussed plays.

Over the centuries Ireland has preserved a magical, mystical aura that lends itself to tales of the supernatural — from leprechauns and fairies to ghosts and hauntings. Stories and storytelling have always been central to Irish folk culture, and this anthology of the best ghost stories from Ireland and Irish writers includes contributions from Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Patrick Kennedy, George Moore and W. B. Yeats. The result is a collection of tingling tales of poltergeists, supernatural experiences, haunted houses, death warnings and banshees that will chill the blood of readers and listeners alike.

Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king to ensure his ambitions come true. But he soon learns the meaning of terror — killing once, he must kill again and again, and the dead return to haunt him. A story of war, witchcraft and bloodshed, Macbeth also depicts the relationship between husbands and wives, and the risks they are prepared to take to achieve their desires.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the best loved of Shakespeare's plays. It brings together aristocrats, workers, and fairies in a wood outside Athens, and from there the magic begins. A young woman flees Athens with her lover, only to be pursued by her would-be husband and by her best friend. Unwittingly, all four find themselves in an enchanted forest where fairies and sprites soon take an interest in human affairs, dispensing magical love potions and casting mischievous spells. In this dazzling comedy, confusion ends in harmony, as love is transformed, misplaced, and ultimately restored.

This is undoubtedly the greatest love story ever written, spawning a host of imitators on stage and screen, including Leonard Bernstein's smash musical West Side Story and Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet filmed in 1968. A young man and woman meet by chance and fall instantly in love. But their families are bitter enemies, and in order to be together the two lovers must be prepared to risk everything. Set in a city torn apart by feuds and gang warfare, Romeo and Juliet is a dazzling combination of passion and hatred, bawdy comedy and high tragedy.

«An anthology that brings together «The Frog Who Became an Emperor from China», «The Thee Billy Goats Gruff from Norway», and «Pinocchio» from Italy as well as the classic stories of Aesop, Andersen, the Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault and Oscar Wilde, among many others.»

The short story is the perfect format for traditional ghost stories. They have their roots in folklore, but in modern form they can be traced back to the romanticised writers of the Gothic tradition. Authors include Charles Dickens, Sheridan Le Fanu, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, F. Marion Crawford, Elizabeth Gaskell and H. H. Munro (Saki). Perhaps the finest exponent of the genre was M. R. James whose sly, academic tales are well represented in this collection, as well as those of Le Fanu, whom James acknowledged as his inspiration. This is a book to be relished by the fireside, with the curtains drawn against ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night.

'All grown-ups were once children — although few of them remember it'. A pilot forced to crash land in the Sahara desert encounters a little prince who is visiting the earth from his own small planet with its three volcanoes and a beautiful flower. Through this meeting, the aviator comes to discover many of life's universal truths which illuminate the human condition with all its foibles, cunning and eccentricities. This wonderful and remarkable book will enchant both children and adults alike. It is a strange and wonderful parable for all ages, championing the beauty and wisdom of childhood which fades when one becomes 'a grown up'. Antoine De Saint-Exupery's book has been translated into over 180 languages and sold over 80 million copies. Its magic is in its charm, its simplicity and its truths which speak to people of many nations and generations.

William Blake is a poet without parallel, who remains a source of wisdom and inspiration to countless individuals throughout the world. This selection was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Routledge from W.B. Yeats, who had previously been one of the pioneer editors of Blake's prophetic books. Yeats, one of the few poets whose work could be compared with that of Blake, prepared a unique selection of his poetic and prose writings. There is no better way to encounter the work of one poetic genius than as it is presented by another, and Yeats understood Blake in a way few others did.

This title presents the sweeping love story of two people who defy the conventions of their age to follow the dictates of their hearts. Trapped in a stifling marriage, Anna Karenina is swept off her feet by the dashing Count Vronsky. When the truth about their passionate liaison comes out, Anna's husband is more concerned with keeping up appearances than anything else, but at last he seeks a reluctant divorce. Rejected by society, the two lovers flee to Italy, where Anna finds herself isolated from all except the man she loves, and who loves her. But can they live by love alone? In this novel of astonishing scope and grandeur, Leo Tolstoy, the great master of Russian literature, charts the course of the human heart.