Literary Classics

By Honoré de Balzac

Trente ans, c'est l'âge de los angeles vérité, l'âge où se concentrent toutes les forces vitales avant le déclin, où le besoin de vivre devient impérieux. À trente ans, Julie d'Aiglemont, dont ce roman nous retrace los angeles vie, cède à l'adultère, pour échapper à un mariage décevant... De l. a. jalousie au meurtre, du meurtre à l. a. fuite, cet acte coupable mènera, implacablement, à los angeles ruine de los angeles famille tout entière. los angeles Femme de trente ans, oeuvre noire et mystérieuse, est l'un des grands romans de Balzac sur los angeles femme et sa situation.

By Garrison Keillor, James Thurber

James Thurber, whimsical fantasist and deadpan chronicler of daily absurdities, introduced American humor into the 20 th century. His comedian character, a contemporary citydweller whose zaniest flights of unfastened organization are tinged with anxiousness, is still hilarious, subtly nerve-racking, and immediately recognizable.

Here, in over a thousand pages, editor Garrison Keillor provides the simplest and so much vast assortment ever assembled. Over a hundred items contain “The mystery lifetime of Walter Mitty” and “The Catbird Seat,” the brilliantly satirical Fables for Our Time, the vintage My lifestyles and tough occasions, and the simplest of The Owl within the Attic, permit Your brain Alone!, My World—And Welcome to It, and the opposite well-known books. Plus 500 tremendous drawings, together with "The Seal within the Bedroom" and celebrated sequences like “The Masculine Approach” and “The conflict among males and Women.” Rounding out the quantity is a range from The Years with Ross, a memoir of the hot Yorker writer, and a couple of outstanding early items by no means accrued via Thurber.

By Laura Lee Hope

A heartwarming tale approximately growing to be up, starring America’s unique double shot of trouble

The first installment within the loved sequence by way of Laura Lee wish follows units of audacious twins—Bert and Nan, age 8, and Freddie and Flossie, age four—through a complete university yr. home windows are damaged through errant snowballs, moonlit ghosts hang-out the ft of beds, and critical rope-skipping injuries ensue because the twins examine vital classes approximately love, accountability, and having enjoyable. Relive the tales that experience overjoyed generations of younger readers.

This book has been professionally proofread to make sure accuracy and clarity on all units.

By Bohumil Hrabal

Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal's rambling, rambunctious masterpiece Dancing classes for the complex in Age is these kind of and extra. chatting with a bunch of sunbathing ladies who remind him of enthusiasts earlier, this aged roué tells the tale of his life--or no less than unburdens himself of a lifetime's worthy of news. hence we research of amatory conquests (and humiliations), of scandals either deepest and public, of army adventures and family feuds, of what issues have been like "in the times of the monarchy" and the way they've replaced seeing that. because the booklet tumbles restlessly ahead, and the comedian tone takes on darker shadings, we detect we're hearing a guy conversing as a lot out of desperation as from exuberance.

Hrabal, one of many nice Czech writers of the 20th century, in addition to an inveterate haunter of Prague's pubs and soccer stadiums, built a different technique which he termed "palavering," wherein characters gab and soliloquize with abandon. half drunken boast, half soul-rending confession, half metaphysical poem at the nature of affection and time, this spectacular novel (which unfolds in one enormous sentence) indicates why he has earned the admiration of such writers as Milan Kundera, John Banville, and Louise Erdrich.

By Rainer Maria Rilke

To Rilke himself the Sonnets to Orpheus have been "perhaps the main mysterious within the manner they got here up and entrusted themselves to me, the main enigmatic dictation i've got ever held via and completed; the full first half used to be written down in one breathless act of obedience, among the second and fifth of February, with no one be aware being uncertain or having to be changed." With facing-page German.

By Henry James

The larger the windbag the better the calamity.

Henry James examines one among his favourite topics--the artist's position in society--by profiling a "genius" who simply can't appear to help himself. a blinding highbrow and amazing speaker, Mr. Saltram has develop into the main sought-after houseguest in England. yet, as his highbrow labors slacken, it beomes tougher and tougher to get him to leave.

A wry, edgy comedy concerning the high-quality line among making art...and freeloading. The Coxon Fund exhibits off a present that's hardly ever liked approximately Henry James: he may be wickedly humorous.

By Luo Guanzhong

This fascinating new translation with footnotes is extra readable than previous models and should attract sleek readers.

The 3 Kingdoms is an epic chinese language novel written over six centuries in the past. It recounts in bright historic element the turbulent years on the shut of the Han Dynasty, whilst China broke into 3 competing kingdoms and over part the inhabitants have been both killed or pushed from their houses. half delusion, half truth, readers will adventure the loyalty and treachery, the brotherhood and contention of China's mythical heroes and villains in the course of the such a lot tumultuous interval in chinese language history.

Considered the best paintings in vintage chinese language literature, The 3 Kingdoms is learn through hundreds of thousands all through Asia at the present time. noticeable not only as a good murals, many chinese language view it as a consultant to good fortune in existence and company in addition to a piece that gives nice ethical clarity—while many foreigners learn it to realize insights into chinese language society and tradition. From the saga of The 3 Kingdoms, readers will find out how nice warriors encourage their troops and improve their effect, whereas disguising their weaknesses and turning the strengths of others opposed to them.

This 3rd quantity concludes the story of Liu Bei and his sworn brothers-in-arms.

By Honoré de Balzac

«Quel est votre roman préféré ?» demande Didier Éribon à Claude Lévi-Strauss dans De près et de loin, le livre d'entretiens que ce dernier lui a accordés en 1988 (Odile Jacob, 1998). «Il y aurait cent raisons pour que ce soit Le Cousin Pons, répond le grand anthropologue, mais L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine me captive...» Ce dernier roman, publié à titre posthume, montrera que Balzac osait croire encore à l. a. possibilité de voir un jour l'avènement du Bien - présenté alors comme l'exact «envers» du Mal. Mais c'est le Mal, assurément, qui triomphe dans Le Cousin Pons. motor vehicle, parmi les «cent raisons» d'être fasciné aujourd'hui encore par ce récit d'un funeste destin, il y a cette remarquable flair au mal que déploient bourgeois, usuriers et gens du peuple - «gens de mal» comme on dirait «gens de bien» - qu'unit pour un temps l'appât du achieve en vue de dépouiller et assassiner sans violence apparente le pauvre cousin, égaré par sa ardour du Beau et incapable de résister à los angeles barbarie silencieuse de ses contemporains.

Cette assortment se suggest de rendre accessibles aux jeunes lecteurs de grandes oeuvres littéraires. Il ne s'agit jamais de résumés, ni de morceaux choisis, mais du texte même, abrégé de manière à laisser intacts le fil du récit, le ton, le kind et le rythme de l'auteur.

Texte abrégé par Robert Briatte

Honoré de Balzac est né à excursions en 1799 et mort à Paris en 1850. En sortant du collège des oratoriens de Vendôme, Balzac vient à Paris. Ses débuts y sont tumultueux, pleins de tâtonnements et d'efforts en sens divers. Il écrit plusieurs volumes sous divers pseudonymes ou en collaboration, tous des échecs. Découragé par los angeles littérature, il se fait éditeur et imprimeur. Mais ces entreprises ne lui réussissent pas davantage. Il revient à l. a. littérature et signe à 30 ans "Le Dernier Chouan", son most popular chef-d'oeuvre. Viennent ensuite l. a. "Physiologie du mariage", plusieurs nouvelles et "La Peau de chagrin" dont le succès est complet. A partir de ce second, grâce à un travail acharné, sa creation littéraire est d'une régularité étonnante. Il travaille dix-huit heures par jour, se dérobe aux visites, se terre dans l'un des de ses trois ou quatre domiciles parisiens, mais se mêle aux vies de ceux qu'il veut connaître. De 1830 à 1850, il écrit en déployant une énergie stupéfiante, plusieurs dizaines de romans et nouvelles. Toute son époque y est dépeinte et l'ensemble de son oeuvre, sa grandiose "Comédie humaine", est certainement l'un des monuments de son siècle.

By Guy de Maupassant

Yvette est une courtisane, qui fréquente le grand monde des aventuriers. C'est une amoureuse de los angeles vie, une âme romantique, rêveuse et passionnée. Mais elle est aussi bien naïve : n'a-t-elle pas compris que sa lui interdit le mariage avec un homme de l. a. haute société, dans laquelle elle est pourtant à son aise ? Ne sait-elle pas que sa mère appartient, comme elle, à l. a. "prostitution dorée" ? remark dès lors échapper à son destin et devenir une "honnête femme" ? De Paris aux bords de Seine, Maupassant nous mène de los angeles joie de vivre aux illusions perdues.

By John Galsworthy

OUP's World's Classics series

The 3 novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social strength of the industrial upper-middle classification Forsyte kinfolk among 1886 and 1920. Galsworthy's masterly narrative examines not just their fortunes but additionally the broader advancements inside of society, really the altering place of ladies.

This is the one serious variation of the paintings on hand, with Notes that designate modern creative and literary allusions and outline the slang of the time

Edited with an creation and Notes by means of Geoffrey Harvey