O. Henry «Roads of Destiny (сборник)» — похожие книги — стр. 3

A fashionable young man sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty in Oscar Wilde’s fascinating gothic tale.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s only full-length novel, is the enduringly eerie story of a naïve and irresistible young man lured by decadent Lord Henry Wotton into a life of depravity. Though Dorian is steeped in sin, his face remains perfect, unlined as years pass—while only his portrait, locked away, reveals the blackness of his soul. This timeless tale of Gothic horror and fable, reveling in the unabashed hedonism and cynical wit of its characters, epitomizes Wilde’s literary revolt against the proprieties of the Victorian era.

Sharing this volume with The Picture of Dorian Gray are Wilde’s clever and sophisticated story “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” and two of his delicate fairy tales, “The Happy Prince” and “The Birthday of the Infanta.”

A fashionable young man sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty in Oscar Wilde’s fascinating gothic tale.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s only full-length novel,…

Edith Wharton (1862—1937) was an American novelist and short story writer. Her works show the lives of people of the late nineteenth century, the times of decline in American history. She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. Wharton also was familiar with many famous people of the time, including President Theodore Roosevelt. "Bunner Sisters" is a novel that takes place in a run-down neighborhood of New York City. The two Bunner sisters, young Evelina and the ever Ann Eliza, keep a small shop selling artificial flowers and simple things like buttons, trims, and ribbons. Their life is boring and unrewarding, but they manage to keep it going with their dedication and love. However, their life changes after the birthday gift of a clock that draws attention a mysterious clockmaker Herbert Ramy. .

Edith Wharton (1862—1937) was an American novelist and short story writer. Her works show the lives of people of the late nineteenth century, the times of decline in American…

This elegantly written account of a young man's search for signs of purpose in the universe is one of the great existential texts of the postwar era and is really funny besides. Binx Bolling, inveterate cinemaphile, contemplative rake and man of the periphery, tries hedonism and tries doing the right thing, but ultimately finds redemption (or at least the prospect of it) by taking a leap of faith and quite literally embracing what only seems irrational.

This elegantly written account of a young man's search for signs of purpose in the universe is one of the great existential texts of the postwar era and is really funny besides.…

The Man with the Golden Arm tells the story of Frankie Machine, the golden arm dealer at a back street Chicago gambling den. Frankie reckons he's a tough guy in the Chicago underworld but finds that he's not tough enough to kick his heroin addiction.

The Man with the Golden Arm tells the story of Frankie Machine, the golden arm dealer at a back street Chicago gambling den. Frankie reckons he's a tough guy in the Chicago…

This collection of four stories, "I Stand Here Ironing," "Hey Sailor, what Ship?," "O Yes," and "Tell me a Riddle," had become an American classic. Since the title novella won the O. Henry Award in 1961, the stories have been anthologized over a hundred times, made into three films, translated into thirteen languages, and - most important - once read, they abide in the hearts of their readers.

This collection of four stories, "I Stand Here Ironing," "Hey Sailor, what Ship?," "O Yes," and "Tell me a Riddle," had become an American classic. Since the title novella won…

Set against the backdrop of Europe's slide into Fascism, Blue of Noon is a blackly compelling account of depravity and violence. As its narrator lurches despairingly from city to city in a surreal sexual and mental nightmare of squalor, sadism and drunken encounters, his internal collapse mirrors the fighting and marching on the streets outside. Exploring the dark forces beneath the surface of civilization, this is a novel torn between identifying with history's victims and being seduced by the monstrous glamour of its terrible victors, and is one of the twentieth century's great nihilist works.

Set against the backdrop of Europe's slide into Fascism, Blue of Noon is a blackly compelling account of depravity and violence. As its narrator lurches despairingly from city to…

Will Barrett is a 25-year-old wanderer from the South living in New York City, detached from his roots and with no plans for the future - until the purchase of a telescope sets off a romance and changes his lifeforever.

Will Barrett is a 25-year-old wanderer from the South living in New York City, detached from his roots and with no plans for the future - until the purchase of a telescope sets…

In spite of the amplified disclaimer: ""Note: This story is a fiction. Neither its characters nor the situations in which they are involved are intended to represent any persons now living or dead (or both)"", there will be no question whom The Symbol represents. And it is primarily this factor, the implicit identification, and yes, the explicit sex, which ensures that it will be read with a fascinated avidity. Indeed, with or without the stammer, it is M-M-monogrammed throughout from the opening scene when Wanda Emmaline Kelly etc. attempts to verbalize in her limited vocabulary to Dr. Rubenstein, a laconic figure staring, staring at a blank page on his clipboard. Wanda, orphaned at two, was placed in foster homes, raped by a roomer at nine, married at sixteen to a Navy boy, and towards the end of the war decided to promote her natural endowment as a sex goddess. Then there are the men--the marriages--Buck, the football player, gauche and faithful and loving; Calvin the ""high powered intellectual"" painter from New York where she spends some time with him and The Method and in a mental hospital; and always the paradoxes of the girl who could create an image but never find an identity, who could project sex and never reciprocate it, all the way through the long scenes from Oh Daddy to Daddy O, liquor, drugs, the couch which failed her as much as the bed, until the long out.... Bessie's book certainly never manages to capture that duende-star quality, but it does have the Harlow hook down to some of its more tasteless moments. As such The Symbol seems like as axiomatic commercial reality which will probably perform from the top of the list.

In spite of the amplified disclaimer: ""Note: This story is a fiction. Neither its characters nor the situations in which they are involved are intended to represent any persons…

This last book by Ödön von Horváth, one of the 20th-century’s great but forgotten writers, is a dark fable about guilt, fate, and the individual conscience.

An unnamed narrator in an unnamed country is a schoolteacher with “a safe job with a pension at the end of it.” But, when he reprimands a student for a racist comment, he is accused of “sabotage of the Fatherland,” and his students revolt. A murder follows, and the teacher must face his role in it, even if it costs him everything.

Horváth’s book both points to its immediate context—the brutalizing conformity of a totalitarian state, the emptiness of faith in the time of the National Socialists—and beyond, to the struggles of individuals everywhere against societies that offer material security in exchange for the abandonment of one’s convictions. Reminiscent of Camus’ The Stranger in its themes and its style, Youth Without God portrays a world of individual ruthlessness and collective numbness to the appeals of faith or morality.

And yet, a commitment to the truth lifts the teacher and a small band of like-minded students out of this deepening abyss. It’s a reminder that such commitment did exist in those troubled times—indeed, they’re what led the author to flee Germany, first for Austria, and then France, where he met his death in a tragic accident, just two years after the publication of Youth Without God. Long out of print, this new edition resurrects a bracing and still-disturbing vision.

This last book by Ödön von Horváth, one of the 20th-century’s great but forgotten writers, is a dark fable about guilt, fate, and the individual conscience.

An unnamed narrator…

Enjoying the comforts of his well-kept home, country doctor William Harrison is prevailed upon by his longtime friend Charles, a bachelor, to dispense some advice on the «wooing and winning» of women's affections. Lured to rural Duncombe by the promise of a partnership in a country practice, William finds himself trapped in claustrophobic provincial life where society is apparently presided over by the scheming of a set of under-occupied middle-aged women. Afterwards, the hapless young physician finds himself betrothed to three women - none of whom is the beautiful Sophy, the woman he truly desires.

Enjoying the comforts of his well-kept home, country doctor William Harrison is prevailed upon by his longtime friend Charles, a bachelor, to dispense some advice on the «wooing…

Uncle Fred believes he can achieve anything in the springtime. However, disguised as a loony-doctor and trying to prevent prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, from falling into the hands of the unscrupulous Duke of Dunstable, he is stretched to his limit.

Uncle Fred believes he can achieve anything in the springtime. However, disguised as a loony-doctor and trying to prevent prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, from falling into…

`there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.'

The idea of the superfluity of unmarried women was one the `New Woman' novels of the 1890s sought to challenge. But in The Odd Women (1893) Gissing satirizes the prevailing literary image of the `New Woman' and makes the point that unmarried women were generally viewed less as noble and romantic figures than as `odd' and marginal in relation to the ideal of womanhood itself. Set in grimy, fog-ridden London, these `odd' women range from the idealistic, financially self-sufficient Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn, who run a school to train young women in office skills for work, to the Madden sisters struggling to subsist in low-paid jobs and experiencing little comfort or pleasure in their lives. Yet it is for the youngest Madden sister's marriage that the novel reserves its most sinister critique.

With superb detachment Gissing captures contemporary society's ambivalence towards its own period of transition. The Odd Women is a novel engaged with all the major sexual and social issues of the late-nineteenth century. Judged by contemporary reviewers as equal to Zola and Ibsen, Gissing was seen to have produced an `intensely modern' work and it is perhaps for this reason that the issues it raises remain the subject of contemporary debate.

*Introduction *Textual Note *Bibliography *Chronology *Explanatory Notes *Map

`there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.'

The idea of the superfluity of unmarried…

The Library of America presents an exclusive e-book edition of the astonishing 1930 collection that introduced a major new voice in American literature. “If Katherine Anne Porter had written nothing but these short narratives," observed the New York Times, "she would be among the most distinguished masters of her craft in this country.”

The Library of America presents an exclusive e-book edition of the astonishing 1930 collection that introduced a major new voice in American literature. “If Katherine Anne Porter…

Robert Walser is an overwhelmingly original author with many ardent fans: J.M. Coetzee ("dazzling"), Guy Davenport ("a very special kind of whimsical-serious-deep writer"), and Hermann Hesse ("If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place"). Charged with compassion, and an utterly unique radiance of vision, Walser is as Susan Sontag exclaimed "a truly wonderful, heart-breaking writer."

The Assistant is his breathtaking 1908 novel, translated by award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky. Joseph, hired to become an inventor's new assistant, arrives one rainy Monday morning at Technical Engineer Karl Tobler's splendid hilltop villa: he is at once pleased and terribly worried, a state soon followed by even stickier psychological complexities. He enjoys the beautiful view over Lake Zurich, in the company of the proud wife, Frau Tobler, and the delicious savory meals. But does he deserve any of these pleasures? The Assistant chronicles Joseph's inner life of cascading emotions as he attempts, both frantically and light-heartedly, to help the Tobler household, even as it slides toward financial ruin. Tobler demands of Joseph, "Do you have your wits about you?!" And Joseph's wits are in fact all around him, trembling like leaves in the breeze—he is full of exuberance and despair, all the raptures and panics of a person "drowning in obedience."

Robert Walser is an overwhelmingly original author with many ardent fans: J.M. Coetzee ("dazzling"), Guy Davenport ("a very special kind of whimsical-serious-deep writer"), and…

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the…

In Isak Dinesen's universe, the magical enchantment of the fairy tale and the moral resonance of myth coexist with an unflinching grasp of the most obscure human strengths and weaknesses. A despairing author abandons his wife, but in the course of a long night's wandering, he learns love's true value and returns to her, only to find her a different woman than the one he left. A landowner, seeking to prove a principle, inadvertently exposes the ferocity of mother love. A wealthy young traveler melts the hauteur of a lovely woman by masquerading as her aged and loyal servant.

Shimmering and haunting, Dinesen's Winter's Tales transport us, through their author's deft guidance of our desire to imagine, to the mysterious place where all stories are born.

In Isak Dinesen's universe, the magical enchantment of the fairy tale and the moral resonance of myth coexist with an unflinching grasp of the most obscure human strengths and…

One day George Arthur Rose, hack writer and minor priest, discovers that he has been picked to be Pope. He is hardly surprised and not in the least daunted. "The previous English pontiff was Hadrian the Fourth," he declares. "The present English pontiff is Hadrian the Seventh. It pleases Us; and so, by Our own impulse, We command."Hadrian is conceived in the image of his creator, Fr. Rolfe, whose aristocratic pretensions (he called himself Baron Corvo), religious obsession, and anarchic and self-aggrandizing sensibility have made him known as one of the great English eccentrics. Fr. Rolfe endured a lifetime of indignities and disappointments. However, in the hilarious and touching pages of this, his finest novel, he triumphs.

One day George Arthur Rose, hack writer and minor priest, discovers that he has been picked to be Pope. He is hardly surprised and not in the least daunted. "The previous English…

In Mrs. Bridge, Evan S. Connell, a consummate storyteller, artfully crafts a portrait using the finest of details in everyday events and confrontations. With a surgeon’s skill, Connell cuts away the middle-class security blanket of uniformity to expose the arrested development underneath—the entropy of time and relationships lead Mrs. Bridge's three children and husband to recede into a remote silence, and she herself drifts further into doubt and confusion. The raised evening newspaper becomes almost a fire screen to deflect any possible spark of conversation. The novel is comprised of vignettes, images, fragments of conversations, events—all building powerfully toward the completed group portrait of a family, closely knit on the surface but deeply divided by loneliness, boredom, misunderstandings, isolation, sexual longing, and terminal isolation. In this special fiftieth anniversary edition, we are reminded once again why Mrs. Bridge has been hailed by readers and critics alike as one of the greatest novels in American literature.

In Mrs. Bridge, Evan S. Connell, a consummate storyteller, artfully crafts a portrait using the finest of details in everyday events and confrontations. With a surgeon’s skill,…

In his semiautobiographical novel, "Cyclops", Croatian writer Ranko Marinkovic recounts the adventures of young theatre critic Melkior Tresic, an archetypal antihero who decides to starve himself to avoid fighting in the front lines of World War II. As he wanders the streets of Zagreb in a near-hallucinatory state of paranoia and malnourishment, Melkior encounters a colourful circus of characters - fortune-tellers, shamans, actors, prostitutes, bohemians, and cafe intellectuals - all living in a fragile dream of a society about to be changed forever. A seminal work of postwar Eastern European literature, "Cyclops" reveals a little-known perspective on World War II from within the former Yugoslavia, one that has never before been available to an English-speaking audience. Vlada Stojiljkovic's able translation, improved by Ellen Elias-Bursac's insightful editing, preserves the striking brilliance of this riotously funny and densely allusive text. Along Melkior's journey "Cyclops" satirizes both the delusions of the righteous military officials who feed the national bloodlust as well as the wayward intellectuals who believe themselves to be above the unpleasant realities of international conflict. Through Stojiljkovic's clear-eyed translation, Melkior's peregrinations reveal how history happens and how the individual consciousness is swept up in the tide of political events, and this is accomplished in a mode that will resonate with readers of Charles Simic, Aleksandr Hemon, and Kundera.

In his semiautobiographical novel, "Cyclops", Croatian writer Ranko Marinkovic recounts the adventures of young theatre critic Melkior Tresic, an archetypal antihero who decides…

James Stephens (1882-1950) was an Irish novelist and poet who sometimes wrote under the pen name James Esse. James Stephens wrote many retellings of Irish fairy tales. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humour and lyricism. Stephens began his career as a poet under the tutelage of George William Russell.

James Stephens (1882-1950) was an Irish novelist and poet who sometimes wrote under the pen name James Esse. James Stephens wrote many retellings of Irish fairy tales. His…

Pregnant by accident, kicked out of home by her father, 27-year-old Jane Graham goes to ground in the sort of place she feels she deserves - a bug-ridden boarding-house attic in Fulham. She thinks she wants to hide from the world, but finds out that even at the bottom of the heap, friends and love can still be found, and self-respect is still worth fighting for.

Pregnant by accident, kicked out of home by her father, 27-year-old Jane Graham goes to ground in the sort of place she feels she deserves - a bug-ridden boarding-house attic in…

A young Dutch geologist, Alfred Issendorf, is determined to win fame for making a great discovery. To this end he joins a small geological expedition to the far north of Norway where he hopes to be the first to identify craters made by meteorites in the landscape.

It is a harsh and deserted environment, way beyond civilisation, which brings out all the faultlines in the group of young men and in Alfred's character. The tribulations mount: Alfred is unable to procure crucial aerial photographs, he falls on rocks, is soaked in a river, and is beset by mosquitoes and insomnia; the tent leaks appallingly. He is not a natural athlete, feeling incapable and superfluous to the group's needs. Alfred becomes desperate and paranoid, suspecting the others are leagued in conspiracy against him.

Haunted by the ghost of his scientist father, unable to escape the looming influence of his mother, and anxious to complete the thesis that will make his name, Alfred's preoccupations multiply in this wilderness. As, piece by piece, his equipment is lost or ruined and his thinking becomes ever more disjointed, he moves towards the final act of vanity which will trigger a catastrophe.

Sleep No More is a classic of post-war European literature; a gripping tale of a man at the limits of physical and mental endurance beyond the end of the civilised world.

A young Dutch geologist, Alfred Issendorf, is determined to win fame for making a great discovery. To this end he joins a small geological expedition to the far north of Norway…

Young, gay, William Beckwith spends his time, and his trust fund, idly cruising London for erotic encounters. When he saves the life of an elderly man in a public convenience an unlikely job opportunity presents itself - the man, Lord Nantwich, is seeking a biographer. Will agrees to take a look at Nantwich's diaries. But in the story he unravels, a tragedy of twentieth-century gay repression, lurk bitter truths about Will's own privileged existence.

Young, gay, William Beckwith spends his time, and his trust fund, idly cruising London for erotic encounters. When he saves the life of an elderly man in a public convenience an…

Доктор медицины Чарлз Спенсер Джемс имел и другую, весьма необычную ночную профессию.

On a blustery November day the King children and Sara, the Story Girl, come up with a great idea that will help them endure the dreary winter season. They will publish a magazine of their thoughts and adventures. From "Personals" and "Fashion Notes" to an etiquette column and stories of the most interesting happenings in Carlisle, Our Magazine is simply the most entertaining and delightful publication anyone in town has ever read. But seasons pass, and nothing is forever--and soon it will be time for the Story Girl to leave her good friends on Prince Edward Island, friends with whom she has walked the golden road of youth.

On a blustery November day the King children and Sara, the Story Girl, come up with a great idea that will help them endure the dreary winter season. They will publish a magazine…