A psychological self-portrait, a clear-eyed social study, and a profound meditation upon the artistic process, Marcel Proust's monumental, encyclopedic masterpiece A la recherché du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) changed the course of 20th-century literature. Swann's Way, the first volume, introduces the novel's major themes and its unnamed narrator, an introspective man drawn, in his youth, to fashionable society, ...
One of the most enduringly popular adventure tales, Treasure Island began in 1881 as a serialized adventure entitled «The Sea-Cook» in the periodical Young Folks. Completed during a stay at Davos, Switzerland, where Stevenson had gone for his health, it was published in 1883 in the form we know today.Set in the eighteenth century, Treasure Island spins a heady tale of piracy, a mysterious treasure map, and a host of sinister characters charged w ...
Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920) was an immediate, spectacular success and established his literary reputation. Perhaps the definitive novel of that «Lost Generation,» it tells the story of Amory Blaine, a handsome, wealthy Princeton student who halfheartedly involves himself in literary cults, «liberal» student activities, and a series of empty flirtations with young women. When he finally does fall truly in love, how ...
"A powerful rendition, an incomparable tale." — The New York Times"Definitely a book to preserve and cherish." — Chicago Sun"The first complete English edition, brilliantly translated. Throughout it retains the beauty and sense of fatality that have made it one of legendary literature's most fascinating tales." — TimeThis immortal tale from the Age of Chivalry concerns the doomed love between a knight and ...
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) spent much of his life at sea, and his experiences as a mariner deeply influenced his fiction. He set many of his finest stories aboard ship, where his characters — closely confined, enduring the rigors of the sea — might struggle more intensely with the psychological and moral issues that engaged him. This volume contains three of Conrad's most powerful stories in this genre: «Youth: ...
Praised by critics and studied by scholars, Jane Austen's novels endure because of their popularity with readers. The author's witty and astute observations elevate her tales of parties, gossip, and romance into matters of captivating drama, offering an evocative portrait of everyday life in the towns and countryside of Regency England. Austen's premature death at the age of forty-two curtailed her legacy, and her devotees have ea ...
Undoubtedly the best-known detective in literature, Sherlock Holmes was the creation of British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), who endowed his super sleuth with an extraordinary facility for solving crimes. Drawing on his remarkable powers of observation and deduction, coupled with an encyclopedic knowledge of crimes and criminals, Holmes seeks out his prey in the London underworld, where no evildoer is safe from his keen w ...
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) holds a unique place in American literature. Famous as a poet, he also penned short stories that are masterpieces of terror and suspense, infused with the horror and dread he knew from his feverish dreams and persistent fears of death. Fortunately for lovers of mystery, Poe was attracted by logic and analysis as well as fantasy. Fascinated by the narrative possibilities of tracking the perpetrator of a crime ...
Completed in the early 11th century, The Tale of Genji is considered the supreme masterpiece of Japanese prose literature, and one of the world's earliest novels. A work of great length, it comprises six parts, the first part of which (also called The Tale of Genji) is reprinted here. The exact origins of this remarkable saga of the nobility of Heian Japan remain somewhat obscured by time, although its author, Lady Shikibu Murasaki, presuma ...
