Серия книг «Modern Classics» — 65 книг

Lise has been driven to distraction by working in the same accountants` office for sixteen years. So she leaves everything behind her, transforms herself into a laughing, garishly-dressed temptress and flies abroad on the holiday of a lifetime. But her search for adventure, sex and the obsessional experience takes on a far darker significance.

Lise has been driven to distraction by working in the same accountants` office for sixteen years. So she leaves everything behind her, transforms herself into a laughing,…

Mr. Joyboy, an embalmer, and Aimee Thanatogenos, crematorium cosmetician, find their romance complicated by the appearance of a young English poet.

Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the "New York Herald Tribune". This rare opportunity took the famous travelers not only to Moscow and Stalingrad - now Volgograd - but through the countryside of the Ukraine and the Caucasus. A "Russian Journal" is the distillation of their journey and remains a remarkable memoir and unique historical document. Steinbeck and Capa recorded the grim realities of factory workers, government clerks, and peasants, as they emerged from the rubble of World War II. This is an intimate glimpses of two artists at the height of their powers, answering their need to document human struggle.

Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the "New York Herald…

Told with great lyrical beauty and power, James Agee's novel is an exquisitely tender account of the pain and bewilderment of loss.
Driving back home to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1915 after tending to a family emergency, Jay Follet is killed in a car accident. He leaves behind a wife and two small children, who must come to terms with his absence as the days after his death slowly unfold. "A Death in the Family" interweaves the thoughts of Jay's loved ones - from his wife, Mary, struggling to cope and take comfort from her religion, to his six-year-old son, Rufus, bewildered by the mysteries of the adult world and clinging to fragile childhood pleasures.

Told with great lyrical beauty and power, James Agee's novel is an exquisitely tender account of the pain and bewilderment of loss.
Driving back home to Knoxville, Tennessee, in…

'Speak, memory' said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on and of grand old houses in St Petersburg and the surrounding countryside in pre-revolutionary Russia. Young love, butterflies, tutors and a multitude of other themes thread together to weave an autobiography which is itself a work of art.
This Penguin Modern Classic edition contains an appendix, 'Chapter sixteen', a pseudo-review written by Nabokov in 1950 but only now published for the first time in paperback.
Speak, Memory was first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised and republished in 1966 under the title Speak Memory, an Autobiography Revisited.

'Speak, memory' said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his…

Ultramarine, the first published novel by Malcolm Lowry, tells the story of a young man's disillusioned coming of age at sea. Much of the raw material for the novel comes from notebooks Lowry kept during his own stint as a deckhand. Dana Hilliot, the young Lowryesque hero, faces the contempt of many of his fellow seamen, who view him as a spoiled upper-class poser incapable of doing a real man's work. He affects a grimly stoic front while engaging in elaborate fantasies of revenge. Lowry's description of life at sea reveals the boredom and discomfort of a long voyage, relieved only by exhausting labor, sudden danger, and occasional nights of drinking and whoring ashore. His young hero's Conrad and Melville-inspired dreams of adventure at sea are replaced by the grimy reality of a deckhand's daily life. The realistic dialogue, the description of the sea and the port cities, and the hero's fevered inner monologue hint at the richness of language that was to inform Lowry's greatest novel, Under the Volcano. The young hero's moral agonies as he struggles to remain faithful to his fiancee at home may seem comically overwrought to present-day readers, but Ultramarine's rewards certainly outweigh its few flaws. This work of Lowry's youth shows an unruly genius already testing its limits

Ultramarine, the first published novel by Malcolm Lowry, tells the story of a young man's disillusioned coming of age at sea. Much of the raw material for the novel comes from…

The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident – a man who has lost his face and, with it, connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him. His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self – a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity, and the social contract, The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.

The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident – a man who has lost his face and, with it, connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by…

Tennessee Williams's famous and controversial Hollywood screenplay "Baby Doll" opens with Archie Lee's teenage bride driving him to distraction, as she has refused to consummate their marriage until the day of her twentieth birthday. Enter wily Sicilian Silva Vaccaro, Archie's rival both in the cotton business and for the fluffy affections of flirtatious Baby Doll, and the steamy tension rapidly reaches breaking-point. "Make no mistake about it", wrote John Osborne, "this Baby Doll kid is a killer".

Формат: 13 см x 20 см.

Tennessee Williams's famous and controversial Hollywood screenplay "Baby Doll" opens with Archie Lee's teenage bride driving him to distraction, as she has refused to consummate…

When "Lolita" was first published in 1955 it created a sensation and established Nabokov as one of the most original prose writers of the twentieth century.
This annotated edition, a revised and considerably expanded version of the 1970 edition, does full justice to the textual riches of "Lolita", illuminating the elaborate verbal textures and showing how they contribute to the novel's overall meaning. Alfred Appel, Jr. also provides fresh observations on the novel's artifice, games and verbal patternings and a delightful biographical vignette of Nabokov. The annotations themselves were prepared in consultation with Nabokov while newly identified allusions were confirmed by him during the final years of his life.

When "Lolita" was first published in 1955 it created a sensation and established Nabokov as one of the most original prose writers of the twentieth century.
This annotated…

Spain's greatest and most well-loved modern poet, Lorca has long been admired for the emotional intensity and dark brilliance of his work, which drew on music, drama, mythology and the songs of his Andulucian childhood. From the playful "Suites" and stylized "Gypsy Ballads", to his own dark vision of urban life, "Poet in New York", and his elegaic meditation on death, "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias"; his range was remarkable. This bilingual edition provides versions by distinguished poets and translators, drawing on every book of poems published by Lorca and on his uncollected works.

Spain's greatest and most well-loved modern poet, Lorca has long been admired for the emotional intensity and dark brilliance of his work, which drew on music, drama, mythology…

Flora Thompson's immortal trilogy, containing "Lark Rise", "Over To Candleford" and "Candleford Green", is a heartwarming portrayal of country life at the close of the 19th century. This story of three closely related Oxfordshire communities - a hamlet, the nearby village and a small market town - is based on the author's experiences during childhood and youth. It chronicles May Day celebrations and forgotten children's games, the daily lives of farmworkers and craftsmen, friends and relations - all painted with a gaiety and freshness of observation that make this trilogy an evocative and sensitive memorial to Victorian rural England.

Flora Thompson's immortal trilogy, containing "Lark Rise", "Over To Candleford" and "Candleford Green", is a heartwarming portrayal of country life at the close of the 19th…

The most popular of Virginia Woolf's novels during her lifetime, "The Years" is a savage indictment of British society at the turn of the century, edited with an introduction and notes by Jeri Johnson in "Penguin Modern Classics". "The Years" is the story of three generations of the Pargiter family - their intimacies and estrangements, anxieties and triumphs - mapped out against the bustling rhythms of London's streets during the first decades of the twentieth century. Growing up in a typically Victorian household, the Pargiter children must learn to find their footing in an alternative world, where the rules of etiquette have shifted from the drawing-room to the air-raid shelter. A work of fluid and dazzling lucidity, "The Years" eschews a simple line of development in favour of a varied and constantly changing style, emphasises the radical discontinuity of personal experiences and historical events. Virginia Woolf's penultimate novel celebrates the resilience of the individual self and, in her dazzlingly fluid and distinctive voice, she confidently paints a broad canvas across time, generation and class. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of "The Bloomsbury Group". This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from "Mrs Dalloway" (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel "The Waves" (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive "Orlando" (1928) and "A Room of One's Own" (1929) a passionate feminist essay. If you enjoyed "The Years", you might also like Ford Madox Ford's "Parade's End", also available in "Penguin Classics".

The most popular of Virginia Woolf's novels during her lifetime, "The Years" is a savage indictment of British society at the turn of the century, edited with an introduction and…

This play, written during Brecht's exile to the United States and set in pre-Communist China, is a parable of a young woman torn between obligation and reality, between love and practicality, and between her own needs and those of her friends and neighbours.

This play, written during Brecht's exile to the United States and set in pre-Communist China, is a parable of a young woman torn between obligation and reality, between love and…

A brilliantly malicious expose of the literary jet-set, when "Answered Prayers" first appeared in excerpts in Esquire magazine it outraged Capote's society friends, who recognized thinly veiled portraits of themselves in these scandalous fictional "memoirs".
P.B.Jones is the amoral, bisexual protagonist of this great, unfinished novel, who discovers that bed-hopping rather than literary ability is the way to get published. Living by his wits and his charm, Jones makes his way through the exotic boudoirs of the glitterati - only to discover that the prayers that are answered cause more pain than those that remain ignored.

Формат издания: 13 см х 20 см.

A brilliantly malicious expose of the literary jet-set, when "Answered Prayers" first appeared in excerpts in Esquire magazine it outraged Capote's society friends, who recognized…

For Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings, and 'it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning'. Picasso was there with 'his high whinnying Spanish giggle', as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - "The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me".

For Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings, and 'it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning'.…

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's. And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's. And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia…

A new translation of Sartre's celebrated first novel. Written in 1938, Nausea remains one of the peaks of Sartre's achievement. It is a novel of the alienation of personality and the mystery of being, and presents us with the first full-length essay in the philosophy for which Sartre has since become famous. Nausea is a novel of brilliant observation, wit, and psychological penetration by one of the world's front-rank intellectuals.

A new translation of Sartre's celebrated first novel. Written in 1938, Nausea remains one of the peaks of Sartre's achievement. It is a novel of the alienation of personality and…

Bigger Thomas, sullen young black boy, has to die in the electric chair before he can feel alive. He has to kill before he finds a reason to live - kill the only people who had ever reached for his lost soul, a rich white girl who believed in equality and a poor black girl who accepted that there was none. He ached and fought for something in his life, but never knew the words for what he sought, and it takes a white lawyer, defending him atthe point of death from a white mob, to give him those words.
'Our future seems a living image of violence. The feeling of resentment and the longing for some kind of fulfilment and exultation stalk day by day through this land. Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?' But all this was forty years ago - an eerie, long-ago foreshadowing of a time when the names of Bobby Seale, George Jackson and Angela Davis of Watts, Newark or Soledad would ring more stridently than any Bigger Thomas in depression-rid Chicago.
For no one listened then, either.

Bigger Thomas, sullen young black boy, has to die in the electric chair before he can feel alive. He has to kill before he finds a reason to live - kill the only people who had…

Anna of the Five Towns is a novel by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1902 and one of his best-known works. The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna's struggle for freedom and independence against her father's restraints, and her inward battle between wanting to please her father and wanting to help Willie Price whose father, Titus Price, commits suicide after falling into bankruptcy and debt.

Anna of the Five Towns is a novel by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1902 and one of his best-known works. The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but…

When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year with each. The parents are immoral and frivolous, and they use Maisie to intensify their hatred of each other. Beale Farange marries Miss Overmore, Maisie's pretty governess, while Ida marries the likeable but weak Sir Claude. Maisie gets a new governess: the frumpy, somewhat-ridiculous but devoted Mrs. Wix. Both Ida and Beale soon cheat on their spouses; in turn, Claude and the new Mrs. Farange begin an affair with each other. Maisie's parents essentially abandon her and she becomes largely the responsibility of Sir Claude. Eventually, Maisie must decide if she wants to remain with Sir Claude and Mrs. Farange. In the book's long final section set in France, the older (probably teenaged) Maisie struggles to choose between them and Mrs Wix, and concludes that her new parents' relationship will likely end as her biological parents' did. She leaves them and goes to stay with Mrs. Wix, her most reliable adult guardian.

When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year…