Зарубежная литература - Страница 231

Description

Little Fuzzy is a science fiction novel set on the planet Zarathustra, a world rich in natural resources being exploited by a huge chartered company from Earth. Jack Holloway is a free-lance sunstone miner working on the outskirts of civilization when he encounters a small, fuzzy animal which turns out to be remarkably intelligent. He soon begins to suspect that “Little Fuzzy” and his family are more than just clever animals, but in fact a new sapient alien species. Such a proposition is directly opposed to the interests of the chartered Zarathustra Company, and conflict ensues.

Published in 1962, Little Fuzzy rapidly gained popularity due to the charming nature of the little aliens and the well-handled tensions of the plot. It is today considered to be a classic of the genre, though perhaps considered to fall into the category of juvenile fiction. It was followed by a sequel, Fuzzy Sapiens in 1964.

Англия, 1549 год. После смерти Генриха VIII сыщик-адвокат Мэтью Шардлейк поступает на службу к младшей дочери почившего короля, юной Елизавете Тюдор, которая даже не подозревает, что в один прекрасный день ей предстоит стать королевой Англии. Наконец-то Шардлейк, уже немолодой и порядком уставший от придворных интриг, может вздохнуть свободно. Однако наслаждаться спокойной жизнью ему суждено недолго: Елизавета просит его поехать в Норидж и помочь Джону Болейну, дальнему родственнику своей покойной матери, которого обвиняют в злодейском убийстве жены. Мэтью отправляется в путь, ничуть не догадываясь, что ему суждено стать свидетелем роковых для королевства событий…

В мире литературных героев и в сознании сегодняшнего читателя образ Мэтью Шардлейка занимает почетное место в ряду с такими известными персонажами, как Шерлок Холмс, Эркюль Пуаро, Ниро Вулф и комиссар Мегрэ.

Впервые на русском!

Лули Круз несколько лет управляла делами бабушки мультимиллионера Габриеля Дина. После бабушки он вступает во владение наследством и обнаруживает, что Лули взломала код его компьютерной системы. Но вместо того, чтобы депортировать ее из страны, он решает жениться на ней…

Description

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a contemporary of Ludwig von Beethoven: a composer himself, a music critic, and a late-German-Romantic-movement writer of novels and numerous short stories. His incisive wit and poetic imagery allow the reader to peer into the foibles of society and the follies of human psychology. (In fact, Hoffmann’s wit may have gotten him into a bit of legal trouble, as parts of Master Flea were censored and had to be reworked when authorities disliked certain satirical criticisms of contemporary dealings of the court system.)

Join gentleman bachelor Peregrine Tyss as his life as a recluse takes a twist, when he gains an epic advantage of tiny proportions. Part proto-science-fiction and part Romantic fantasy, Master Flea follows the fate of a mysterious, captivating princess at the intersection of numerous suitors, human and insect. Like a lesson from a fable or a tale of classical mythology, Hoffmann’s fairy-tale allegory shows how seeking forbidden knowledge can poison the soul, and how following the heart can heal it.

Description

Vanity Fair is perhaps Thackeray’s most famous novel. First serialized over the course of 19 volumes in Punch Magazine and first printed as a single volume in 1849, the novel cemented Thackeray’s literary fame and kept him busy with frequent revisions and even lecture circuits.

The story is framed as a puppet play, narrated by an unreliable narrator, that presents the story of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley and the people in their lives as they struggle through the Napoleonic Wars. The story itself, like many other Thackeray novels, is a satire of the lives of the Victorian English of a certain class. Thackeray packed the novel with allusions, many of which were difficult even for his contemporary readers; part of the heavy revisions he later made were making the allusions more accessible to his evolving audience.

As part of his satirical bent, Thackeray made a point to make each character flawed, so that there are no “heroes” in the book—hence the subtitle “A Novel Without a Hero.” Thackeray’s goal was not only to entertain, but to instruct; to that end, he wanted the reader to look within themselves after finishing the unhappy conclusion, in which there’s no hint as to how society might be able to improve on the evils shadowed in the events of novel.

Vanity Fair received glowing praise by its critical contemporaries, and remains a popular book well into modern times, having been adapted repeatedly for film, radio, and television.

Description

No Name is set in England during the 1840s. It follows the fortunes of two sisters, Magdalen Vanstone and her older sister Norah. Their comfortable upper-middle-class lives are shockingly disrupted when, after the sudden deaths of their parents, they discover that they are disinherited and left without either name or fortune. The headstrong Magdalen vows to recover their inheritance, by fair means or foul. Her increasing desperation makes her vulnerable to a wily confidence trickster, Captain Wragge, who promises to assist her in return for a cut of the profits.

No Name was published in serial form like many of Wilkie Collins’ other works. They were tremendously popular in their time, with long queues forming awaiting the publication of each episode. Though not as well known as his The Woman in White and The Moonstone, No Name is their equal in boasting a gripping plot and strong women characters (a rarity in the Victorian era). Collins’ mentor Charles Dickens is on record as considering it to be far the superior of The Woman in White.

Description

Crime and Punishment tells the story of Rodion Raskolnikov, an ex-student who plans to murder a pawnbroker to test his theory of personality. Having accomplished the deed, Raskolnikov struggles with mental anguish while trying to both avoid the consequences and hide his guilt from his friends and family.

Dostoevsky’s original idea for the novel centered on the Marmeladov family and the impact of alcoholism in Russia, but inspired by a double murder in France he decided to rework it around the new character of Raskolnikov. The novel was first serialized in The Russian Messenger over the course of 1866, where it was an instant success. It was published in a single volume in 1867. Presented here is Constance Garnett’s 1914 translation.

Description

Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton’s crime-solving Catholic priest, is back in this second collection of Father Brown short stories.

In this collection, Brown is joined by his sidekick, the former arch-criminal Flambeau. Brown is directly involved in the investigations less frequently than in The Innocence of Father Brown, and several of the stories don’t even feature murder. Despite this, the shorts each feature Brown solving a mystery using his characteristic insight into human nature and morality.

The stories in this collection were initially published in various serials, including McClure’s Magazine and The Pall Mall Magazine. Chesterton arranged them in this collection almost in order of publication.

Description

The Woman in White tells the story of Walter Hartright, a young and impoverished drawing teacher who falls in love with his aristocratic pupil, Laura Fairlie. He cannot hope to marry her, however, and she is married off against her will to a baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, who is seeking her fortune. The terms of her marriage settlement prevent Glyde accessing her money while she lives, so together with his deceptively charming and cunning friend, Count Fosco, they hatch an unscrupulous deception to do so nonetheless. In an early 19th Century version of “identity theft,” they contrive to fake Laura’s death and confine her to a mental asylum. Their plot is eventually uncovered and exposed by Hartright with the help of Laura’s resourceful half-sister, Marian Halcombe.

The Woman in White was the most popular of Wilkie Collins’ novels in the genre then known as “sensation fiction.” It has never been out of print and is frequently included in lists of the best novels of all time. Published initially in serial form in 1859–60, it achieved an early and remarkable following, probably because of the strength of its characters, in particular the smooth and charming but utterly wicked villain Count Fosco, and the intelligent and steadfast Marian Halcombe opposed to him.

Description

Poetry of T. S. Eliot collects all of his early work through “The Hollow Men.” Poems like “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Whispers of Immortality,” and “Gerontion” ponder aging and mortality, while “Sweeney Erect,” “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Service,” and “Sweeney Among the Nightingales” sketch the temptations and agonies of the modern man in the character of Sweeney.

Woven throughout with allusions to works in six foreign languages and sporting over fifty footnotes by the author, “The Waste Land” is as notorious for its bleak picture of a post-war world as it is for its density and difficulty. “The Hollow Men” ends with one of the most famous stanzas in English poetry.

Eliot’s flashes of insight bring the everyday into stark relief. Whether suffering an insufferable bore, observing the lives of strangers on the streets, or juxtaposing the sacred and the profane, his sometimes autobiographical vignettes of modern life still feel current a century after they were penned.