The master of the novella, Prosper Mérimée, created some of the most vivid characters in world literature, combining captivating plots with historically and ethnographically accurate descriptions of Corsican and Spanish life. This edition includes his best novellas, among them ‘Mateo Falcone,’ ‘The Game of Backgammon,’ ‘Colomba,’ and, of course, the famous ‘Carmen.’

The collection includes Kafka's most famous ‘short’ works from different years. Here you will find the so-called Kafkaesque nightmares – ‘The Metamorphosis,’ ‘In the Penal Colony,’ elegant parables, satirical stories and miniatures, as well as diary entries.

His feelings for the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská became the most vivid experience in the life of the ‘Prague genius.’ Their romance didn't last long, but their correspondence continued for several years. It was to Milena that the writer entrusted his diaries and the later famous ‘Letter to his Father,’ and their complex, emotional relationship was reflected in Kafka's main work – the...

The short novel ‘Heart of Darkness’ was first published in 1902 and caused a major upheaval in English-language literature, of which it is still considered a classic, and Francis Ford Coppola's film ‘Apocalypse Now,’ based on it, was and remains one of the most powerful works in the history of world cinema. Young Captain Marlow sails up the Congo River, through the wild African jungle, full...

‘A Room of One's Own’ is a famous essay based on lectures Woolf gave at Newnham College and Girton College – two women's colleges at Cambridge University – in October 1928. In it, she addresses all women engaged in literature and recalls her great predecessors – Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot – who were forced to write in the common living room, hide their manuscripts from...

The Brothers Grimm were the first compilers of a German dictionary, outstanding linguists, and, of course, some of the most famous and widely read fairy tale writers. Over many years of painstaking work, they collected and recorded more than two hundred fairy tales and legends, which are read and reread all over the world. The uniqueness of these tales lies in the fact that they are equally...

Written as an eloquent defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, this great theological and philosophical work by St Augustine, bishop of Hippo, examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends worldly politics and will last...

Moby-Dick still stands as an indisputable literary classic. It is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary populated with several...

This collection includes immortal masterpieces of ancient comedy – such as ‘The Birds’ and ‘The Clouds,’ ‘Lysistrata’ and ‘The Frogs,’ ‘The Two Menaechmi,’ ‘The Grouch,’ and ‘The Girl from Andros.’ And although the plots of these magnificent comedies transport us to the distant past, the characters and human types described in them are just as familiar to us today as they were to the...

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive...

Written during the turmoil of the English Civil War, Leviathan is an ambitious and highly original work of political philosophy. Claiming that man's essential nature is competitive and selfish, Hobbes formulates the case for a powerful sovereign—or Leviathan—to enforce peace and the law, substituting security for the anarchic freedom he believed human beings would otherwise experience. This...

‘The Three Musketeers’ is the most famous historical adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, telling the story of the dangerous and exciting adventures of the brave Gascon d'Artagnan, the noble Athos, the cheerful Porthos, and the mysterious Aramis.