Set in a boarding school in a remote area of the Habsburg Empire at the turn of the last century, The Confusions of Young Torless is an intense study of an adolescent's psychological development as he struggles to come to terms with his conflicting emotions. Through his relationship with two other boys Torless is led into sadistic and sexual encounters with a third pupil which both repel and...

For more than a century, this wonderful book by Mark Twain has been equally warmly received by more and more generations of readers, remaining timeless. And this is not surprising, because it has everything that so captivates the reader - the romance of adventure, a plot with unexpected twists, lively humor and even the experiences of the young hero. It turned out to be so real because, as the...

Having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Germany in 1937, and later a camp in Rouen, the nameless twenty-seven-year-old German narrator of Seghers’s multilayered masterpiece ends up in the dusty seaport of Marseille. Along the way he is asked to deliver a letter to a man named Weidel in Paris and discovers Weidel has committed suicide, leaving behind a suitcase containing letters and...

Wie alle Hauptwerke Hermann Hesses hat auch der Demian, den der damals 40jährige Autor mitten im Ersten Weltkrieg schrieb, eine ebenso ungewöhnliche wie spannende Entstehungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte. Daß dieses im Herbst 1917 vollendete Buch erst im Juni 1919, ein halbes Jahr nach Kriegsende, veröffentlicht wurde, lag an der Unbekanntheit des Verfassers. Denn Hesse hatte das Manuskript dem...

»Harry Haller ist in das kulturlose und unmenschliche Inferno unserer prunkenden und lärmenden Gegenwart vorgedrungen und steht mit seinem Begriff von Menschenwert… einsam außerhalb der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Seine Sehnsucht kennt eine unerreichbare Wirklichkeit: seine Verzweiflung treibt ihn zuweilen in die erreichbare andere zurück. Lust und Enttäuschung ihres Daseins führen in seinem...

Fantastic creatures, heroic deeds, epic battles in the war between good and evil, and unforgettable adventures come together in this world where magic meets reality, which has been enchanting readers of all ages for over sixty years. The Chronicles of Narnia has transcended the fantasy genre to become a part of the canon of classic literature.

Heinrich Düring, Gemeindebeamter in Fallingbostel, führt ein Doppelleben: Er verachtet das NS-Regime und den Alltag des deutschen Kleinbürgertums, nach außen aber gibt er sich angepasst. Seinen Ausgleich findet er in der Natur, durchstreift unermüdlich die geliebte Heidelandschaft, liest Wieland und Tieck. Im Wald entdeckt er eine Hütte und bezieht sie als Versteck für sich und seine...

A collection of short stories.

The novel The Idiot (1868) was conceived and written by Dostoevsky in Switzerland, the homeland of the great enlightener Rousseau, and therefore it is appropriate to recall his contemporary Voltaire, the author of The Innocent, a book that was one of the first attempts to show the 'ideal person' in this imperfect world. 'The main idea ... - wrote Dostoevsky about his novel, - is to portray a...

This collection includes stories by I. S. Turgenev from 1854–1860: ‘The Calm,’ ‘Correspondence,’ ‘Yakov Pasynkov,’ ‘Faust,’ ‘Asya,’ and ‘First Love.’ The book's content is determined not only by chronological order but also by the internal connection between these works—the theme of love. Turgenev temporarily leaves man alone with the profound, the primordial, and the eternal, revealing within...

The novel MOTHER, one of Gorky’s most popular works, was based on the mass demonstration of 1902 in the city of Sormovo. Hence, an exciting plot based on real events, with a sharp political struggle, secret gatherings, searches, arrests, and the selfless heroism of the protagonist-revolutionary Pavel Vlasov. However, the central image in the novel is Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova, the mother of the...