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.

Three immortal masterpieces of world drama, translated into all major languages, belonging to the golden fund of literature of all times and peoples, and still performed on the best stages of the world today and adapted for the screen a total of 43 times (including in our country). The dramatic poem ‘Peer Gynt,’ with its whimsical combination of reality and mysticism, social satire, and...

By the time Frances Hodgson Burnett began writing ‘The Secret Garden,’ she had already built a highly successful literary career spanning several decades. She had several highly successful books to her name, the most successful of which, ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’ sold hundreds of thousands of copies on both sides of the Atlantic. However, none of the author's previous works could compare in...

Even during his lifetime, Albert Camus was called the ‘Conscience of the West,’ and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for ‘his important literary work, which with clear seriousness illuminates the problems of human conscience in our time.’ Camus's rejection of cruelty and violence is evident in both his life and his works. In his essay ‘Reflections on the Guillotine,’ published when capital...

Born into a Jewish family and a communist, Anna Seghers immediately attracted the attention of the Gestapo after Hitler came to power. Her books were burned, and the writer herself was forced to emigrate to France, becoming a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime. With the outbreak of war, Seghers spent a year in Marseille waiting for a visa to Mexico. The novel ‘Transit’ is largely based on...

Immanuel Kant is the greatest philosopher of Western Europe, one of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment, the founder of German classical philosophy, the founder of critical idealism, who made a decisive contribution to the development of the European philosophical tradition. ‘Critique of Practical Reason’ is Immanuel Kant's main ethical treatise, which develops the ideas of his...

Pushkin's great novel in verse, ‘Eugene Onegin,’ seems simple and straightforward, but this is deceptive. In reality, its text holds many mysteries, the meaning of which often eludes the modern reader. Numerous allusions, hidden references, a multitude of people, concepts, and objects that were obvious to people of that era but are now unknown to the general public – all this does not...

Nietzsche's mature masterpiece, Beyond Good and Evil considers the origins and nature of Judeo-Christian morality; the end of philosophical dogmatism and beginning of perspectivism; the questionable virtues of science and scholarship; liberal democracy, nationalism, and women's emancipation.