*The Razor’s Edge* is a true study of the mores of early 20th-century European and American society. The novel features perhaps the most vivid characters ever created by Somerset Maugham. Larry Darrell is a young American in search of life’s meaning. Isabel, his fiancée, faces a difficult choice between love and wealth, social convention and the desire to live life on her own terms. Elliott...

For millions of readers worldwide, the Paris of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ will forever remain ‘Hemingway’s Paris’—a city where one could live, work, and be happy without a penny to one’s name. For decades, this work was published based on the 1964 edition, which appeared three years after the author's death. However, the author's son and grandson, Patrick and Seán, undertook a massive effort to...

This collection includes three plays by George Bernard Shaw. Foremost among them is *Pygmalion* (1912), which has inspired numerous film adaptations and the legendary Broadway musical *My Fair Lady*. The plot is based on the ancient Greek myth of a sculptor striving to bring a beautiful statue he has created to life; in Shaw’s play, the protagonist attempts to transform a simple flower girl...

*Doctor Faustus* (1943) is a seminal work by Thomas Mann and one of the most significant books of the 20th century. Under Mann’s pen, the old German legend of Doctor Johann Faustus—who sold his soul to the Devil not for money or fame, but for absolute knowledge—is transformed into a mysterious parable-like novel about the talented young composer Leverkühn. Whether in reality or merely in his...

The second part of this popular Russian language course for adults is designed for learners progressing from the Basic to the First Level (A2–B1). The textbook is intended for an average of 80–120 hours of study. Its aim is to facilitate the rapid acquisition of various language aspects and speech skills. The textbook integrates grammar and conversational practice. (TBU–TORFL-1 / A2–B1)

Jack London was a master storyteller and one of the world's most popular American writers. His books are filled with thrilling adventures, rugged romance, and noble sentiments that remain with his characters even through the harshest trials. This is especially true of his works set in the American North—a region where the author himself experienced perilous adventures and about which he wrote...

A young university student named Jurek, with no particular ambitions or talents, is adrift. After his doting aunt asks him to perform a small chore, he decides to kill her for no good reason other than, perhaps, boredom. Killing Auntie follows Jurek as he seeks to dispose of the corpse?a task more difficult than one might imagine?and then falls in love with a girl he meets on a train. Can he...

The Soviet and post-Soviet world, with its untold multitude of crimes, is a natural breeding ground for ghost stories. No one writes them more movingly than Russian author Sergei Lebedev, who in this stunning volume probes a collective guilty conscience marked by otherworldliness and the denial of misdeeds. These eleven tales share a mystical topography in which the legacy of totalitarian...

A.I. Kuprin began writing the story 'The Pit' in 1909 and completed the work six years later. The book about the life of prostitutes evoked more condemnation than sympathy or understanding. The author was accused of immorality and excessive naturalism. The attitude to the story by Leo Tolstoy (by the way, the author of the scandalous 'Kreutzer Sonata') was sharply negative. ... And as if in...

The novel *Oblomov* represents the pinnacle of I. A. Goncharov’s literary career. Published in 1859, it elicited a mixed response from critics. Goncharov not only portrayed a remarkable and paradoxical type of Russian character but also turned the name into a household term, defining this specific lifestyle as ‘Oblomovism.’ Some viewed Oblomov as a symbol of Russia’s stagnation and a sign of...