Klasika

Díla Ladislava Fukse bývají charakterizována jako psychologická próza zaměřená na téma úzkosti a zla v totalitních systémech. Autor je u nás i v zahraničí známý zpracováním tématu holocaustu (Spalovač mrtvol, Pan Theodor Mundstock). Myši Natálie Mooshabrové jsou prvním Fuksovým románem, ve kterém pracuje s novou tematikou a s prvky žánrů sci-fi a alegorie. Specifický humor, směs hororu i grotesky, pohádky i absurdního dramatu vytvářejí intenzivní atmosféru strachu a nejistoty, kterou umocňují bizarní protiklady hvězdoletů a koňských povozů či sofistikované byrokracie a stánků s pivo limo. Kniha byla rozpracována před okupací Československa v roce 1968, ale vydána až počátkem sedmdesátých let. První překlad díla do angli

This Side of Paradise tells the story of Amory Blaine, the only child of wealthy parents, whose journey from adolescence to adulthood follows him from prep school through to Princeton University, where his literary talents flourish, in contrast to his academic failure. A sequence of love affairs with beautiful young women are fatally damaged by the collapse of his family's fortune, and the novel ends with him poised to face the challenge of making his own way in the world. Composed in an unconventional narrative mode, the novel is a rich fusion of satiric and romance idioms, and found a captivated audience on its publication in1920. It made Fitzgerald rich and famous overnight.

The Beautiful and Damned is a bleaker version of the corrosive power of wealth and its privileges

The heir to his grandfather's considerable fortune, Anthony Patch is led astray from the path to gainful employment by the temptations and distractions of the 1920s Jazz Age. His descent into dissolution and profligacy is accelerated by his marriage to the attractive but turbulent Gloria, and the couple soon discover the dangerous flip side of a life of glamour and debauchery.

Published a year after The Great Gatsby, this short-story collection showcases many of the celebrated novel's themes, as well as its unique writing style. Two of the most famous tales, the beautifully elegiac 'The Rich Boy' and 'Winter Dreams', deal with wealthy protagonists - the old-money Anson Hunter and the self-made man Dexter Green - as they come to terms with lost love; while 'Absolution', in which a boy confesses to a priest, was initially written as a background piece to The Great Gatsby.

The Great War changes everything. In this epic tale, spanning over a decade, war turns the world of privileged, English aristocrat Christopher Tietjens upside down. It forces him to question everything he holds dear - social order, morality, marriage and loyalty. And it rocks the very foundations of English society. This is a powerful story about love, betrayal and disillusionment in a time of horror and confusion by one of Britain's finest novelists. Ford Madox Ford's monumental novel came to our screens in August 2012 as a major BBC adaptation, with a screenplay by the legendary playwright Tom Stoppard and a stellar cast that included Benedict Cumberbatch. This edition of the novel includes all four parts, originally published separately between 1924 and 1928.

Bringing to life the subterfuge and double-dealing of Roman nobility, Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" brings the ancient world to life with startling clarity and meticulous realism. This "Penguin Modern Classics" edition is a includes an introduction by Barry Unsworth. Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In "I, Claudius" he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors: from the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia to the sadistic Tiberius and the insane excesses of Caligula. Written in the form of Claudius' autobiography, this is the first part of Robert Graves' brilliant account of the m

The hit BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, offers a fresh, contemporary take on the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and has helped introduce a whole new generation of fans to the legendary detective. In this new edition of Conan Doyle's first collection of short stories, Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss explains how these gripping tales inspired and influenced the new series. Sherlock: The Adventures contains twelve short stories first published in The Strand magazine between 1891 and 1892 and then published as a collection in October 1892. It includes some of Conan Doyle's best tales of murder and mystery, such as 'The Adventures of the Speckled Band', in which the strange last words of a dying woman 'It was the band, the speckled band!' and an inexplicable whi

Playful and provocative, irreverent and inspiring, Capek is perhaps the best-loved Czech writer of all time. Novelist and playwright, famed for inventing the word 'robot' in his play "RUR", Capek was a vital part of the burgeoning artistic scene of Czechoslovakia of the 1920s and 30s. But it is in his journalism - his brief, sparky and delightful columns - that Capek can be found at his most succinct, direct and appealing. This selection of Capek's writing, translated into English for the first time, contains his essential ideas. The pieces are animated by his passion for the ordinary and the everyday - from laundry to toothache, from cats to cleaning windows - his love of language, his lyrical observations of the world and above all his humanism, his belief in people. His letters to h

Part of "Penguin's" beautiful hardback "Clothbound Classics" series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The novel was a succes de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against "Wilde at the Old Bailey" in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.

When this volume of Shakespeare's poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The 154 sonnets - all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man or a treacherous 'dark lady' - contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. Also included is "A Lover's Complaint", originally published with the sonnets, in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.

The third volume of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small Training as an RAF pilot in the smoke and bustle of London is a far cry from James Herriot's day job as a country vet in the Yorkshire Dales. And while he is keen to serve Queen and country, James cannot help but miss his life in Darrowby -- despite frequent arguments between his colleagues, ornery cattle and equally ornery farmers, and the continuing saga of Cedric the flatulent dog. But most of all he misses his wife Helen; pregnant with their first child. The question is constantly hanging over him -- will he be going to war? And when will he get to go home? Since they were first published, James Herriot's memoirs have sold millions of copies and entranced generations of animal love

This is the "Penguin English Library Edition" of "Barnaby Rudge" by Charles Dickens "I dreamed...I dreamed just now that something - it was in the shape of a man - followed me - came softly to me - wouldn't let me be - but was always hiding and crouching, like a cat in dark corners, waiting till I should pass; when it crept out and came softly after me..." Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Charles Dickens' novel "Barnaby Rudge" is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Ba