Alma Books The Captain's Daughter and A History of Pugachov Пушкин Александр Сергеевич

Sara, the American wife of a French aristocrat, has had two encounters with her compatriot Cedric Killian, one a youthful idyll in North Carolina and the other during the First World War, when he was a soldier about to go to battle. When, years later and after the death of her husband, Cedric contacts her out of the blue, Sara finds herself eager to see him again – against the wishes of her in-laws – and to find out the secret of this man she loves yet knows so little about • A poignant tale of thwarted love, ‘The Intimate Strangers’ explores many of Fitzgerald’s favourite themes, such as the constraints of society on romance and the American fascination for Old Europe. This volume also includes other lesser-known stories he wrote from the mid-1930s until the end of his life, revealing new facets to the author of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night

When her wealthy family prepares to host a lavish summer party, the young, hitherto sheltered Laura Sheridan suddenly feels a kinship with the staff and the helpers hired to set up the venue for the festivities. As she learns of the death of one of their working-class neighbours, this burgeoning sense of class consciousness is heightened by a realization of her own mortality • Published in 1922, at the height of literary modernism, ‘The Garden Party’ is now considered one of the key texts of that movement. This volume, which also includes a wide selection of Katherine Mansfield’s other short stories, is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to discover one of the early twentieth century’s finest writers • Contains: ‘Prelude’, ‘Je ne parle pas francais’, ‘Bliss’, ‘The Wind Blows’, ‘Psychology’, ‘Pictures’, ‘The Man without a Temperament’, ‘Mr Reginald Peacock’s Day’, ‘Sun and Moon’, ‘Feuille d’album’, ‘A Dill Pickle’, ‘The Little Governess’, ‘Revelations’, ‘The Escape’, ‘The Garden Party’, ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’, ‘The Doll’s House’, ‘The Fly’, ‘Germans at Meat’, ‘The Baron’, ‘The Sister of the Baroness’, ‘Frau Fischer’, ‘Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding’, ‘The Modern Soul’, ‘At Lehmann’s’, ‘The Luftbad’, ‘A Birthday’, ‘The Child-Who-Was-Tired’, ‘The Advanced Lady’, ‘The Swing of the Pendulum’ and ‘A Blaze’

Inspired by a box of wooden toy soldiers given as a present to her elder brother Branwell in 1826, Charlotte Bronte created, together with her siblings, a series of tales set in the imaginary realm of Glass Town. In 'The Green Dwarf', against the backdrop of war, the arrogant aristocrat Colonel Percy and the enigmatic Mr Leslie are vying for the affections of the beautiful Lady Emily. Soon, with the rivals both on the front line, and with the scheming Percy hatching a plot that involves the mysterious Green Dwarf, Leslie finds himself facing danger on all sides… • Full of tragedy and passion, love and rivalry, the five sweeping tales contained in this volume display the precocious talent, lively imagination and flair for storytelling of the young Charlotte Bronte

When the young and sensitive Auguste Saint-Clair notices an Etruscan vase on the mantelpiece of his beloved Mathilde, he becomes gradually consumed by jealousy at the thought that it could be the gift of another man, and the situation escalates dramatically as he demands proof from her that she loves only him • A classic piece of French short fiction, ‘The Etruscan Vase’ is here presented alongside three other stories: ‘The Vision of Charles XI’, a dark tale of premonition set in the Swedish royal palace, ‘Tamango’, an account of a slave-ship revolt, and ‘The Blue Room’, a supernatural farce and one of Merimee’s final works; as well as two non-fiction pieces: ‘A Hanging’, a description of a real-life public execution, and ‘H.B.’, a tribute to Stendhal

On a train journey, Pozdnyshev tells his story to a stranger: how his relationship with his wife gradually deteriorated from one of love and passion to jealousy and resentfulness, culminating in a mad act of desperation while she practised Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with her violin teacher • An uncompromising examination of lust, suspicion and infidelity which was once forbidden by censors in Russia and banned in the US due to its shocking content, Tolstoy’s controversial novella – here presented in a new translation, along with ‘The Prisoner of the Caucasus’, ‘Master and Man’ and ‘After the Ball’ – is now considered one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy’s late period

A young Harvard graduate with bright prospects, Bill Frothington is invited on board a steamer hosting a high-school dance, where he meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Mae. As the match is not considered socially advantageous enough, Bill moves on, marries and has a career, but he remains painfully nostalgic for that episode on the river • A poignant tale which touches on the themes of yearning and lost youth that are central to many of Fitzgerald’s novels and stories, ‘The Love Boat’ is here presented with other lesser-known pieces which he wrote in the 1920s and explore the many facets of his creative talents • Contains: ‘The Smilers’, ‘Myra Meets His Family’, ‘Two for a Cent’, ‘Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar’, ‘Diamond Dick and the First Law of Woman’, ‘The Third Casket’, ‘The Unspeakable Egg’, ‘John Jackson’s Arcady’, ‘The Pusher-in-the-Face’, ‘One of My Oldest Friends’, ‘Not in the Guidebook’, ‘Presumption’, ‘The Adolescent Marriage’, ‘Your Way and Mine’ and ‘The Love Boat’

When the Selfish Giant decides to build a wall around his garden to prevent the children from playing in it, it becomes barren and stuck in perpertual winter. It takes a wonderful event and the heart of a young boy for him to realize the error of his ways. A classic tale for children, The Selfish Giant is presented here with all of Oscar Wilde's other fairy stories - The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Devoted Friend, The Remarkable Rocket, The Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, The Fisherman and His Soul and The Star-Child - brought to life by Philip Waechter's bright and imaginative illustrations

W.W. Jacobs delighted in finding unlikely humour in everyday situations and observations, and these tales succeed in raising a laugh from the most mundane of scenarios. In 'The Grey Parrot', a sailor buys a parrot for his wife, whom he suspects isn't faithful in his absence, hoping that the bird will inadvertently repeat anything untoward it hears. Unfortunately for him, the parrot exceeds his expectations, and it's not only his wife who is left blushing • This volume contains a careful selection of the very best stories from Jacobs's 150-strong repertory, and includes well-known standalone pieces such as 'The Monkey's Paw', as well as accounts of raucous dockside dalliances and tightly woven tales of poacher Bob Petty's crimes against the unlikely cast of an Essex village

Alma Classics edition of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer contains 3,000 notes and 30 pages extra material • "And specially from every shires ende • Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende, • The hooly blisful martir for to seke, • That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke." • Assembling at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a group of pilgrims begin their journey to Canterbury Cathedral. To entertain themselves on the long road, their host suggests that they regale each other with stories, with the teller of the best tale set to earn a free supper • The pilgrims correspond to all sections of medieval society, from the crusading knight to the drunken cook, and their tales span a range of genres, including the comic ribaldry and deception of 'The Miller's Tale' and the story of chivalry and courtly romance told by the Franklin

The intelligent and charming Newland Archer – a member of one of New York’s most prominent families – is living the life that has always been expected of him: he is engaged to the beautiful and well-connected May Welland and understands the rarefied world of Fifth Avenue society inside out. However, with the arrival of May’s cousin, the free-spirited and unconventional Countess Ellen Olenska, Newland begins to doubt all that once seemed so natural to him • An extraordinarily well-observed dissection of New York high society in the 1870s – the world in which Edith Wharton grew up – The Age of Innocence shines a critical light on the social mores and values of the old order

Comprising one finished novel, Lady Susan, which was published posthumously, and two unfinished fragments, Sanditon and The Watsons, this collection – full of melodrama and burlesque, and exploring a range of literary styles and social classes – spans the entirety of Jane Austen’s writing life • The epistolary novel Lady Susan is the darkly humorous tale of the amatory schemes and machinations of an ambitious and unprincipled coquette. The Watsons is the tale of the refined and well-educated Emma Watson, forced by the second marriage of her aunt to return to the house of her impecunious father and face the marital plots and intrigues of her sisters. Begun in the last few months of Jane Austen’s life, Sanditon, set in a fast-growing former fishing village, swiftly becoming a fashionable resort, pokes fun at the inhabitants of the new coastal town, with all their hypochondria, witlessness and self-obsession

One of Twain’s most celebrated novellas, ‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg’ is a satirical retelling of the Garden of Eden story in the Bible, in which the author, mocking the supposed honesty and incorruptibility of the inhabitants of an imaginary American town, shows how man is fundamentally bad and cannot resist the temptations of gold • This collection also includes another acclaimed novella, ‘A Double-Barrelled Detective Story’, a spoof of the mystery genre featuring Sherlock Holmes in the American West, as well as lesser-known narratives such as ‘The Belated Russian Passport’ and ‘The Death Disk’. Together, these tales are a testament to Twain’s inexhaustible gift for invention and his skills as a storyteller • Contains: ‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg’, ‘The Eskimo Maiden’s Romance’, ‘The Belated Russian Passport’, ‘Two Little Tales’, ‘Is He Living or Is He Dead?’, ‘The Death Disc’, ‘A Double-Barrelled Detective Story’