Alma Books The Life of Our Lord Диккенс Чарльз

Against the backdrop of growing discontent in Paris, Doctor Manette is released from the Bastille after eighteen years of unjust imprisonment and begins a new life in England with his devoted daughter Lucie. There, the gifted but dissolute lawyer Sydney Carton and the exiled French nobleman Charles Darnay find their lives increasingly intertwined with those of the Manettes. Yet soon both men are drawn ineluctably from the peaceful English capital to the horror and bloodshed of the Paris Terror and the looming threat of the guillotine • Representing a departure from the social satire of most of his other novels and deemed by Dickens himself to be “the best story I have written”, A Tale of Two Cities is a powerful historical novel about the repercussions of epochal events on the personal lives of people on both sides of the Channel

Written in 1932, but not published until 1962, over twenty years after its author’s death, The Life of Monsieur de Molière charts the life of the French playwright, from his humble beginnings to later theatrical triumphs and political controversies. The work was met with disapproval by the Soviet authorities, who detected parallels between the lives of Molière and Bulgakov, and viewed the work as a veiled critique of their own times. With a dazzling blend of biography and novelistic imagination, Bulgakov’s eccentric and satirical take on the life of a fellow writer energetically captures the genius of Molière, while revealing another aspect of his own self

Rising from humble beginnings as a foundling, Castruccio Castracani came to prominence as one of the most powerful and shrewd warlords in Italy. Indeed, Machiavelli argues, so great was his vigour and charisma that – had he not been prevented by his untimely death – he might have surpassed in fame the great generals of antiquity and brought all the territories of Italy under his sole dominion • Written in Machiavelli’s characteristically lucid and terse style, The Life of Castruccio Castracani is not only a key text in understanding the development of the author’s ideas on leadership and good statesmanship that would find fuller expression in The Prince, but also a revealing account of the political ferment and fractious factionalism of fourteenth-century Italy

Rossini’s success in Italy in the early 1820s was certainly not echoed in France, where he was regarded as “an ill-bred parvenu, whose cheap popularity was an insult to a great musical tradition”. Stendhal was the first of his contemporaries to recognize the genius of this important Italian composer • Besides being a fascinating and penetrating account of the Italian composer’s most creative years, and of contemporary musical events and opinions, this work is one of the finest items in the Stendhalian literary canon. Details of Rossini’s early life are followed by penetrating discussions of the operas, libretti, personalities of the period and Rossini’s own character

The story of a naughty wooden puppet who has a penchant for lying and dreams of becoming a real boy, The Adventures of Pinocchio has entered our collective imagination and fascinated generations of young and adult readers since its first publication in 1883. Part fable, part coming-of-age novel, part cautionary tale, Pinocchio’s rollicking exploits through an unforgiving and often incomprehensible world – populated by unforgettable characters such as the Talking Cricket, Candlewick, Mangiafuoco and the Fairy with Turquoise Hair – have had a profound impact on our culture and attained universal significance as a mirror of the human condition • Here presented in a brand-new and lively translation by Stephen Parkin and illustrated beautifully by Peter Bailey, this edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio brings extra sparkle to one of the greatest and most celebrated works of children’s literature

The judge Ivan Ilyich Golovin has spent his life in the pursuit of wealth and status, devoting himself obsessively to work and often neglecting his family in the process. When, after a small accident, he fails to make the expected recovery, it gradually becomes clear that he is soon to die. Ivan Ilyich then starts to question the futility and barrenness of his previous existence, realizing to his horror, as he grapples with the meaning of life and death, that he is totally alone • Included in this volume is another celebrated novella by Tolstoy, The Devil, which addresses the conflicts between desire, social norms and personal conscience, providing at the same time a further exploration of human fear and obsession

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

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer charts the escapades of a thirteen-year-old boy growing up on the banks of the Mississippi. Testing the patience of his aunt Polly, the bold and sharp-witted Tom Sawyer frequently skips school in search of excitement, and the scrapes he gets into with his friend Huckleberry Finn range from innocent japes to more serious events such as the witnessing of a murder • One of the most popular and influential American novels, Mark Twain's masterpiece is at the same time a highly entertaining romp which celebrates youth and freedom and a more profound investigation of his times, touching on themes such as race, revenge and slavery. This volume includes Tom Sawyer, Detective, a sequel and pastiche of the detective genre, first published in 1896

Purporting to be an autobiography of the antihero Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne’s novel is a comic masterpiece of digression, egoism and sensationalism, as its hilarious asides, explanations and host of memorable secondary characters – such as Uncle Toby, Dr Slop, Parson Yorick and Widow Wadman – take centre stage, at the expense of the actual life events the book sets out to depict • A humorous compendium of European thought and literature – pastiching the likes of Locke and Bacon and referencing Pope, Swift, Cervantes and Rabelais – emerges amid the convoluted accounts of Tristram’s conception, misnaming and accidental circumcision by a sash window, in a shrewd narrative that examines the role and nature of language itself • A very ambitious editorial project which took our team more than a year to bring to perfection

Inspired by Boileau's Lutrin and illustrating the debate within European intellectual circles between the "Ancients", who argued that all essential knowledge was to be found in classical texts, and the "Moderns", who claimed that contemporary learning superseded the old sources, The Battle of the Books shows Swift at his wittiest and most trenchant. In this early satire, various books in St James's Library take on a life of their own and come into conflict with one another, in a pastiche of the heroic epic genre • As well as providing humorous reflections on the nature of scholarship and education, Swift seizes the opportunity to take swipes at several authors and critics. The result is a timeless and entertaining parody by one of the most enduringly popular writers in the English language

On his travels through the wild mountainous terrain of the Caucasus, the narrator of A Hero of Our Time chances upon the veteran soldier and storyteller Maxim Maximych, who relates to him the dubious exploits of his former comrade Pechorin. Engaging in various acts of duelling, contraband, abduction and seduction, Pechorin, an archetypal Byronic anti-hero, combines cynicism and arrogance with melancholy and sensitivity • Causing an uproar in Russia when it was first published in 1840, Lermontov's brilliant, seminal study of contemporary society and the nihilistic aspect of Romanticism – accompanied here by the unfinished novel Princess Ligovskaya – remains compelling to this day

In Dandelion Land, a young snail can't stop asking his friends awkward questions, such as: why are we so slow - and why can't we all have our own names? When he is finally banished from the snail community because of this, he is forced to travel the world alone. As he explores in his oh-so-slow way, the snail makes new friends and goes on a series of adventures, gaining wisdom from every new encounter. But when he finds out his friends are in danger, he decides to rush home to warn them. Will he get there in time to save them? • Luis Sepulveda's bestselling The Story of a Snail Who Discovered the Importance of Being Slow is a wonderful ode to diversity and unity, celebrating the importance of being slow in a world obsessed with speed