Everyman The Count of Monte Cristo Дюма Александр

"Граф Монте-Кристо" - один из самых захватывающих романов бессмертного классика французской литературы Александра Дюма (1802-1870). Увлекательный сюжет, живость изложения, неистощимая выдумка, бодрый юмор, блистательные, остроумные диалоги, запоминающиеся характеры сделали эту книгу одной из самых любимых и занимательных для многих поколений читателей • Текст адаптирован для детей • Книга на английском языке • The classic tale of adventure and revenge by Alexandre Dumas retold for children ready to tackle longer and more complex stories. Who is the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo and how did he acquire his magnificent wealth? A rip-roaring tale of adventure - from a daring prison escape to a hunt for hidden treasure and a duel at dawn. Part of the Usborne Reading Programme developed with reading experts at the University of Roehampton

A beautiful new clothbound edition of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge. Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of the Chвteau d'If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution

A brilliant story of intrigue, retribution, revenge and redemption • Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, Edmond Dantes spends fourteen bitter years in a dungeon. When his daring escape plan works, he uses all he has learnt during his incarceration to mastermind an elaborate plan of revenge that will bring punishment to those he holds responsible for his fate. No longer the naive sailor who disappeared into the dark fortress all those years ago, he reinvents himself as the charming, mysterious and powerful Count of Monte Cristo

Discover the real story behind Disney’s latest blockbuster adaptation The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and the iconic Nutcracker Christmas ballet, as told by Alexandre Dumas • ‘How could you imagine, silly child, that this toy, which is made of cloth and wood, could possibly be alive?’ • The nutcracker doll that mysterious Godfather Drosselmeyer gives to little Marie for Christmas is no ordinary toy. On Christmas Eve, as the clocks strike midnight, Marie watches as the Nutcracker and her entire cabinet of playthings come to life and boldly do battle against the evil Mouse King and his armies • But this is only the start of the tale • Read on for enchantment and transformation; enter a world by turns fantastical and sinister, a kingdom of dolls and spun-sugar palaces, and learn the true history of the brave little Nutcracker

The language of flowers is as old as language itself. In the earliest poetry familiar plants were used to represent simple emotions, ideas, or states of mind: love, hope, despair, fidelity, solitude, beauty, mortality. Over time these associations entwined with myth and legend, with religious symbolism, folk and herbal lore. By the early 19th century the 'Language of Flora' had become increasingly refined, especially in England and America, where sentimental flower books listing flower meanings and illustrating them with verse were perennial bestsellers • The Everyman Language of Flowers without sacrificing the charm of its Victorian predecessors aims to provide extended, updated and rather more robust floral anthology for the 21st century, presenting poetry from ancient Greece to contemporary Britain and America, and spanning the world from Cuba to Korea, Russia to Zimbabwe

The Custom of the Country is probably Edith Wharton's most savage satire on the manners of late nineteenth-century America. It is the story of the exquisitely beautiful but brutally ambitious Undine Spragg who marries her way into the high aristocracy of Europe, abandoning several husbands along the way. This novel, which has scences of comedy and even farce, is a commentary on both certain aspects of feminisim and certain aspects of capitalism in Edith Wharton's time. The novel makes a fitting companion to The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth and shows Wharton to be one of the greatest American novelists

The Art of Angling offers a bountiful catch of poems from around the world and through the ages on every aspect of the popular sport. Fishing has inspired a wealth of poetry – Tang Dynasty meditations; Japanese haiku; medieval rhymes; classic verses by Homer and Shakespeare; poems by Donne, Goethe, Tennyson and Yeats; modern masterpieces by Federico Garcia Lorca, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes, Robert Lowell, Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood, Audre Lorde, Richard Hugo and Derek Walcott. In the hands of the poets collected here, fishing with a hook and line yields reflections both sparklingly light and awe-inspiringly deep. Filled with humour, nostalgia, adventure, celebrations of the beauties of nature and metaphors for the art of living, The Art of Angling is sure to lure anglers and lovers of poetry alike

Marco Polo set off on his travels from Venice as a young man in 1271, and returned home in 1295 after spending 24 years away, 17 of them in China. He isone of the few early adventurers whose name nearly everyone knows. His book was one of the best-loved works of the Middle Ages, and has remained popular ever since. At a time when China is again assuming global importance, his account of China under the Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan - the dazzlingly splendid capital in Beijing, the great southern metropolis of Hangzhou - is a classic reminder of the antiquity of Chinese power and civilization • Marco Polo also portrays countries and cities all along the trade route from the Mediterranean to Mongolia. He reminds us that Iraq's present suffering is not unique by relating the story of the attack on Baghdad by Mongol forces in 1258

Benvenuto Cellini is an artist-craftsman, one of the greatest sculptors in the renaissance, passionately devoted to art, the worshipper and frequenter of the great men of his time, the 'divine' Michelangelo, who came to his studio, the 'marvellous' Titian (the adjectives are Cellini's ). He loathed the sculptor Torregiano because he had broken Michelangelo's nose.His autobiography gives a quite extraordinarily vivid account of daily life in Renaissance Florence and Rome, its studios, its taverns, its violence, his loves, the kings, cardinals and popes who commission his works. At 27 he helps direct the defence of the castello San Angelo; his account of his imprisonment there under a mad castellan (who thought he was a bat), his escape by an improvised rope, his recapture, his confinement in 'a cell of tarantulas and venomous worms' is a chapter of adventure equal to any in fact or fiction

It is the autobiography of Giorgio Bassani, told in a time span of around 15 years, a time where the ambiguous and mysterious female figure of Micol was a central part of his life. They live in a time where racial laws are being passed by fascist Italy and as a result Micol and her family open the gates of their huge mansion and even bigger garden to a handful of jeweish friends that have been banned from any recreational activity. In this garden Micol guides the narrating "I" figure through the interior journey in search of his identity and maturity. Unfortunately this journey of truth can only end but in the sourest way; the rejection of a deep love felt by the author for Micol, his spiritual guide

Possibly the most colourful figure in the history of Western music, Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was certainly the most eloquent. His autobiography is among the greatest ever written. Larger than life – like his massive works – Berlioz was a seminal figure in the Romantic movement and his book is both a personal testament and an account of his role in that movement. It tells the story of his romance with Harriet Smithson –with whom he fell in love when he saw her playing the part of Ophelia – and his even more passionate affairs with Shakespeare, Scott and Byron • Familiar with all the great figures of the age – Liszt, Wagner, Balzac, Delacroix, Weber, Rossini – Berlioz paints brilliant and often mordant portraits of them in a style which is one of the glories of French prose

Described by F. R. Leavis as one of the two most brilliant novels in the language, The Portrait of a Lady marks the evolution of Henry James from talented American writer to world-class novelist. The ‘lady’ of the title is Isabel Archer, a beautiful, intelligent and headstrong American heiress embarked on a treacherous journey to self-knowledge amid the ravishingly rendered landscapes of England and Italy. But it is the characters she encounters who make the story so masterly: the good Lord Warburton and the evil Gilbert Osmond, between whom she hesitates, her candid American friends, and above all the witch-like Madame Merle with whom she does battle for her soul. All are magnificently drawn, and none more so than Isabel herself, who belongs with Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina among the supreme creations of European fiction