Penguin American Supernatural Tales

She turned into a frog, into a lizard, into all kinds of other reptiles and then into a spindle. In these tales, young women go on long and difficult quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Half the tales here are true oral tales, collected by folklorists during the last two centuries, while the others are reworking of oral tales by four great Russian writers: Alexander Pushkin, Nadezhda Teffi, Pavel Bazhov and Andrey Platonov. In his introduction to these new translations, Robert Chandler writes about the primitive magic inherent in these tales and the taboos around them, while in the afterword, Sibelan Forrester discusses the witch Baba Yaga

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature. A storytelling competition within a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight's account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath's Arthurian legend to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook. This masterly and vivid modern English verse translation retains all the vigour and poetry of Chaucer's fourteenth-century Middle English

Romantics, adventurers, sensualists, melancholics and dreamers inhabit the bizarre and exotic world conjured up in these seven intricately interwoven tales, whose settings range from Tuscany and Elsinore, to a dhow on its way from Lamu to Zanzibar • Proclaimed a masterpiece on its publication in 1934, this collection is shot through with themes of love and desire - from the maiden lady who now believes herself to have been the grand courtesan of her time, to the Count whose wife is so jealous that she cannot bear him to admire her jewels, and Lincoln Forsner, an Englishman whose search for a woman he met in a brothel leads him into many strange adventures

In eighteenth century France, Charles Perrault rescued from the oral tradition fairy tales that are known and loved even today by virtually all children in the West. Angela Carter came across Perrault's work and set out to adapt the stories for modern readers of English. In breathing new life into these classic fables, she produced versions that live on as classics in their own right, marked as much by her signature wit, irony, and subversiveness as they are by the qualities that have made them universally appealing for centuries

Рассказы в сборнике "Зимние истории" посвящены теме тоски. Написанные после ее возвращения из Кении и в мрачные дни нацистской оккупации, эти рассказы берут свое начало в детстве Исака Динесена в Дании. Исак Динесен был псевдонимом Карен Бликсен, родившейся в Рунгстеде, Дания, в 1885 году. После изучения искусства в Копенгагене, Париже и Риме она вышла замуж за своего двоюродного брата, барона Брора Бликсен-Финеке, в 1914 году. Вместе они отправились в Кению управлять кофейной плантацией. После их развода в 1921 году она продолжала управлять плантацией, пока крах на кофейном рынке не вынудил ее вернуться в Данию в 1931 году • Книга на английском языке • If one theme unifies the 11 tales collected here, it is that of longing. Written after her return from Kenya and during the dark days of the Nazi occupation, they derive their themes and locales from Isak Dinesen's childhood in Denmark

When Charles Dickens set out for America in 1842, he was the most famous man of his day to make the journey, and embarked on his travels with an intense curiosity. His frank descriptions cover everything from his comically wretched sea voyage to his sheer astonishment at Niagara Falls, while he also visited hospitals, prisons and law courts. But Dickens's depiction of America as a land ruled by money, built on slavery, with a corrupt press and unsavoury manners, provoked a hostile reaction on both sides of the Atlantic. American Notes is an illuminating account of a great writer's revelatory encounter with the New World

The New York Times bestselling series returns! Your favourite royal family are back for another thrilling instalment of gossip, drama and romance • Beatrice Washington now rules America as it's first ever queen, but her family are more concerned about rushing through her arranged marriage to a man she barely knows. No one can know that her heart really belongs to her bodyguard - but even their love is under threat • Meanwhile, Princess Samantha is under more scrutiny than ever before and she still longs to be with her sister's fiancee. But with no sign of Bea's wedding being called off, she's surprised to find someone else catching her eye • Nina Gonzalez is also tangled up with someone she never expected to be. She and Ethan are both nursing broken hearts, and it's not long before they find themselves pulled irresistably together

Romance, glamour, secrets and scheming... Meet the Washingtons - the most scandalous royal family ever! HRH Princess Samantha has always been a royal rebel. She's the spare not the heir, so no one minds toomuch who she dates or how hard she parties. It helps that her sister, Princess Beatrice, is literally perfect. She's demure, sweet and beautiful, and she knows that the crown always comes first - no matter what her heart might really want. But they're not the only ones with their eye on the throne. Daphne Deighton might be "newly noble" but she she won Prince Jefferson's heart once, and she'll do anything to get back into the court's favour and his bed. If only she knew that her competition was a common nobody - plain little Nina Leon, the daughter of the king's secretary

Breathtaking... The stories are special. They stand in their own right as lovely vignettes of the lives of the lonely, broken and troubled' Andrew Johnson, Independent. Written when Truman Capote was in his teens and twenties, these recently-discovered short stories give a rare insight into an American icon. Tales of disappointed lovers, ageing spinsters, hoboes and murderous housewives, of yearning, poverty, despair, compassion, wit and wonder, they show us the boy from Alabama who became one of the twentieth century's most celebrated literary voices. 'An intriguing glimpse of Capote as a boy: precocious, provocative, spirited and strange, a "pocket Merlin" spinning tall tales' Olivia Laing, New Statesman

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online • Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content • The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises • Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content • The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers story comprehension and develop vocabulary

Penguin Readers is a graded reading series for English Language Teaching (ELT) markets, designed for teenagers and young adults learning English as a foreign or second language • In Yukon, Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, strong sled dogs are in high demand. Buck is stolen from his comfortable home in California and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. Will he survive life in the wild? • Penguin Readers is a series of the best new fiction, essential non-fiction and popular classics written for learners of English as a foreign language. Beautifully illustrated and carefully adapted, the series introduces language learners around the world to the bestselling authors and most compelling content from Penguin Random House. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework and include language activities that help readers to develop key skills