Tales of Belkin and Other Prose Writings Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin Penguin Group

One of the foundation-stones of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes' Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings is translated from the Latin with an introduction by Desmond M. Clarke in Penguin Classics • Descartes was prepared to go to any lengths in his search for certainty - even to deny those things that seemed most self-evident. In his Meditations of 1641, and in the Objections and Replies that were included with the original publication, he set out to dismantle and then reconstruct the idea of the individual self and its existence. In doing so, Descartes developed a language of subjectivity that has lasted to this day, and he also took his first steps towards the view that would eventually be expressed in the epigram Cogito, ergo sum ('I think, therefore I am'), one of modern philosophy's most famous - and most fiercely contested - claims

Nobel Prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez blends the natural with supernatural in Of Love and Other Demons - a novel which explores community, superstition and collective hysteria • 'An ash-grey dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst on to the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December' • When a witch doctor appears on the Marquis de Casalduero's doorstep prophesising a plague of rabies in the Colombian seaport, he dismisses her claims - until he hears that his young daughter, Sierva Maria, was one of four people bitten by a rabid dog, and the only one to survive • Sierva Maria appears completely unscathed - but as rumours of the plague spread, the Marquis and his wife wonder at her continuing good health

This collection of Pushkin’s stories begins with ‘The Queen of Spades’, perhaps the most celebrated short story in Russian literature. The young Hermann, while watching some friends gambling, hears a rumour of how an officer’s grandmother is always able to predict the three winning cards in a game. He becomes obsessed with the woman and her seemingly mystical powers, and seeks to extract the secret from her at any cost. This volume, part of a new series of the complete works of Pushkin in English, also includes ‘Dubrovsky’, the story of a man’s desire to avenge himself after his land is unjustly taken from him by an aristocrat; ‘The Negro of Peter the Great’, a tale inspired by Pushkin’s maternal grandfather; and the unfinished story ‘Egyptian Nights’, a meditation on poetry and the poet

'Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' • These are the famous opening words of a treatise that has stirred vigorous debate ever since its first publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or 'social contract', that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power. From this fundamental premise, he goes on to consider issues of liberty and law, freedom and justice, arriving at a view of society that has seemed to some a blueprint for totalitarianism, to others a declaration of democratic principles

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was 'a happy man' and in good health - yet life had lost its meaning. In this poignant confessional fragment, he records a period of his life when he began to turn away from fiction and aesthetics, and to search instead for 'a practical religion not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth'

In 'The Decay of Lying' Oscar Wilde uses his decadent ideology in an attempt to reverse and therefore reject his audiences' 'normal' conceptualizations of nature, art and morality. Wilde's views of life and art are illustrated through the use of Platonic dialogue where the character Vivian takes on the persona of Wilde. Wilde's goal is to subvert the norm by reversing its values. Wilde suggests to us that society is wrong, not him. Calling on diverse examples - from Ancient Greek sculpture to contemporary paintings - Oscar Wilde's brilliant essay creates a witty, paradoxical world in which the only Art worth loving is that built on complete untruths

In the heart-warming Lost and Found, discover tales from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home that celebrate the power of animals to transform people's lives • We hear from the young boy whose Battersea dog helped him to deal with a serious autoimmune disease, and from a woman whose Staffie was the friend who got her through cancer • We meet the couple who were brought together by a Battersea dog; the man who took on a three-legged kitten which changed his life; and the former Battersea hound who became a search and rescue dog • Read these and many other powerful stories from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Lost and Found has something for dog and cat lovers alike, and is perfect reading for fans of A Streetcat Named Bob and Paul O'Grady's For The Love Of Dogs

Jane Austen's brilliant, hilarious - and often outrageous - early stories, sketches and pieces of nonsense • Jane Austen's earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into human folly, and a preoccupation with manners, morals and money. But it is also a product of the eighteenth century in which she grew up - dark, grotesque, often surprisingly bawdy, and a far cry from the polished, sparkling novels of manners for which she became famous. Drunken heroines, babies who bite off their mother's fingers, and a letter-writer who has murdered her whole family all feature in these very funny pieces. This edition includes all of Austen's juvenilia, including her 'History of England' - written by 'a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian' - and the novella 'Lady Susan', in which the anti-heroine schemes and cheats her way through high society

В сборник "Любовь и дружба" вошли ранние романы Джейн Остин, до сих пор по праву считающейся первой леди английской литературы. Внешняя камерность этих забавных, искрометных историй, "литературных шалостей", оборачивается в итоге остроумным описанием нравов, едкой сатирой: тексты Остин - пародии, причем довольно жесткие, на мелодраматические опусы XVIII века • Книга на английском языке • Jane Austen's brilliant, hilarious - and often outrageous - early stories, sketches and pieces of nonsense, in a beautiful Penguin Classics clothbound edition • Jane Austen's earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into human folly, and a preoccupation with manners, morals and money

In The Marquise of O-, a virtuous widow finds herself unaccountably pregnant. And although the baffled Marquise has no idea when this happened, she must prove her innocence to her doubting family and discover whether the perpetrator is an assailant or lover. Michael Kohlhaas depicts an honourable man who feels compelled to violate the law in his search for justice, while other tales explore the singular realm of the uncanny, such as The Beggarwoman of Locarno, in which an old woman's ghost drives a heartless nobleman to madness, and St Cecilia, which portrays four brothers possessed by an uncontrollable religious mania. The stories collected in this volume reflect the preoccupations of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) with the deceptiveness of human nature and the unpredictability of the physical world

The story of a passionate young woman who escapes her stifling marriage through adultery and murder, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is now the basis for an acclaimed new film starring Florence Pugh • Nikolai Leskov is one of the most unique voices of nineteenth-century Russia, with a fascination for idiosyncratic characters, lurid crimes, comic absurdity, spirituality and the joy of pure story. This volume contains five of his greatest short tales, including the matchless masterpiece Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

История Диккенса об одиноком скряге Эбенезере Скрудже, которого серия призрачных посетителей научила истинному значению Рождества, оказала неизгладимое влияние на то, как мы относимся к этому сезону. Другие рождественские произведения Диккенса в сборнике "Рождественская песнь и другие рождественские истории" включают "Историю о гоблинах, которые украли могильщика", "Человек с привидениями" и более короткие отрывки, некоторые из которых взяты из "Рождественских рассказов", которые Диккенс ежегодно писал для своих еженедельных журналов. Во всех них Диккенс празднует Рождество как время сердечности, милосердия и воспоминаний • Книга на английском языке • 'Every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding' • Dickens's story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by a series of ghostly visitors, has had an enduring influence on the way we think about the season