Vintage books The Painted Veil Моэм Уильям Сомерсет

Редкая и ценная возможность поближе взглянуть на жизнь и внутренний мир одного из самых загадочных писателей XX века • Эта книга, которую Уильям Сомерсэт Моэм написал в возрасте шестидесяти четырёх лет, не автобиография, но она рассказывает историю его жизни. Не исповедь, но она полна откровений. "Подводя итоги" - уникальное выражение личного кредо, не только рассказывающее о взглядах великого писателя на стиль, литературу, искусство, театр и философию, но и позволяющее по-новому оценить его мастерство • Книга на английском языке • A rare glimpse into the life and mind of one of the most enigmatic of 20th century authors • Autobiographical without being an autobiography, confessional without disclosing his private self, The Summing Up, written when Maugham was sixty-four, is an inimitable expression of a personal credo

Уильям Моэм: Раскрашенная вуаль • Китти Фэйн - красивая, но поверхностная жена Уолтера, бактериолога, работающего в Гонконге. Неудовлетворенная своим браком, она заводит роман с обаятельным, привлекательным и волнующим Чарльзом Таунсендом. Но когда Уолтер обнаруживает ее обман, он совершает странную и ужасную месть: Китти должна сопровождать его на новое место работы в отдаленный материковый Китай, где свирепствует эпидемия холеры • Впервые опубликованная, вызвавшая бурю протестов, "Раскрашенная вуаль" - это классическая история духовного пробуждения женщины • Книга на английском языке • Kitty Fane is the beautiful but shallow wife of Walter, a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied by her marriage, she starts an affair with charming, attractive and exciting Charles Townsend

"Дальневосточные сказки" - это сборник рассказов, родившихся на основе впечатлений Уильяма Сомерсета Моэма о Малайе, Сингапуре и других форпостах бывшей Британской империи. Изображают ли они бегство на корабле от проклятия возлюбленного, убийство в джунглях или брак, разрушенный прошлой неосторожностью, все они раскрывают Моэма с лучшей стороны - иногда едкого, иногда слегка комичного, но всегда проницательного и человечного судью характера и души • Книга на английском языке • Mesmerising short stories by this neglected 20th century master • Far Eastern Tales is a collection of short stories born of Maugham's experiences in Malaya, Singapore and other outposts of the former British Empire. Whether portraying a ship-borne flight from a lover's curse, murder in the jungle, or a marriage shattered by a past indiscretion, they all reveal Maugham at his best - sometimes caustic, sometimes gently comic, but always the shrewd and human judge of character and soul

An enjoyable 19th century read following doomed happenings and grisly, secret premonitions • An eminent doctor is visited by a desperate woman with a question: am I evil, or insane? • When the letters from Italian servant to his wife in London suddenly cease, she is convinced he has been murdered • In the darkened bedroom of a mouldering palazzo by the Grand Canal, an English lord sickens and suddenly dies • How are these little mysteries connected? Spend the night in Room 14 of Venice’s finest hotel, and find out the truth – if you dare…

Уильям Стайрон: выбор Софи • В этом необычном романе Стинго, неопытный двадцатидвухлетний южанин, переносит нас назад, в лето 1947 года, в пансионат в зеленом пригороде Бруклина. Там он знакомится с Натаном, пылким еврейским интеллектуалом, и Софи, красивой и хрупкой польской католичкой. Стинго оказывается втянутым в самое сердце их страстных и разрушительных отношений в качестве свидетеля, доверенного лица и просителя. В конечном счете, он добирается до темной сердцевины прошлого Софи: ее воспоминаний о довоенной Польше, концентрационном лагере и - суть ее ужасной тайны - ее выборе • Книга на английском языке • In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb

The Ds can't wait to go and stay with Nancy and Peggy in the Lake District during the summer holidays. But when the Amazons’ dreadful Great Aunt invites herself to stay too, the summer is threatened with dullness. Staying indoors and reading poetry is not what anyone had in mind. To save the Ds from total boredom, the Amazons arrange for their friends to stay in a tumble-down hut in the woods. And as long as no one discovers they're there they can sail all summer long • In the Backstory you can learn how to make a campfire! • Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives

'The Anatomy Lesson is a ferocious, heartfelt book - lavish with laughs and flamboyant inventions' John Updike • With his fortieth birthday receding into the distance, along with his hairline and his most successful novel, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction – pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, finds himself physically unable to write a line • He treks from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Could it be, he wonders to himself, that the cause of the pain is nothing less than the books he has written? • As he grapples with this possibility, he tries an onslaught of painkillers, then vodka, and finally marijuana

The Vintage Classics Europeans series - with covers provided by textile design firm Wallace Sewell, these are must-have editions of European masterpieces, celebrating the warp and weft of a shared literary treasury • It is the spring of 1869 and there is talk of revolution in Sicily, by day the rattle of firing squads and by night the flickering lights of bonfires lit by rebel bands. Prince Fabrizio knows that beneath these outward signs of transformation, the sensuality, languor and corruption of his native land will never change. But can his family’s ancient power endure? Lampedusa’s macabre myth remains astounding relevant, reflecting any modern edifice of power and money just as surely as it shows us a corner of Italy long ago

The Northmen’s Fury tells the Viking story, from the first pinprick raids of the eighth century to the great armies that left their Scandinavian homelands to conquer larger parts of France, Britain and Ireland. It recounts the epic voyages that took them across the Atlantic to the icy fjords of Greenland and to North America over four centuries before Columbus and east to the great rivers of Russia and the riches of the Byzantine empire • One summer’s day in 793, death arrived from the sea. The raiders who sacked the island monastery of Lindisfarne were the first Vikings, sea-borne attackers who brought two centuries of terror to northern Europe. Before long the sight of their dragon-prowed longships and the very name of Viking gave rise to fear and dread, so much so that monks were reputed to pray each night for delivery from ‘the Northmen’s Fury’

The Italian Renaissance shaped Western culture - but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. We know the Mona Lisa for her smile, but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David, but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In fact, many of the Renaissance's most celebrated artists and thinkers emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century • The Beauty and the Terror is an enrapturing narrative which includes the forgotten women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day

The Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other • In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life • In the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth navigates a new house, a new husband and the strange waters of the local community • Six decades later, the house stands empty. Viv, mourning the death of her father, catalogues Ruth's belongings and discovers her place in the past - and perhaps a way forward • Each woman's choices are circumscribed by the men in their lives. But in sisterhood there is the hope of survival and new life

The vivid scenes on the Bayeux Tapestry depict the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It is one of Europe's greatest treasures and its own story is full of drama and surprise • Who commissioned the tapestry? Was it Bishop Odo, William's ruthless half-brother? Or Harold's dynamic sister Edith, juggling for a place in the new court? Hicks shows us this world and the miracle of the tapestry's making: the stitches, dyes and strange details in the margins. For centuries it lay ignored in Bayeux cathedral until its 'discovery' in the eighteenth century. It became a symbol of power as well as art: townsfolk saved it during the French Revolution; Napoleon displayed it to promote his own conquest; the Nazis strove to make it their own; and its influence endures today