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Скачать книгу (размер 1 952 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 384) Аннотация: «The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes» is a fascinating collection of stories featuring detectives, criminal agents and debonair crooks from the golden age of crime fiction: a time when Sherlock Holmes was esconsced in his rooms at 221B Baker Street and London was permanently wreathed in a sinister fog. These gripping tales of mystery, suspense and clever puzzles are wonderfully entertaining and in…

Скачать книгу (размер 809 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 160) Аннотация: In The Social Contract Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desires to the interests of all, the general will. Some have seen in this the promise of a free and equal…

Скачать книгу (размер 2 441 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 480) Аннотация: Sigmund Freud's audacious masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, has never ceased to stimulate controversy since its publication in 1900. Freud is acknowledged as the founder of psychoanalysis, the key to unlocking the human mind, a task which has become essential to man's survival in the twentieth century, as science and technology have rushed ahead of our ability to cope with their…

Скачать книгу (размер 2 197 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 432) Аннотация: Rene Descartes (1569-1650), the 'father' of modern philosophy, is without doubt one of the greatest thinkers in history: his genius lies at the core of our contemporary intellectual identity. Breaking with the conventions of his own time and suffering persecution by the Church as a consequence, Descartes in his writings — most of which are philosophical classics — attempted to answer the central…

Скачать книгу (размер 4 726 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 928) Аннотация: The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, is told with consummate skill. The victim of a miscarriage of justice, Dantes is fired by a desire for retribution and empowered by a stroke of providence. In his campaign of vengeance, he becomes an anonymous agent of fate. The sensational narrative of intrigue, betrayal, escape, and triumphant revenge moves at a cracking pace.…

Скачать книгу (размер 1 625 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 320) Аннотация: Marco Polo (1254-1329) has achieved an almost archetypal status as a traveller, and his Travels is one of the first great travel books of Western literature, outside the ancient world. The Travels recounts Polo's journey to the eastern court of Kublai Khan, the chieftain of the Mongol empire which covered the Asian continent, but which was almost unknown to Polo's contemporaries. Encompassing a…

Скачать книгу (размер 1 870 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 368) Аннотация: The flaxen-haired beauty of the child-like Lady Audley would suggest that she has no secrets. But M.E. Braddon's classic novel of sensation uncovers the truth about its heroine in a plot involving bigamy, arson and murder. It challenges assumptions about the nature of femininity and investigates the narrow divide between sanity and insanity, using as its focus one of the most fascinating of all…

Скачать книгу (размер 1 217 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 240) Аннотация: Rights of Man is a classic statement of the belief in humanity's potential to change the world for the better. Published as a reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, it differs from that great work in every relevant respect. Where Burke uses the language of the governing classes, Paine writes with the vigour of a self-taught mast-maker and exciseman. With passionate and rapier…

Скачать книгу (размер 2 523 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 496) Аннотация: Charles Darwin's travels around the world as an independent naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural world's beauty and sublimity which language could barely capture. Words, he said, were inadequate to convey to those who have not visited the inter-tropical regions, the sensation of delight which the mind experiences'. Yet in a travel journal which…

Скачать книгу (размер 891 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 176) Аннотация: Written in 1513 for the Medici, following their return to power in Florence, The Prince is a handbook on ruling and the exercise of power. It remains as relevant today as it was in the sixteenth century. Widely quoted in the Press and in academic publications, The Prince has direct relevance to the issues of business and corporate governance confronting global corporations as they enter a new…

Скачать книгу (размер 1 136 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 224) Аннотация: In the early years of the 18th century, Scotland is torn by religious and political strife. Hogg's sinner, justified by his Calvinist conviction that his own salvation is pre-ordained, is suspected of involvement in a series of bizarre and hideous crimes. A century later his memoirs reveal the extraordinary, macabre truth. The tale is chilling for its astute psychological accuracy as it…

Скачать книгу (размер 401 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 80) Аннотация: The Prophet represents the acme of Kahlil Gibran's achievement. Writing in English, Gibran adopted the tone and cadence of King James I's Bible, fusing his personalised Christian philosophy with a spirit and oriental wisdom that derives from the richly mixed influences of his native Lebanon. His language has a breath-taking beauty. Before returning to his birthplace, Almustafa, the 'prophet', is…

Скачать книгу (размер 565 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 112) Аннотация: This edition presents the classic free translation by Edward Fitzgerald of the great Persian poem by the 12th century astronomer and poet — Omar Khayyám. Fitzgerald's masterful translation was first published as an anonymous pamphlet in 1859. Its colourful, exotic and remote imagery greatly appealed to the Victorian age's fascination with the Orient, while its luxurious sensual warmth acted…

Скачать книгу (размер 1 299 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 256) Аннотация: With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story. This collection displays his lively diversity, with tales that vary in theme and tone, ranging from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce. In a lucidly direct style, he provides unflinching realism and sceptical irony. He depicts the deceptions,…

Скачать книгу (размер 2 686 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 528) Аннотация: Transplanted to Europe from her native America, Isabel Archer has candour, beauty, intelligence, an independent spirit and a marked enthusiasm for life. An unexpected inheritance apparently gives her freedom, but despite all her natural advantages she makes one disastrous error of judgement and the result is genuinely tragic.

Скачать книгу (размер 2 033 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 400) Аннотация: From its first publication in 1816 Rob Roy has been recognised as containing some of Scotts finest writing and most engaging, fully realised characters. The outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor was already a legendary, disputed figure by the time Scott wrote a heroic Scottish Robin Hood to some, an over-glamorised, unprincipled predator to others. Scott approaches Rob Roy indirectly, through the adventures…

Скачать книгу (размер 809 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 160) Аннотация: More's 'Utopia' is a complex, innovative and penetrating contribution to political thought, culminating in the famous 'description' of the Utopians, who live according to the principles of natural law, but are receptive to Christian teachings, who hold all possessions in common, and view gold as worthless.

Скачать книгу (размер 2 686 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 528) Аннотация: Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the eighteenth century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in 'the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis'. But it is also a rich and pioneering record — drawing on intimate…

Скачать книгу (размер 1 217 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 240) Аннотация: In Symposium, a group of Anthenian aristocrats attend a party held by Agathon to celebrate his victory in the drama festival of the Dionysia. They talk about love until the drunken Alcibiades bursts in, and decides to talk about Socrates instead. Symposium gives a picture of the sparkling society that was Athens at the height of her empire. The other three dialogues in this collection — Apology,…

Скачать книгу (размер 4 645 Kb , формат fb2, страниц 912) Аннотация: The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table is one of the most enduring and influential stories in world literature. Its themes — love, war, religion, treachery and family loyalty — are timeless, as are the reputations of its major characters, Arthur, Merlin, Guenever and Launcelot. Malory's Le Morte Darthur is a story of noble knights, colourful tournaments and fateful love, set…