European Literature

À la fin de la Renaissance, le duc de Guise s'éprend de Mlle de Mézières. Mais bien qu'elle l'aime aussi, la jeune fille est contrainte d'épouser le prince de Montpensier. Trois ans plus tard, un jour qu'il a perdu son chemin près du château de la princesse, le duc la rencontre au bord d'une rivière où elle est venue se reposer : elle rougit à sa vue, et lui-même comprend aussitôt que sa propre passion n'est pas morte. Publié en 1662, le court récit de "La princesse de Montpensier" fonde l'art classique de la nouvelle.

Finnegans Wake is the greatest challenge in 20th-century literature. Who is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker? And what did he get up to in Phoenix Park? And what did Anna Livia Plurabelle have to say about it? In the rich nighttime and the language of dreams, here are history, anecdote, myth, folk tale and, above all, a wondrous sense of humor, colored by a clear sense of humanity. In this exceptional reading by the Irish actor Barry McGovern, with Marcella Riordan, the world of the Wake is more accessible than ever before.

Eugenia, an American expatriate brought up in Europe, arrives in rural New England with her charming brother Felix, hoping to find a wealthy second husband after the collapse of her marriage to a German prince. Their exotic, sophisticated airs cause quite a stir with their affluent, God-fearing American cousins, the Wentworth's - and provoke the disapproval of their uncle, suspicious of foreign influences.

The complete "box set" of T. H. White's epic fantasy novel of the Arthurian legend. The novel is made up of five parts: "The Sword in the Stone", "The Witch in the Wood", "The Ill-Made Knight", "The Candle in the Wind", and "The Book of Merlyn".

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, ‘Culture [...] is a study of perfection’.

Lord Dawlish is a well-liked and generous man. But he is poor, the poorest of his rank in the British Isles. His fiancée will not marry a man of modest means, so Dawlish decides to make his fortune any way possible. Romance, golf, the theater, and mad monkeys are all part of this merry mix-up that has more witty remarks and sharp retorts in one minute than most people could dream up in a lifetime.

Ses dons percent tous les secrets, même les plus sombres, mais lui ouvriront-ils celui de ses origines ? Printemps 1944. À Angoulême, les miliciens et l'armée allemande affrontent les Combattants de l'ombre. Parmi eux, le jeune maquisard Adrien, dont la jolie Abigaël est profondément éprise. Mais en ces temps troublés, il est difficile pour les deux tourtereaux de vivre pleinement leur amour.

Hendrik Groen may be old, but he is far from dead and isn't planning to be buried any time soon. Granted, his daily strolls are getting shorter because his legs are no longer willing, and he has to visit his doctor more than he'd like. Technically speaking he is...elderly. But surely there is more to life at his age than weak tea and potted geraniums? Hendrik sets out to write an exposé: a year in the life of his care home in Amsterdam, revealing all its ups and downs.

Que vis-je ! Face à face, dans cette cour où ils ne s'étaient certainement jamais rencontrés (M. de Charlus ne venant à l'hôtel Guermantes que dans l'après-midi, aux heures où Jupien était à son bureau), le baron ayant soudain largement ouvert ses yeux mi-clos, regardait avec une attention extraordinaire l'ancien giletier sur le seuil de sa boutique, cependant que celui-ci, cloué subitement sur place devant M. de Charlus, enraciné comme une plante, contemplait d'un air émerveillé l'embonpoint du baron vieillissant.

This "lost race" novel begins as an exciting African adventure. Leonard Outram is a British adventurer who is in Africa seeking his fortune. He becomes part of the rescue of a Portuguese woman from a large slave camp. Leonard, his companion Otter, and the girl set off and find the people of the mist. They then impersonate gods and priests with the hope of getting the people's hoard of jewels.

Gogol's great Russian classic is the Pickwick Papers of Russian literature. It takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata but especially the devious complexities in Russia, with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Chichikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead 'souls', or serfs, whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogol's characters.

Des batignolles à Auteuil, un mécanicien de locomotive erre, le couteau à la main, hanté par une idée fixe : tuer une femme... Dans le train qui mène au Havre, un couple poignarde sauvagement un notable du régime impérial, avant de le jeter sur la voie. À la Croix-de-Maufras, lieu dit reculé, un garde-barrière empoisonne son épouse, dans l'espoir de mettre enfin la main sur son magot.

Real French people don’t speak like your textbook…so it’s no wonder you feel unprepared when it’s your turn to speak! Try the StoryLearning Method, and dive into a real-world, gripping drama between six characters that helps you learn authentic spoken French in the process.

The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (père) completed in 1844. It is one of the author's most popular works, along with The Three Musketeers. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815–1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France.

Suite à une épidémie de peste, les autorités décident de fermer la ville d'Oran. Les habitants s'organisent pour survivre au siège de cette maladie mortelle et en particulier le docteur Rieux. Il est l'un des premiers à identifier les symptômes de la maladie et devient une figure centrale dans l'organisation sanitaire de la ville.

The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda are our oldest written sources for Norse mythology. When it comes to the norse myths, they are the closest thing we have to listening these stories as the vikings actually told them, around those ancient campfires so long ago. It is my hope that you will enjoy this collection, and that the two books will work in tandem to broaden and deepen your appreciation for these epic and mystical stories, and the enigmatic culture that spawned them.

"Apeirogon", n.m. : figure géométrique au nombre infini de côtés. Rami Elhanan est israélien, fils d'un rescapé de la Shoah, ancien soldat de la guerre du Kippour ; Bassam Aramin est palestinien, et n'a connu que la dépossession, la prison et les humiliations. Tous deux ont perdu une fille. Abir avait dix ans, Smadar, treize ans.

Auteur star, Raphaëlle Giordano revient avec un roman réjouissant. Après le best-seller "Cupidon a des ailes en carton", l'auteur du phénomène "Ta deuxième vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n'en as qu'une" surprend et séduit une nouvelle fois. Au meilleur d'elle-même. "Qu'est-ce que ça pouvait bien être la normalité ? Sûrement un truc qui rassure..."

Le second empire vu sous l'angle des Rougon, archétypes de la bourgeoisie ambitieuse et parvenue.

Evan MacIan is a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed Scottish Highlander and a devout Roman Catholic. James Turnbull is a short, red-haired, gray-eyed Lowlander and a devout but naïve atheist. The two meet when MacIan smashes the window of the street office where Turnbull publishes an atheist journal. This act of rage occurs when MacIan sees posted on the shop's window a sheet that blasphemes the Virgin Mary, presumably implying she was an adulteress who gave birth to an illegitimate Jesus.