European Literature

On the morning of her 25th birthday, Lily Harper opens the very last letter written to her by her beloved mother, who died when she was eight. Learning about the first and only real love of her mom's life is a revelation. The same momentous day, Lily meets Eddie Tessler, an actor fleeing fame who could change her world in unimaginable ways. But her childhood friend, Dan, has his own reasons for not wanting Lily to get too carried away by Eddie's attentions.

Octave Mouret (le futur héros du "Bonheur des dames"), débarque à Paris et devient le nouveau locataire d'un immeuble bourgeois de six étages, situé rue de Choiseul. Il découvre rapidement que dans cette demeure en apparence de réputation irréprochable, les intrigues font partie de la vie courante des habitants. Derrière une belle façade se dissimule une cour intérieure d'où émanent des odeurs nauséabondes dues aux détritus des cuisines que les domestiques jettent par les fenêtres. Et par analogie, derrière cette respectable façade, existe un puant cloaque moral.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake consists of a series of texts written in the style of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own beliefs. Composed between 1790 and 1793, the book makes reference to Milton and Swedenborg, and adopts a device from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost: a visit to hell. Blake expresses a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are both part of the divine order.

In 1643, a manuscript was discovered, clearly written as early as 1300, containing 29 poems, complete or fragmentary. Various linguistic forensic techniques suggest that the poems were shaped even earlier, stretching as far back as AD 850, well within the Viking era. When it comes to the Norse myths, they are the closest thing we have to reading these stories as the Vikings actually told them, around those ancient campfires so long ago.

Décidément, les idées de Sophie tournent toujours à la catastrophe ! Avec ses frères, Léonce et Arthur, elle teint un mouton en noir, brûle les poils du chien Bijou, et manque de mettre le feu à sa robe... Même quand ses cousins se réunissent pour raconter des histoires, la fillette ne peut s'empêcher de leur jouer des tours ! Pourtant, Louis parvient à captiver la malicieuse Sophie en racontant que sa tante, une nuit, a trouvé un cadavre sous son lit...

When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn's visit to Surinam, Oroonoko reflects the author's romantic view of native peoples as noble savages in 'the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin'.

Écrite en 1879, Boule de Suif est la nouvelle qui a imposé Guy de Maupassant comme un maître. L'action se situe durant la guerre de 1870 : dix personnes fuient Rouen, occupée par les soldats prussiens, pour gagner Dieppe en diligence. Parmi ces dix personnes, se trouvent des bourgeois, des commerçants, des nobles, et une prostituée, surnommée Boule de Suif, à cause de son embonpoint.

La jeune et naïve Catherine Morland est invitée par des voisins de ses parents à passer quelques semaines à Bath. Là, elle se lie d'amitié avec la jeune et inconstante Isabelle Thorpe et son frère, le présomptueux John qui se pose rapidement en prétendant de Catherine. Elle y rencontre également Henry Tilney et sa charmante sœur Eléonore. Catherine n'est pas insensible au charme de Henry.

George Eliot’s last, most controversial novel opens as the spoiled Gwendolen Harleth, poised at a roulette table about to throw away a small fortune, captivates Daniel Deronda. As their lives become intertwined, they are also transformed by suffering, misfortune, revelations and Daniel’s fascination with the Jewish singer Mirah. Daniel Deronda shocked Victorian readers with its portrayal of the Jewish experience in British society, and remains a moving and epic portrayal of human passions.

Publication posthume du penseur de Genève, les Rêveries tiennent autant du journal autobiographique que de réflexions philosophiques.

Thai transsexuals are famous for their beauty and their mischievous ways. Bell, a beautiful ladyboy, makes her way around Europe, taking in the sights and having a whole load of fun with men, women, sissies, and other T-girls.

Real Italian 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 Italian in the process.

As the golden summer draws to a close and the Darcys look ahead to the end of their first year of marriage, Mr. Darcy could never have imagined that his love could grow even deeper with the passage of time. Elizabeth is unpredictable and lively, pulling Darcy out of his stern and serious demeanor with her teasing and temptation. Looking ahead and planning for celebrations and life events large and small, Lizzy can still catch Darcy unawares when he least expects it.

"Affreuse illusion des choses humaines ! Elle me reçut toujours avec son excellent cœur, qui ne pouvait mourir qu'avec elle ; mais je venais rechercher le passé qui n'était plus, et qui ne pouvait renaître... A peine eus-je resté une demi-heure avec elle, que je sentis mon ancien bonheur mort pour toujours."

Italo Calvino was not only a prolific master of fiction, he was also an uncanny reader of literature, a keen critic of astonishing range. Why Read the Classics? is the most comprehensive collection of Calvino's literary criticism available in English, accounting for the enduring importance to our lives of crucial writers of the Western canon. Here - spanning more than two millennia, from antiquity to postmodernism - are 36 immediately relevant, accessible ruminations on the writers, poets, and scientists who meant most to Calvino at different stages of his life.

Make Shakespeare a part of your daily routine with Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year, a yearlong collection of passages from Shakespeare's greatest works. Drawing from the full spectrum of plays and sonnets to mark each day of the year, whether it's a scene from Hamlet to celebrate Christmas or a Sonnet in June to help you enjoy a summer's day. There are also passages to mark important days in the Shakespeare calendar, both from his own life and from his plays.

Au phare, c'est cette destination vers laquelle se tend et se déploie tout le roman, un serment en suspens, à flux tendu au-dessus des profondeurs abyssales de la conscience des personnages. La promesse d'une promenade scelle l'alliance de Mrs Ramsey avec ses enfants, contre le père, contre vents et marées, le temps qui passe et la Guerre - c'est autour de cette parole donnée que se nouent les désirs enfouis et les pensées tues, que se cristallisent tragiquement les souvenirs d'enfance.

From a variety of masterfully rendered perspectives, these six stories depict people at painful odds with the world around them. A wife can only surrender to a desert night by betraying her husband. An artist struggles to honor his own aspirations as well as society's expectations of him. A missionary brutally converted to the worship of a tribal fetish is left with but an echo of his identity. Whether set in North Africa, Paris, or Brazil, the stories in Exile and the Kingdom are probing portraits of spiritual exile, and man's perpetual search for an inner kingdom.

One of the best-known collections of W. B. Yeats' prose, The Celtic Twilight explores the old connection between the Irish people and the magical world of fairies. Yeats, by traveling the land in the early 20th century and talking to the common people about their experiences with the creatures, yielded a colorful overview of Celtic fairy folklore.

The Hobbit is one of the most widely read and best-loved books of the 20th century. Now Professor Corey Olsen takes listeners deep within the text to uncover its secrets and delights. Chapter by chapter, he reveals the stories within the story: the dark desires of dwarves and the sublime laughter of elves, the nature of evil and its hopelessness, the mystery of divine providence and human choice, and, most of all, the transformation within the life of Bilbo Baggins.