50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world's finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan and O'Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common--the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world's fiction.

Famous novella chronicles a young American girl’s willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences. Throughout, James contrasts American customs and values with European manners and morals in a narrative rich in psychological and social insight.

A boy of many faiths. A 450-pound Bengal tiger. A shipwreck. A lifeboat. The Pacific Ocean. With more than six million copies in print, Life of Pi has become a modern classic, combining grand storytelling with a profound exploration of ageless themes: faith and truth, fact and fiction, man versus nature, and innocence and experience.

生命，从此与众不同。生命的意义、真挚的爱、追寻与渴望、拥有与失落……一切人生的体悟，尽在这本扣人心弦的小说之中！ 故事主角本杰明‧巴顿正拥有和世人截然不同的生命历程，当其他人风华散尽、迈向死亡时，班杰明却日趋年轻；时间的逆流带领班杰明走向另一条道路，也让他饱尝了他人所不曾经历过的一切。然而，这是否就是美好的人生呢？ Full grown with a long, smoke-coloured beard, requiring the services of a cane and fonder of cigars than warm milk, Benjamin Button is a very curious baby indeed. And, as Benjamin becomes increasingly youthful with the passing years, his family wonders why he persists in the embarrassing folly of living in reverse. In this imaginative fable of ageing and the other stories collected here - including "The Cut-Glass Bowl" in which an ill-meant gift haunts a family's misfortunes, "The Four Fists" where a man's life shaped by a series of punches to his face, and the revelry, mobs and anguish of "May Day" - F. Scott Fitzgerald displays his unmatched gift as a writer of short stories.

‘All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.’ Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one daz he forgets to feed his livestock. the ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges...

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"It's a magic wardrobe. There's a wood inside it, and it's snowing! Come and see," begged Lucy. Lucy has stumbled upon a marvellous land of fauns and centaurs, nymphs and talking animals. But soon she discovers that it is ruled by the cruel White Witch, and can only be freed by Aslan, the great Lion and four children This is the second adventure in the exciting Chronicles of Narnia.

Book Description Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles. "Bleak House" is a story of love and inheritance, and its graphic depiction of the realities and costs of High Court legal actions, drawn from the author's personal experience still have relevance. The atmosphere, places and events are described with a perceptive eye. Amazon.com Bleak House is a satirical look at the Byzantine legal system in London as it consumes the minds and talents of the greedy and nearly destroys the lives of innocents--a contemporary tale indeed. Dickens's tale takes us from the foggy dank streets of London and the maze of the Inns of Court to the peaceful countryside of England. Likewise, the characters run from murderous villains to virtuous girls, from a devoted lover to a "fallen woman," all of whom are affected by a legal suit in which there will, of course, be no winner. The first-person narrative related by the orphan Esther is particularly sweet. The articulate reading by the acclaimed British actor Paul Scofield, whose distinctive broad English accent lends just the right degree of sonority and humor to the text, brings out the color in this classic social commentary disguised as a Victorian drama. However, to abridge Dickens is, well, a Dickensian task, the results of which make for a story in which the author's convoluted plot lines and twists of fate play out in what seems to be a fast-forward format. Listeners must pay close attention in order to keep up with the multiple narratives and cast of curious characters, including the memorable Inspector Bucket and Mr. Guppy. Fortunately, the publisher provides a partial list of characters on the inside jacket. The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature Novel by Charles Dickens, published serially in 1852-53 and in book form in 1853. Considered by some critics to be the author's best work, Bleak House is the story of several generations of the Jarndyce family who wait in vain to inherit money from a disputed fortune in the settlement of the lawsuit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. It is pointedly critical of England's Court of Chancery, in which cases could drag on through decades of convoluted legal maneuvering. From Library Journal Bleak House is such a natural for audio that it comes as no surprise to read in Peter Ackroyd's biography of Dickens that he himself read it aloud to Wilkie Collins and his own family. No matter how good he was as a readerAand he did go on to present public readings regularly after thisADickens could not have performed better than Robert Whitfield does here. With a motley cast of characters to challenge the skill of any narrator, his brilliant dramatizations range from a homeless street urchin to an arrogant barrister, from a canny old windbag to a high-minded heroine who deserves the happy ending Dickens affords her. Whitfield is also as persuasive as the indignant voice of the author himself, attacking both the injustice of the law and the cruel indifference of society. This may be one of the most Dickensian novels Dickens ever wrote. Highly recommended.AJo Carr, Sarasota, FL About Author Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in Portsmouth, England, one of eight children, grew up in poverty, had little formal education, and yet became the most prominent and revered English Victorian writer as well as a journalist. Book Dimension : length: (cm)19.8 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)12.6

"Lavishly crammed with the songs, smells, and costumes of late Victorian England" (The Daily Telegraph), this delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler. When Kitty is called up to London for an engagement on "Grease Paint Avenue, " Nan follows as her dresser and secret lover, and, soon after, dons trousers herself and joins the act. In time, Kitty breaks her heart, and Nan assumes the guise of butch roue to commence her own thrilling and varied sexual education--a sort of Moll Flanders in drag--finally finding friendship and true love in the most unexpected places. Drawing comparison to the work of Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters's novel is a feast for the senses--an erotic, lushly detailed historical that bursts with life and dazzlingly casts the turn of the century in a different light. "An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaring Nineties. It's gorgeous." --The Independent on Sunday (UK)

弗朗西丝·霍奇森·伯内特（1849年-1924），一位影响了整个20世纪的英国女作家，是最早使用现代心理描写手法进行少儿文学创作的作家之一。出于曼彻斯特，你亲早逝，家境贫寒。16岁时，弗朗西丝随全家移民美国；18岁时，开始发表作品；28风时，出版了她的第一部畅销书《劳瑞家的闺女》；62岁时，他作了她最著名最成功的作品《秘密花园》，奠定了她在英国文学史上举足轻重的地位。此外还有代表作品《小公主》、《小少爷方特罗伊》等，广爱欧美国家青少年的喜爱，都是世界文学宝库中的经典著作。

Jack London's adventure masterpiece is not only a vivid account of the Klondike gold rush and North American Indian life, but it is also an intriguing study of the effects different environments have on an individual. Celebrate the centennial anniversary of the classic tale of a wolf-dog who endures great cruelty before he comes to know human kindness.

It's a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you're ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary. In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley's star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend's newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.

A plane crashes on an uninhabited island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast. In this, his first novel, William Golding gave the traditional adventure story an ironic, devastating twist. The boys' delicate sense of order fades, and their childish fears are transformed into something deeper and more primitive. Their games take on a horrible significance, and before long the well-behaved party of schoolboys has turned into a tribe of faceless, murderous savages. First published in 1954, Lord of the Flies is now recognized as a classic, one of the most celebrated of all modern novels. - See more at: http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/lord-of-the-flies/9780571056866#sthash.CWBll4FV.dpuf

William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude. John Williams's luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

GILLIAN FLYNN is the author of the runaway hit Gone Girl, an international sensation that has spent more than ninety-five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work has been published in forty languages. Gone Girl is soon to be a major motion picture from Twentieth Century Fox. Flynn’s previous novels, Dark Places and Dagger Award winner Sharp Objects, were also New York Times bestsellers. A former writer and critic for Entertainment Weekly, she lives in Chicago with her husband and children.  From the Hardcover edition.

The thrillingly dark sequel to New York Times bestseller, DIVERGENT - a major motion picture in 2014. One choice can transform you - or it can destroy you. Tris Prior's initiation day should have been marked by victorious celebrations with her chosen faction; instead it ended with unspeakable horrors. Now unrest surges in the factions around her as conflict between their ideologies grows. War seems inevitable; and in times of war sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge and choices will become ever more irrevocable. Tris has already paid a terrible price for survival and is wracked by haunting grief and guilt. But radical new discoveries and shifting relationships mean that she must fully embrace her Divergence - even though she cannot know what might be lost in doing so. New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian Divergent trilogy is another intoxicating thrill-ride, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreak, romance and powerful insights about human nature.

Amid the foggy streets of sinister London and the even more sinister countryside, Holmes and Watson once more solve the unsolvable. This book is a collection of stories, including "A Scandal in Bohemia", "A Case of Identity", "The Red-Headed League" and "The Boscombe Valley Mystery".

Few books have captivated the imagination and won the devotion and praise of readers and critics everywhere as has George R. R. Martin’s monumental epic cycle of high fantasy. Now, in A Feast for Crows, Martin delivers the long-awaited fourth book of his landmark series, as a kingdom torn asunder finds itself at last on the brink of peace...only to be launched on an even more terrifying course of destruction. A Feast for Crows It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears....With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist—or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out. But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces—some familiar, others only just appearing—are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead. It is a time when the wise and the ambitious, the deceitful and the strong will acquire the skills, the power, and the magic to survive the stark and terrible times that lie before them. It is a time for nobles and commoners, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and sages to come together and stake their fortunes...and their lives. For at a feast for crows, many are the guests—but only a few are the survivors.

在线阅读本书 With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled 'A Novel without a Hero', Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world.