Modern Classics

Victor Frankenstein, un jeune étudiant brillant, crée de toutes pièces un être à l'apparence humaine. Bien vite, il regrette son geste. En effet, la créature prend l'apparence d'un monstre sanguinaire qui ne pense qu'à semer la mort et le malheur sur son passage et qui persécute son créateur. Au travers de l'histoire de Victor Frankenstein et de son monstre, Mary W. Shelley nous pose la question de l'origine de la cruauté humaine. Le monstre de Frankenstein est rejeté par tous. Il aimerait avoir des relations avec les humains mais ceux-ci le fuient. Il devient alors violent et s'en prend aux personnes qu'il rencontre.

Franz Kafka war ein deutschsprachiger Schriftsteller. Sein Hauptwerk bilden neben drei Romanfragmenten (Der Process, Das Schloss und Der Verschollene) zahlreiche Erzählungen. Kafkas Werke wurden zum größeren Teil erst nach seinem Tod und gegen seine letztwillige Verfügung von Max Brod veröffentlicht, einem engen Freund und Vertrauten, den Kafka als Nachlassverwalter bestimmt hatte. Kafkas Werke werden zum Kanon der Weltliteratur gezählt. Für die Beschreibung seiner ungewöhnlichen Art der Schilderung hat sich ein eigenes Wort entwickelt: "kafkaesk".

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales II: Modern Verse Translation collection.

We never forget the stories we were told as children. Even when they are not on the top of our mind, they lurk like palm prints on the drying cement foundations of our understanding of the world. We absorb the pluck of children in the face of adult perfidy, cheering the heroism of Hansel and Gretel or Beauty and the Beast. Counterpoised by the wickedness and cruelty of parents, stepmothers, and wolves in sheep's clothing, children's wiliness usually leaves them unharmed, if not heroic. As adults, we keep returning to them again and again in film, in theater, and in books.

Together with the Iliad, the Odyssey, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost, the Aeneid is one of the true monuments of world literature. Like all these great classics, over the centuries it has become stultified by academic formalism, and its true glory as a narrative of thrilling power and richness has become very much obscured. This new translation seeks to highlight the vigor and immediacy of Virgil's epic while still respecting the grandeur of the original language.

A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts. A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow. A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy. A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes. Welcome back to the Sinclair family. They were always liars.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is the Edgar Allan Poe gothic short story that continues to fascinate readers with its murder, beating heart, and insanity. -The language of over 170 years ago has been updated making Poe’s difficult language easily understood by today’s readers. -Every effort has been made to keep the story as close to the original as possible--only word order and difficult vocabulary have been changed. -End notes, interpretation, and discussion of major themes follow the text. -Biographical information on Edgar Allan Poe is included.-Accelerated Reader AR Quiz No. 7946 EN ...

For students of Middle English, Andrew and Waldron's The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript has been the key edition of the four Pearl poems for over 30 years. With the changing needs of today's students in mind, the editors produced a complete prose translation of the four poems - the best known of which is "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". The near-literal translations are intended to facilitate understanding of the four poems - to lead readers to, rather than away from, the original texts.

Mary Shelley's classic gothic horror novel. The scientific young genius, Frankenstein, discovers a method for creating life in inanimate objects and sets about a project to build a human in his laboratory. He is successful in his aim, but in so doing, unleashes on the world a creature whose physical deformities make him repulsive to everyone who sets eyes on him.

This was the book that launched a genre. Modern fantasy collections trace their lineage back to Lord Dunsany, and this was his first work that today's listeners would recognise in tone and settings.

Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 CE, and is considered the last of the Five Good Emperors. He was a Stoic Philosopher and his work "The Meditations" (literally, "things to one's self") is a set of private notes and thoughts. While never meant for publication, it is considered to be one of the greatest extant works of stoic philosophy. Each translation of The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has taken some liberties. Words are added and some removed in order to better reach meaning and understanding. This latest translation and New Modern Edition is meant to restore some...

1960. The border between East and West Germany has closed. For Elisabeth - a young painter - the GDR is her generation's chance to build a glorious, egalitarian socialist future. For her brother Uli, it is a place of stricture and oppression. Separating them is the ever-wider chasm of the party line; over them loom the twin spectres of opportunity and fear, and the shadow of their defector brother Konrad. In prose as bold as a scarlet paint stroke, Brigitte Reimann battles with the clash of idealism and suppression, familial loyalty and desire.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales III: Modern Verse Translation collection.

"Frankenstein o El moderno Prometeo, o simplemente Frankenstein, es una obra literaria de la escritora inglesa Mary Shelley. Publicado el 1 de enero de 1818 y enmarcado en la tradición de la novela gótica, el texto aborda temas como la moral científica, la creación y destrucción de vida, y el atrevimiento de la humanidad en su relación con Dios. De ahí el subtítulo de la obra: el protagonista intenta rivalizar en poder con Dios, como una suerte de Prometeo moderno que arrebata el fuego sagrado de la vida a la divinidad.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales III: Modern Verse Translation collection.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales III: Modern Verse Translation collection.

Piccadilly Circus tube station is an unlikely location for a pact with the Devil, but this is where Jonathan Fitch first meets Mr Rinyo-Clacton. Devastated after his girlfriend Serafina has left him, Jonathan agrees that this mysterious stranger will pay him a million pounds for a year, if he agrees to die at the end of it. What could possibly go wrong?

Après avoir échoué dans sa collaboration à l'Encyclopédie, Voltaire conçoit l'idée de condenser dans un seul ouvrage l'essentiel de ses pensées philosophiques.

Wenn der "beste Vorleser Deutschlands", Dieter Mann, "24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau" von Stefan Zweig liest, ist das ein besonderes Hörerlebnis. Mann spricht die Geschichte der englischen Dame, die eine lebensverändernde Nacht mit einem Spieler verbringt, mit aller Wärme und Zurückhaltung. Er lässt den Ort und die Protagonisten vorm geistigen Auge lebendig werden.

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life. Through the character of Gordon Comstock, Orwell reveals his own disaffection with the society he once himself renounced.