Проза

The novel Glimpses of the Moon (1922) by American author Edith Wharton tells the romantic adventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch. They have agreed to get married and spend a year at the expense of their wealthy friends, spending their honeymoon in their mansions and villas. But if one of them meets a suitable match, they may end their marriage. This is a comedy of errors that will charm all fans of Wharton’s work.

The Buccaneers (1937), Edith Wharton’s last novel, was left unfinished.
The novel is set in the 1870s. Several wealthy American families have ambitions to gain even higher social status by marrying off their daughters to aristocrats. The money of the young women’s parents is very attractive to impoverished but titled Englishmen to maintain their version of wealth.

Nineteen-year-old Margaret Hale lives in London. Her life is turned upside down when her family moves to Milton Northern. It is a cotton-manufacturing town, which is at the centre of a workers’ revolution. At first, Margaret is hostile to John Thornton, a wealthy manufacturer; but over time, she begins to admire the way he rose from poverty. After a series of dramatic events, Thornton unexpectedly makes his declaration of love to her, but Margaret does not accept it, although she begins to realize the depth of Thornton’s personality.

In Oleksandr Krasovytskyy’s new novel, written in the genre of black humor, the action takes place in the United States of America. American democracy proves to be vulnerable and is turned inside out by those who have come to power. When the president sees himself as a king and even a god, adventurers and fanatics of various kinds swarm around him. Elon Musk produces small puppetlike people on bioprinters, replacing pet dogs and cats, and receives a trillion dollars from the budget for an expedition to Mars. The US financial system finds itself at risk, which puts in question the very existence of the nation. Musk’s assistant, Vlad Tepes—a descendant of Dracula with his own ambitious plans and unmet promises—is orchestrating an Armageddon. A war with Mexico is imminent...

«Persuasion» is the last novel completed by the esteemed English writer Jane Austen (1775–1817). It was published at the end of 1817, six months after her death.

On a snowy November night, Alice is sitting in an armchair before the fireplace, playing with a white kitten and a black kitten. She talks about the game of chess and then speculates what the world is like beyond the mirror. Having climbed onto the mantelpiece, she touches the mirror above the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she can step through it.

Tender Is the Night (1934) is the last novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The action of the novel takes place on the French Riviera, where a glamorous couple, Dick and Nicole Diver, rent a villa and invite friends. Dick is a promising young psychiatrist, and Nicole was his patient. One of the guests, Rosemary, is delighted with the Divers, but senses that something is wrong with the couple. The other guests witness Nicole’s nervous breakdown....

The Brangwen sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, are the main characters of D.H. Lawrence’s novel Women in Love (1920). Ursula is a schoolteacher, and Gudrun is an artist.

The second volume of the four-volume illustrated books by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) includes the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles and 12 short stories. The legend of the fearsome, diabolical hound that haunts the Baskervilles has turned into a terrifying reality. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson try to save the last descendant of this family—Sir Henry.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a short story about a man who is aging in reverse, from old age to childhood. Benjamin Button was born with the appearance of a 70-year-old man and is already able to speak. When Benjamin turns 20, the Button family realizes that he is getting younger...

The Day After Tomorrow, a thriller novel by Oleksandr Krasovytskyy plunges readers deep into the shadowy maze of power in Russia on the brink of its collapse. The world watches as Putin’s death sets off a chain reaction: Lenin’s mummified body is removed from his mausoleum, air raid sirens howl over Moscow, and the Kremlin’s iron grip begins to wane.

Anne of Ingleside is a novel by the Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942), which is a continuation of the novel Anne’s House of Dreams. The children of the happy couple of Anne and Gilbert grow up, study, and find friends—and, they can always be comforted and encouraged by their parents. And, at the end of the novel, the couple is going to celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary, which is a nice occasion that calls for a “second honeymoon.”

English writer David Herbert Lawrence (1885—1930) in the novel The Rainbow, tells the story of three generations of the Brangwen family. Tom Brangwen is the personification of the rural English farmer of the 19th century, who leads an oldfashioned way of life. His granddaughter Ursula is a university student and lives in the urban, industrial world of the early 20th century. The novel is based on the description of both rural and urban lifestiles, and the changes that occur over generations.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopia by George Orwell, written in 1948, published in 1949, and is relevant as never before. Today, in the era of the Internet, the social media are monitoring our every gesture, purchase, action, and comment online. They are constantly present in our lives and predict our every desire, our choices being carefully followed. Political organizations also play upon the feelings of network users. Big Brother is no longer a writer’s fiction, but the framework of the modern world.

The Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho by the English writer Anne Radcliffe (1764–1823) is set in the 16th century in Southern France and Northern Italy.
In the second part of the novel, Emily, now an orphan, is forced to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron. The aunt marries Montoni, a nobleman from Italy. He wants his friend Count Morano to become Emily’s husband. Finding Morano almost broke, Montoni takes Emily and her aunt to his castle, Udolfo. Montoni is trying to force his wife to transfer the property to him. Madame Cheron dies. Emily manages to escape...

The White Company is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), which tells about the adventures of the main character, a young squire, as well as English archers.

Oleksandr Krasovytskyy's latest book, TODAY, develops in the present, serving as a sequel to the author's previous novels. The narrative delves into current times, featuring recognizable characters and events that have unfolded recently. The plot is richly woven through the perspectives of various characters, whose lives would likely never intersect in normal circumstances, if not for the Kremlin dictator and his circle initiating a bewildering global partition.

The Professor is the first novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë’s (1816–1855). Young William Crimsworth is forced to look for work. After an unsuccessful experience as a clerk, and following a friend’s advice, William takes up teaching English. He unexpectedly falls in love with one of his students.

The novel The Law and the Lady by the English writer William Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) has a detective plot. Valeria Brinton marries Eustace Woodville, but a few days after the wedding, she begins to suspect her husband of hiding a dark secret in his past. She discovers that he was on trial for his first wife’s murder. Valeria sets out to save their happiness by proving her husband innocent of the crime.

Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914) was an American writer, journalist, poet, satirist, American Civil War veteran. The short story master, the author of stories on the themes of death and horror. In this genre, his name is placed next to those of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Can Such Things Be? is a collection of scary stories, including The Death Of Halpin Frayser, A Psychological Shipwreck, A Diagnosis of Death, among others.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopia by George Orwell. The main character of the novel, Winston Smith, is a censor at the Ministry of Truth. All its employees and he are watched by Big Brother; everyone is spying upon everyone else; even at home, citizens are followed through special screens. Today, in the age of the Internet, the social media are monitoring our every gesture, purchase, action, and online comment. They are constantly present in our lives and anticipate our every desire, our choices being carefully monitored.

The Strange High House in the Mist is a collection of several mystical stories by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). In the story of the same name, Thomas Olney is intrigued by a strange house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Local residents are afraid of this place, which no one visits. With great difficulty, Olney climbs the rock, approaches the house and meets the mysterious man who lives there.

The mysterious murder that Sherlock Holmes investigates in the novel The Valley of Fear is connected with ancient events in a distant land. The victim of the persecution manages to happily avoid death, but on his way there is a genius of the criminal world Professor Moriarty.

In the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), the dramatic story of Michael Henchard is described. The life path of Henchard—The Man of Character—was determined by fate at the moment of anger and a cruel joke in his youth. Despite the achievements of all subsequent years of life, a shameful act weighs on him and leads to an inevitable collapse.

Orlando is a poet and English nobleman during the reign of Elizabeth I. He undergoes a mysterious sex change at the age of 30, and continues to live for over 300 years without aging.
Throughout his/her life, Orlando meets famous figures in English literary history.

Sitting with her older sister on a riverbank, and feeling rather sleepy and bored, Alice suddenly spots a White Rabbit, in a waistcoat and with a pocket watch, who is hurrying past, complaining that he will be late. Surprised, Alice follows him down a rabbit hole, and sees herself in Wonderland.

Agnes Grey (1847) by English writer Anne Brontë is the story of a governess. The novel is based on the author’s own five-year experience. Like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the work describes the difficult lives of poor girls who are forced to work for other families.

The novel «Mansfield Park», the third published novel of Jane Austen (1775–1817), belongs to the mature period of her work.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopia by George Orwell, written in 1948, published in 1949, and is relevant as never before. The main character of the novel, Winston Smith, is a censor at the Ministry of Truth. All its employees and he are watched by Big Brother, who sees everything, and everyone is spying upon everyone else even in their homes—citizens are being followed through special screens.

The novel The Beautiful and Damned (1922) by F. Scott Fitzgerald begins shortly before World War I. Anthony Patch, a twenty five-year-old Harvard University graduate, returns to New York. He is the likely heir to his grandfather’s vast fortune. Anthony meets the beautiful Gloria Gilbert. They fall madly in love and decide to get married. But Gloria and Anthony’s marital happiness is short-lived, as each person’s selfishness comes to the fore.

The wealthy Vanstone family from the novel No name has two daughters—Norah and Magdalen. Suddenly, their parents die in a train accident. It suddenly turns out that the daughters are illegitimate, they have no name, no rights, no property. All the property is inherited by an uncle, who refuses to provide any support to the orphaned nieces.

«Northanger Abbey» is a novel by the English writer Jane Austen (1775–1817), written in the Gothic style fashionable at the time with irony characteristic of the author.

The Forsyte Saga brought the English writer John Galsworthy (1867–1933) the Nobel Prize in Literature (1932).

The Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho by the English writer Anne Radcliffe (1764–1823) is set in the 16th century in Southern France and Northern Italy.
In the first part of the novel, the reader learns about Emily St. Aubert, a young Frenchwoman, the only child in a once wealthy family. After the death of her mother, she accompanies her father on a journey. She meets Valancourt, a handsome man, and falls in love. Emily’s father dies, and Emily, now an orphan, is forced to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron.