Класична зарубіжна проза

David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) in the semi-auto-biographical novel Sons and Lovers (1913) touched on the topic of ambiguous relationships with parents.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

«Emma» is the fourth novel penned by the esteemed English writer Jane Austen (1775–1817).

Gone with the Wind is a novel by the American writer Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949), written in 1936.

The last volume of the illustrated four-volume set by Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1859–1930) includes two collections of stories: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (12 stories) and His Last Bow (7 stories). The title story His Last Bow is a spy story. On the eve of World War I, a German spy is about to smuggle valuable documents out of England. Sherlock Holmes is going to put a stop to that.

The novel Man and Wife is a drama about a selfish and ambitious man who abandons his wife to marry a wealthier woman, taking advantage of a loophole in marriage law. Under Scottish law at the time, any couple who claimed to be married in front of witnesses was considered legally married in Scotland.

This book contains classical works of erotic literature

«Tales of the Fish Patrol» is a collection of short stories by the American classic writer Jack London (1876–1916).

Pickman’s Model is a collection of horror stories by American writer Howard Lovecraft (1890–1937). In the story Pickman’s Model, the artist paints pictures of horrific images that are considered the fruit of his sick imagination. A friend of the artist comes to Pickman’s private secret gallery. The artist shows new painting, a huge image of a red-eyed creature that devours human victims. The friend finds a photograph that proves that Pickman painted the horrible monsters not from imagination, but he used real-life models.

Charming Lady Susan Vernon is a widow, who seduces both single and married men alike. As she has been left in a financially precarious state due to the death of her first husband, she uses flirting to gain her objectives and maintain a semblance of her former opulent lifestyle. As a widow and a mother, her main goals are to quickly marry off her daughter Frederica to a wealthy man, and to marry someone even richer.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles — a novel by the English writer Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), first published in 1891. One day, the head of the Darbeyfield family learns that their family comes from the ancient knightly family d’Urberville. He quits his job and spends most of his time in local pubs. Tess, the eldest daughter, becomes the support of the family.

The outstanding English writer, publicist and journalist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) wrote historical, adventure and fiction novels. But he entered world literature as the creator of the extraordinary detective Sherlock Holmes, for whom there are no hopeless cases.

The second volume of Scotland Yard Book by the English writer Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) offers the thriller novel Black, which was first published in 1926, and two short stories. Black is a mysterious story about a Londoner named James Morelake, who has many secrets and an interesting set of skills.

The Horror in the Museum is a collection of horror stories by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). George Rogers is the owner of a private waxen things museum in London. His friend Stephen Jones ridicules Rogers for telling wild stories about rituals and sacrifices to nameless ancient gods. Jones accepts Rogers’ offer to spend the night at the museum, where he falls victim to Rhan-Tegoth.

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. In his dreams, Randolph Carter sees a majestic city, but he is unable to approach it. After the city appears in his dreams, he prays to the gods of dream to reveal the city’s whereabouts. But then the city vanishes from his dreams altogether. Carter resolves to beseech the gods in person at Kadath—on the mountain above which the gods of dream live. The priests in a temple that borders the Dreamlands tell Carter that nobody knows the location of Kadath, and warn him of great danger should he continue with his quest.

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.

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 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.

Charles Dickens is the greatest writer of the Victorian era who became the classic of English literature while still being alive.

Mr. Watson is a widowed clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, the heroine of the story, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated than her sisters. However, after her aunt contracted a marriage, Emma has been obliged to return to her father’s house. She is chagrined by the reckless husband-hunting of her older sisters, Penelope and Margaret. Emma meets the Watsons’ neighbors, Lord Osborne and Mr. Howard.

The protagonist of the novel This Side of Paradise (1920) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Amory Blaine, is a middleclass Princeton University student. He is convinced that he has an extremely promising future. But his family inheritance has dissipated, and he is unlucky in love. In a crisis, he travels from New York to his alma mater. Blaine believes that the new generation has inherited disappointment and loss of faith, but still yearns for love and success.

In his thriller stories Poe tries to show psychic side of the crime from the inside. He is not interested in social roots of the crime, but in unmotivated actions that go beyond normal behavior of a person in the society.

The third volume of Scotland Yard Book by the English writer Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) presents the collection of short stories The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reader, published in 1925. The collection includes the works The Poetical Policeman, The Green Mamba, The Stealer of Marble, The Troupe, Sheer Melodrama, The Investors, The Strange Case, and The Treasure Hunt.