Thirteen Guests Arrived At Dinner At The Actor S House. It Was To Be A Particularly Unlucky Evening For The Mild-Mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, Who Choked On His Cocktail, Went Into Convulsions And Died. But When His Martini Glass Was Sent For Chemical Analysis, There Was No Trace Of Poison Just As Poirot Had Predicted. Even More Troubling For The Great Detective, There Was Absolutely No Motive&
'The moment I first met you, I noticed your pride, your sense of superiority, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be persuaded to marry,' said Elizabeth Bennet. And so Elizabeth rejects the proud Mr Darcy. Can nothing overcome her prejudice against him? And what of the other Bennet girls - their fortunes, and misfortunes, in the business of getting husbands? This famous novel by Jane Austen is full of wise and humorous observation of the people and manners of her times.
The books in the 'Penguin Readers' series are selected from the classics, and film and TV stories, as well as original stories. They are simplified for the benefit of the reluctant reader, foreign language speakers and ESOL/EFL students.
Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. the novel is modeled after the day's popular romances and Gothic thrillers, which it then proceeds to ridicule. The heroine is Catherine Morland, who encounters upper-crust society at Bath, falls in love, and becomes targeted by misinformed fortune-seekers. After moving to Northanger Abbey, her imagination goes to work and dreams up mysteries that lead to various social disasters.
Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.
July, 1700, Rome. Atto Melani - once a celebrated castrato soprano, now a spy in the service of King Louis XIV, the Sun King - mingles with other high- ranking guests at the villa of Cardinal Spada. The main topic of conversation is the grave illness of the Pope and the approaching demise of Charles II, King of Spain.
11 September 1683, Rome. The citizens of the city wait anxiously for the outcome of the battle of Vienna as Ottoman forces lay siege to the defenders of Catholic Europe. Meanwhile, a suspected outbreak of plague causes a famous tavern to be placed under quarantine. While detained there, French spy Atto Melani discovers a secret network of passages under the city. They lead him into the Roman underworld and the startling discovery of a plot to assassinate the pope and a plan to use the plague as a weapon of mass destruction in the battle between Islam and the West…
Děj románu zavádí čtenáře do historicky věrného a působivého prostředí antických Pompejí, do doby po velkém výbuchu sopky Vesuvu. Ústřední postava malíř Labius odjíždí z Říma do Pompejí, aby zde pracoval na obnově výzdoby výbuchem poškozených domů. Zde prožívá svůj úspěch, lásku i politické intriky. Netuší však, že se blíží druhý výbuch sopky, sice zatím vzdálený v čase, ale naprosto fatální pro město.
Další z případů vrchního inspektora Alleyna ze Scotland Yardu se tentokrát odehrává mezi společenskou smetánkou v malé vesnici v Kentu, kde dojde k několika záhadným vraždám a ke krádeži známky nesmírné ceny. Alleyn se svými spolupracovníky překoná všechny překážky a složitý případ vyřeší s bravurou sobě vlastní. Příběh je napsán v nejlepších tradicích anglické detektivky a kromě napětí mu neschází ani humor.
Kniha obsahuje dva psychologicky laděné milostné romány z padesátých let 20. století od populární francouzské autorky. — Oba romány, resp. románové novely (Za měsíc, za rok, 1957; Dobrý den, smutku, 1954) zachycují složité problémy a vnitřní konflikty milostných vztahů hrdinek, náležejících převážně k francouzské intelektuální vrstvě té doby. Komorní příběhy těchto žen líčí autorka v obou prózách s maximální objektivitou, bez sentimentality a falešné citovosti.
