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  Our Lady of the Flowers

  Jean Genet

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  The shattering novel of underground life the New York Times called “a cry of rapture and horror . . . the purest lyrical genius.”   Jean Genet’s debut novel Our Lady of the Flowers, which is often considered to be his masterpiece, was written entirely in the solitude of a prison cell. A semi- autobiographical account of one man’s journey through the Paris demi-monde, dubbed “the epic of masturbation” by no less a figure than Jean-Paul Sartre, the novel’s exceptional value lies in its exquisite ambiguity.

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  The Safety Match

  Anton Chekhov

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  On an early October morning, Psyekoff, the right hand-man to Lieutenant Marcus Ivanovitch Klausoff, informs the inspector of police that he suspects Klausoff has been murdered. Immediately, the inspector and his team head to Klausoff's home to investigate the matter. After examining the outside of the house, the inspector sends word to the magistrate, asking him to come investigate the case. When the magistrate and his assistant arrive, they check Klausoff's room, only to find that he is not in there. His door is locked, but his window is clearly open. The situation reminds the magistrate of a case he worked several years earlier, where a man had been killed in his room and his body dragged out the window to remove the evidence. As the magistrate and his assistant look for and find clues, the assistant begins to piece together a story explaining what happened. Based on the evidence, he believes Klausoff was strangled, taken out through the window, hit on the head, and then disposed of somewhere. He also believes three people were involved in the murder. The magistrate is not convinced of that particular theory, but he begins questioning Klausoff's staff. Soon, he and his assistant believe they find two of the three people involved. One of the clues, a safety match found in Klausoff's room, the assistant believes will lead them to the third murderer. After he questions businesses in town about safety matches, he finds only one that sells them, and Klausoff's estranged wife recently bought a pack there. Convinced that Klausoff's estranged wife is the third murderer, he drags the magistrate to her house. But what they discover at her house throws a wrench into the assistant's theory and even the soundness of their biggest clue, the safety match.

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  Little Dorrit

  Charles Dickens

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  When Arthur Clennam returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother's seamstress, and in the affairs of Amy's father, William Dorrit, a man of shabby grandeur, long imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea prison. As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many, from the kindly Mr Panks, the reluctant rent-collector of Bleeding Heart Yard, and the tipsily garrulous Flora Finching, to Merdle, an unscrupulous financier, and the bureaucratic Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office. A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens's maturity.

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  The Nightingale

  Hans Christian Anderson

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  The Emperor of China loves to listen to the nightingale's song. One day he receives a mechanical bird that can sing. He forgets about the nightingale. But what happens when the mechanical bird wears out and breaks?The famous and much-loved Danish author Hans Christian Andersen celebrated his 200 anniversary the year 2005. On this occasion we have published five of his best tales retold for children aged 3-9 years: Tinderbox, The Little Match Girl, The Nightingale, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Ugly Duckling.Hans Christian Andersen wrote The Nightingale in 1844.

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  Beowulf

  Anonymous

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  When sleep was at its deepest, night at its blackest, up from the mist-filled marsh came Grendel stalking...Thus begins the battle between good and evil, for lying in wait and anxious to challenge the ogre Grendel is a young man, strong-willed and fire-hearted. This man is Beowulf, whose heroic dragon-slaying deeds were sung in the courts of Anglo-Saxon England more than a thousand years ago.Beowulf is our only native English heroic epic. In the figure of Beowulf, the Scandinavian warrior, and his struggles against monsters, the unknown author depicts the life and outlook of a pagan age. The poem is a subtle blending of themes-the conflict of good and evil, and an examination of heroism. Its skillful arrangement of incidents and use of contrast and parallel show it to be the product of a highly sophisticated culture.This version of Beowulf is the translation by Francis B. Gummere.

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  The Murderer

  Perceval Gibbon

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  Perceval Gibbon (1879-1926) was an author and journalist, working on the Rand Daily Mail in South Africa and several other publications. He is best remembered for his masterly short stories which were often characterized by an ironic twist at the end.The Murderer is just such a tale. It tells the story of Conroy, a young English sailor who is bullied and beaten by the brutal mate of the German merchant ship Villingen. Conroy is goaded on by the other members of the crew and ends up publically blurting out a vow of revenge on the mate.He himself would have quickly forgotton the incident, but his fellow sailors are quick to encourage him to see the thing through. One supplies him with a weapon, others remind him repeatedly of his purpose. But when he is on watch as look-out one night, the mate is accidentally swept off the forecastle head by a wave onto the main deck below, hitting his head hard and killing him instantly, everyone in the crew assumes that Conroy has murdered him.Conroy finds himself in a very uncomfortable position indeed... but then he realizes how to deal with the situation.

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