英语小说网

“Metropolis” is the prophetic science-fiction novel that inspired Fritz Lang’s iconic silent-movie masterpiece. A magical, visionary page-turner so rich and inventive as to defy description, Thea von Harbou’s “Metropolis” is one science-fiction classic everyone should experience. “Metropolis” paints a stunning picture of the city of the future. At the top of the social pyramid, those who own the city’s buildings and businesses live idyllic lives devoted to the pursuit of pleasure; while at its bottom are the workers who live a hellish existence, laboring like robots in its factories, dwelling with their gaunt, stunted children in the everlasting gloom of underground barracks. Fighting to right these inequities are two lovers: Freder, son of the master and builder of Metropolis, who is shocked to social conscience when he glimpses the squalor and hopelessness amid which his father’s workers live; and Maria, who encourages the workers to stand united for their rights while following a path of non-violent resistance. Filled with unforgettable images from Joh Fredersen’s headquarters, the New Tower of Babel, rearing high above the gleaming spires of Metropolis to the pleasure city, Yoshiwara, whose name flares across the skies to the factories where workers slave before machines that resemble a pantheon of the world's gods to the evil robotrix, Parody, with the eyes of a Madonna and lips of deadly sin, whose carnal dance inspires the workers to revolt. “Metropolis” — an unforgettable, must-read book.

《底牌》，又译作《牌中牌》，是英国推理小说作家阿加莎·克里斯蒂著的长篇小说。 故事简述的是四位侦探——赫尔克里·波洛、亚瑞妮·奥利弗太太、巴特尔警监、强尼·雷斯上校，在四名嫌疑人找出凶手，而每一位“侦探”都有自己的判断和理由。

   This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy myself.    Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here that I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no hypocrite. I didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I didn't think the missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my little pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one that has been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning.

作者赫伯特·乔治·威尔斯描绘英国中下层社会的写实小说的代表作。

JOHN WOOLMAN was born at Northampton, N. J., in 1720, and died at York,England, in 1772. He Was the child of Quaker parents, and from his youth was azealous member of the Society of Friends. His "Journal," published posthumouslyin 1774, sufficiently describes his way of life and the spirit in which he didhis work; but his extreme humility prevents him from making clear theimportance of the part he played in the movement against slaveholding among theQuakers. 　　During the earlier years of their settlement in America, the Friends tookpart in the traffic in slaves with apparently as little hesitation as their fellow colonists; but in 1671 George Fox, visiting the Barbados, was struck bythe inconsistency of slave-holding with the religious principles of hisSociety. His protests, along with those of others, led to the growth of anagitation which spread from section to section. In 1742, Woolman, then a youngclerk in the employment of a storekeeper in New Jersey, was asked to make out abill of sale for a negro woman; and the scruples which then occurred to himwere the beginning of a life-long activity against the traffic. Shortlyafterward he began his laborious foot-journeys, pleading everywhere with hisco-religionists, and inspiring others to take up the crusade. The result of theagitation was that the various Yearly Meetings one by one decided thatemancipation was a religious duty; and within twenty years after Woolman'sdeath the practise of slavery had ceased in the Society of Friends. But hisinfluence did not stop there, for no small part of the enthusiasm of thegeneral emancipation movement is traceable to his labors. 　　His own words in this "Journal" of an extraordinary simplicity and charm,are the best expression of a personality which in its ardor, purity of motive,breadth of sympathy, and clear spiritual insight, gives Woolman a place amongthe uncanonized saints of America.

During the past year, in the intervals of an active life, I have amused myself with constructing this tale. It has been scribbled in every kind of odd place and moment—in England and abroad, during long journeys, in half-hours between graver tasks; and it bears, I fear, the mark of its gipsy begetting. 

Botchan, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Catcher in the Rye, is a classic of its kind, a sly, funny, poignant tale about a young mans rebellion against the system. Since its original publication 100 years ago, it has enjoyed a timeless popularity among Japanese readers both young and old, making it, according to Donald Keene, probably the most widely read novel in modern Japan. The setting is Japan's deep south, where the author himself spent four years teaching English in a middle school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes Botchan, down from the big city, with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges; and the result is a chain of collisions large and small. Most of the story seems to occur in summer, against the drone of cicadas and the sting of mosquitoes. And in every way this is a summer book--light, sunny, and fun to read. Here, in a lively new translation much better suited to the American reader, Botchan should continue to entertain even those who have never been near the sunlit island on which these calamitous episodes take place.

When a new play was required at short notice for a court occasion in 1597, Shakespeare created The Merry Wives of Windsor, a warm-hearted and spirited "citizen comedy" filled with boisterous action, situational irony, rich characterization--and the likes of Falstaff, Pistol, Mistress Quickly, and Justice Shallow. In his introduction and commentary, Craik examines a wide range of topics, including the play's probable occasion, its relationship to Shakespeare's English history plays and to other sources, its textual history, with particular reference to the widely diverging 1623 Folio and 1602 Quarto, and its quality as drama. In light of various topical, critical, and theatrical interpretations of the play, Craik pays particular attention to defining the literal sense, proposing some new readings, and evoking the many aspects of the stage business.

《深渊居民》（ThePeopleoftheAbyss，1903）是杰克·伦敦描写1902年伦敦东区人民生活的一部著作。其内容都是他自己的亲身体验，数月里他一直呆在该地区的济贫院甚至露宿街头以体验生活。当时伦敦大约有50万有类似遭遇的人们。