“A Retrieved Reformation” was written by American author O. Henry and first published in the Saturday Evening Post on April 8, 1899. The story follows Jimmy Valentine, a reformed safecracker who attempts to go straight after being released from prison. He is eventually forced to use his old skills when he is asked to help free a man wrongly accused of murder. Continue reading
O. Henry’s short story “The Cop and the Anthem” was first published in Cosmopolitan magazine in September 1904. It was later included in O. Henry’s 1905 collection, The Four Million, which featured a selection of his most popular stories from the previous year. The story follows Soapy, a homeless man who attempts to get arrested so he can spend the winter in jail and avoid sleeping on the streets. He fails to commit any crime that would warrant an arrest and is eventually forced to face his situation with dignity and courage. Continue reading
O. Henry wrote “The Ransom of Red Chief” in 1910 and it was first published in The Saturday Evening Post on July 8, 1910. It was later included in O. Henry’s collection of short stories, Whirligigs, which was published by Doubleday Page & Company in 1910. The story has since been reprinted numerous times and is one of O. Henry’s most popular works. Continue reading
O. Henry wrote “The Gift of the Magi” in 1905 and it was first published in the New York Sunday World on December 10, 1905. It was later included in O. Henry’s 1906 collection The Four Million, which contained some of his most famous stories. The story has since been reprinted countless times and adapted for various media, including film, television, radio plays and musicals. Continue reading
The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde in 1890, is a novel about a young man named Dorian Gray who makes a Faustian bargain to remain youthful and beautiful while his portrait ages and reflects the consequences of his immoral life. The novel was first published as a serial in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine from June 1890 to July 1891. Continue reading
The basis of this poem is an ancient Greek myth about how Orpheus, using his amazing music, tried to return his beloved Eurydice from the kingdom of the dead. Hades, the lord of the kingdom of the dead, promises to return her, but on one condition: on the way from the kingdom of the dead, Orpheus should not look at his beloved, who will follow him. But Orpheus could not stand it and turned around and lost Eurydice forever.
The poem “Autumn Day”, although included in the collection, which is not determining the work of Rilke, however, it is loved by many. Several translations into Russian are available.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez worked on the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” for eighteen months. For the sake of one of the most popular books of the 20th century, the writer risked everything: he refused the post of PR manager, laid down the car, stopped communicating with friends and put all the family problems on his wife’s shoulders. Finished in 1966, the work was first published in June 1967, in Buenos Aires. By the beginning of the XXI century, translated into thirty-five languages, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” had spread around the world with a circulation of more than thirty million copies.
Richard Bach’s short story “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” was first published in 1970. By 1972, the work reached a circulation of one million copies and gained worldwide fame.
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“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” – one of the most popular works of American writer Mark Twain. The story was first published in 1876. Already in 1877 it was published in the Russian Empire. At least nine translations into Russian are known, the most successful variant is often called the Korney Chukovsky variant.