About the end of the reign of the Emperor Paul I, that is to say, towards the middle of the first year of the nineteenth century just as four o'clock in the afternoon was sounding from the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, whose gilded vane overlooks the ramparts of the fortress, a crowd, composed of all sorts and conditions of people, began to gather in front of a house which belonged to General Count Tchermayloff, formerly military governor of a...

On the very day of his wedding to the beautiful Mercedes, a young merchant sailor named Edmond Dantès is falsely imprisoned for life, laying to waste his plans of marriage and hard-earned fortune. Following several long years in prison he has managed to escape and reinvent himself as the mysterious Count of Monte Christo. It is the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Count has been plotting his revenge on the three men who had him falsely imprisoned....

Extrait : "Je ne sais si, parmi les personnes qui liront ces quelques lignes, il en est qui se soient jamais avisées de remarquer la différence qui existe entre le cocher de cabriolet et le cocher de fiacre. Ce dernier grave, immobile et froid, supportant les intempéries de l'air avec l'impassibilité d'un stoïcien ; isolé sur son siège ; au milieu de la société, sans contact avec elle ; se permettant, pour toute distraction, un coup de fouet...

Extrait : "Nous ne savons si le prologue que nous allons mettre sous les yeux du lecteur est bien utile, et cependant nous ne pouvons résister au désir d'en faire, non pas le premier chapitre, mais la préface de ce livre. Plus nous avançons dans la vie, plus nous avançons dans l'art, plus nous demeurons convaincu que rien n'est abrunt et isolé, que la nature et la société marchent par déductions et non par accidents, et que l'événement,...

Based on the classic Christmas story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker of Nuremberg is the magical adventure of Marie Stahlbaum's favourite toy, the Nutcracker, who battles the nefarious Mouse King in battle and takes the reader on a wonderful adventure, into a magical land of dolls. Dumas's version was adapted by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky into the famous ballet The Nutcracker. Contents include: Part I: The Story of the Nutcracker...