Böcker utgivna av Bibliotech Press

The Perfumed Garden by Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi is a fifteenth-century Arabic sex manual and work of erotic literature. The full title of the book is The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight (al-rawd al-'âtir fî nuzhat al-khâtir).The book presents opinions on what qualities men and women should have to be attractive, gives advice on sexual technique, warnings about sexual health, and recipes to remedy sexual maladies. It has a section on the interpretation of dreams. Interspersed with these there are a number of stories which are intended to give context and amusement.According to the introduction of Colville's English translation, Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi probably wrote The Perfumed Garden sometime between 1410 and 1434. Sheikh Nefzawi, full name Abu Abdullah Muhammad ben Umar Nafzawi, was born in the Nefzawa region in the south of present-day Tunisia. Circa 1420 he compiled at the request of the Hafsid ruler of Tunis, Abû Fâris `Abd al-`Azîz al-Mutawakkil, the present work. The reputation acquired by this work in the Arab world was similar to that of the Arabian Nights.

Поеди́нок - повесть Александра Ивановича Куприна, опубликованная в 1905 году. В повести описывается история конфликта молодого подпоручика Ромашова со старшим офицером, развивающегося на фоне столкновения романтического мировоззрения интеллигентного юноши с миром захолустного пехотного полка, с его провинциальными нравами, муштрой и пошлостью офицерского общества. Самое значительное произведение в творчестве Куприна. Первое издание Поединка вышло в свет с посвящением Максиму Горькому с чувством искренней дружбы и глубокого уважения эту повесть посвящает автор. По собственному признанию автора, влияние Горького определило всё смелое и буйное в повести. (ru.wikipedia.org)

Kangaroo is a 1923 novel by D.H. Lawrence. It is set in Australia. Kangaroo is an account of a visit to New South Wales by an English writer named Richard Lovat Somers and his German wife Harriet in the early 1920s. This appears to be semi-autobiographical, based on a three-month visit to Australia by Lawrence and his wife Frieda, in 1922. The novel includes a chapter ("Nightmare") describing the Somers' experiences in wartime St Ives, Cornwall, vivid descriptions of the Australian landscape, and Richard Somers' sceptical reflections on fringe politics in Sydney. Ultimately, after being initially somewhat drawn to the Digger movement led by Benjamin Cooley - 'Kangaroo' - neither it nor the "great general emotion" of Kangaroo himself appeal to Somers, and in this the novel begins to reflect Lawrence's own experiences during World War I. On the other hand, Somers also rejects the socialism of Willie Struthers, which emphasises "generalised love". Kangaroo is sometimes cited as an influence on the Jindyworobak movement, an Australian nationalist literary group, which emerged about a decade later. Gideon Haigh saw fit to dub it "one of the sharpest fictional visions of the country and its people".It was adapted as a film, also called Kangaroo, in 1987, featuring Colin Friels as Somers, Judy Davis as Harriet and Hugh Keays-Byrne as Kangaroo.The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe used extracts from the novel in his work for speaker and orchestra, The Fifth Continent (1963). It was recorded in 1963 by Fred Parslow, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Matthews, and then again in 1997 with the composer narrating, accompanied by Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and David Porcelijn - released on ABC Classics. (wikipedia.org)

Dead Souls is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The novel chronicles the travels and adventures of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov and the people whom he encounters. These people typify the Russian middle aristocracy of the time. Gogol himself saw his work as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book characterised it as a "novel in verse". Gogol intended the novel to be the first part of a three-volume work, but burned the manuscript of the second part shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is regarded by some as complete in the extant form. (wikipedia.org)

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, first published in New York on April Fool's Day 1857, is the ninth book and final novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book was published on the exact day of the novel's setting.Centered on the title character, The Confidence-Man portrays a group of steamboat passengers. Their interlocking stories are told as they travel the Mississippi River toward New Orleans. The narrative structure is reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales (1392). Scholar Robert Milder notes: "Long mistaken for a flawed novel, the book is now admired as a masterpiece of irony and control, although it continues to resist interpretive consensus."The novel's title refers to its central character, an ambiguous figure. He sneaks aboard a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day. This stranger attempts to test the confidence of the passengers. Their varied reactions constitute the bulk of the text. Each person, including the reader, is forced to confront the placement of his trust.The novel is written as cultural satire, allegory, and metaphysical treatise, dealing with themes of sincerity, identity, morality, religiosity, economic materialism, irony, and cynicism. Many readers place The Confidence-Man alongside Melville's Moby-Dick and "Bartleby, the Scrivener" as a precursor to 20th-century literary pre-occupations with nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism.The work includes satires of 19th-century literary figures: Mark Winsome is based on Ralph Waldo Emerson, while his "practical disciple" Egbert is Henry David Thoreau; Charlie Noble is based on Nathaniel Hawthorne; and a beggar in the story was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.The Confidence-Man was probably inspired by the case of William Thompson, a con artist active in New York City in the late 1840s.The novel was turned into an opera by George Rochberg; it was premiered by the Santa Fe Opera in 1982, but was not held to be a success. The 2008 movie The Brothers Bloom, starring Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz, borrows some of the plot and makes numerous references to the book: One of the characters is named Melville, the steamer ship is named Fidèle, and the initial mark refers to these coincidences. (wikipedia.org)

Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life is the first book by American writer Herman Melville, published in the early part of 1846, when Melville was 26 years old. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is based on the author's actual experiences on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands in 1842, supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and research from other books. The title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as Taipi. Typee was Melville's most popular work during his lifetime; it made him notorious as the "man who lived among the cannibals". The book delivers quite a wild tale and from the beginning there were questions about whether any of it could possibly be true. Prior to the London edition of the book appearing within the Colonial and Home Library series (nonfiction accounts of foreigners in exotic places), the publisher John Murray required reassurance that Melville's experiences were first-hand.Melville's desertion from the Acushnet in 1842Not long after the initial publication of the book, many of the events described were corroborated by Melville's fellow castaway, Richard Tobias Greene ("Toby"). Additionally, an affidavit was found from the ship's captain that corroborated that both men did indeed desert the ship on the island in the summer of 1842.Typee attempts to be something of a work of proto-anthropology. Melville continually admits vast ignorance of the culture and language he is describing while also trying to bolster and supplement his own experiences with a great deal of other reading and research. He also has a tendency to employ a fair amount of hyperbole and attempts at humor. A few recent scholars have dedicated themselves to questioning the basic factuality of Melville's account. For instance, the length of stay on which Typee is based is presented as four months in the narrative and this was likely an extension and exaggeration of Melville's actual stay on the island. There is also not known to have ever been a lake on the island where Melville might have gone canoeing with Fayaway, as described in the book. (wikipedia.org)

Redburn: His First Voyage is the fourth book by the American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1849. The book is semi-autobiographical and recounts the adventures of a refined youth among coarse and brutal sailors and the seedier areas of Liverpool. Melville wrote Redburn in less than ten weeks. While one scholar describes it as "arguably his funniest work", scholar F. O. Matthiessen calls it "the most moving of its author's books before Moby-Dick". Melville referred to Redburn and his next book White-Jacket as "two jobs which I have done for money-being forced to it as other men are to sawing wood". It was reviewed favorably in all the influential publications, American and British, with many critics hailing it as Melville's return to his original style. The critics were divided along national lines when reviewing the scene in Launcelots Hey, the British dubbing it "improbable", the Americans "powerful". In 1884 William Clark Russell, the most popular writer of sea stories in his generation, praised the book's force and accuracy in print. He also sent Melville a personal letter where, among other items, he said "I have been reading your Redburn for the third or fourth time and have closed it more deeply impressed with the descriptive power that vitalises every page." John Masefield would later single the book out as his favorite of Melville's works. When Redburn was praised, Melville wrote in his journal, "I, the author, know [it] to be trash, & wrote it to buy some tobacco with". He later complained: "What I feel most moved to write, that is banned-it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches." (wikipedia.org)

Никола́й Эдуа́рдович Ге́йнце (13 июня 1852, Москва - 24 мая [6 июня] 1913, Киев, похоронен в Санкт-Петербурге) - русский писатель чешского происхождения. Также выступал как журналист, адвокат, военный корреспондент.Родился 13 (25) июня 1852 года в Москве. Отец - по национальности чех, учитель музыки, мать - костромская дворянка, урожденная Ерлыкова.Гейнце окончил московский пансион Кудрякова, 5-ю московскую гимназию (1871), юридический факультет Московского университета. После окончания университета стал адвокатом в Москве. Присяжный поверенный Гейнце провёл несколько крупных процессов, в числе которых было и громкое дело червонных валетов. В 1879-1884 годах служил в Министерстве юстиции, в 1881 году стал товарищем (заместителем) прокурора Енисейской губернии.Свои стихи и рассказы он начал публиковать с 1880 года в московских журналах и газетах Зритель, Радуга, Московский листок, Русской газете.В 1884 году Гейнце вышел в отставку, чтобы полностью отдаться литературной работе. За год жизни в Петербурге он успевает написать роман, объёмом более тысячи страниц - В тине адвокатуры.Гейнце написал также несколько пьес, вызвавших нападки критики, но имевших успех у зрителя. Критики недоумевали, за что же любят произведения Гейнце, рассматривали его творчество как умственную пищу для неискушенного читателя, вероятно, недооценивая масштабы возросшего с уровнем грамотности спроса на лёгкое чтение.Умер Н. Э. Гейнце в Киеве, похоронен в Петербурге. (wikipedia.org)

Алексей Будищев родился 14 (26) января 1867 в имении Богоявленский Чардым Петровского уезда Саратовской губернии (ныне - Чардым Лопатинского района Пензенской области). Двоюродный дед - картограф И. М. Будищев; родной дядя - Алексей Фёдорович Будищев, подполковник корпуса лесничих, один из первых исследователей российского Приморья и Приамурья; отец - дворянин, отставной военный Николай Фёдорович Будищев; мать - Филиппина Игнатьевна, из польского шляхетского рода Квятковских. Окончил классическую гимназию в городе Пензе, затем учился на медицинском факультете Московского университета. С увлечением занимался зоологией, но вскоре потерял интерес к медицине и ушёл из университета, не окончив 4 курс.В начале своей литературной деятельности Алексей Будищев писал очень много стихов, но только малая часть из них вошла в сборник его стихотворений. Его слог в юмористических пьесах Венгеров называл бойким, в других - легким, мелодичным, порою даже живописным. В ряду стихотворений последнего рода пользуется известностью небольшая картинка древнеримской жизни - Триумфатор. Однако критики сходились на том, что у него нет своей излюбленной области воспроизведения, своих собственных настроений. Он пишет на самые разнообразные темы - чаще всего, впрочем, в стиле нарядных песен Фофанова о весне и любви, - но это, судя по всему, не захватывает ни его самого, ни читателя.Автор текста знаменитого романса Калитка (1898).В 1909 году, протестуя в числе многих деятелей искусства (Л. Н. Толстой, В. Г. Короленко, Л. Андреев, Ф. Сологуб и многие другие) против массовых смертных казней, написал очерк Нервы.Алексей Будищев был одним из членов петербургского литературного кружка Пятница.В сотрудничестве с Александром Митрофановичем Фёдоровым он переделал в драму свой рассказ Катастрофа.Болгарский поэт Красимир Георгиев перевёл на болгарский язык стихотворение Будищева Недвижно облака повисли над землёй.Много лет жил в Гатчине. Алексей Николаевич Будищев скончался 22 ноября (5 декабря) 1916 года в Петрограде. Похоронен на Литераторских мостках (южная часть). (wikipedia.org)

Алексей Будищев родился 14 (26) января 1867 в имении Богоявленский Чардым Петровского уезда Саратовской губернии (ныне - Чардым Лопатинского района Пензенской области). Двоюродный дед - картограф И. М. Будищев; родной дядя - Алексей Фёдорович Будищев, подполковник корпуса лесничих, один из первых исследователей российского Приморья и Приамурья; отец - дворянин, отставной военный Николай Фёдорович Будищев; мать - Филиппина Игнатьевна, из польского шляхетского рода Квятковских. Окончил классическую гимназию в городе Пензе, затем учился на медицинском факультете Московского университета. С увлечением занимался зоологией, но вскоре потерял интерес к медицине и ушёл из университета, не окончив 4 курс.В начале своей литературной деятельности Алексей Будищев писал очень много стихов, но только малая часть из них вошла в сборник его стихотворений. Его слог в юмористических пьесах Венгеров называл бойким, в других - легким, мелодичным, порою даже живописным. В ряду стихотворений последнего рода пользуется известностью небольшая картинка древнеримской жизни - Триумфатор. Однако критики сходились на том, что у него нет своей излюбленной области воспроизведения, своих собственных настроений. Он пишет на самые разнообразные темы - чаще всего, впрочем, в стиле нарядных песен Фофанова о весне и любви, - но это, судя по всему, не захватывает ни его самого, ни читателя.Автор текста знаменитого романса Калитка (1898).В 1909 году, протестуя в числе многих деятелей искусства (Л. Н. Толстой, В. Г. Короленко, Л. Андреев, Ф. Сологуб и многие другие) против массовых смертных казней, написал очерк Нервы.Алексей Будищев был одним из членов петербургского литературного кружка Пятница.В сотрудничестве с Александром Митрофановичем Фёдоровым он переделал в драму свой рассказ Катастрофа.Болгарский поэт Красимир Георгиев перевёл на болгарский язык стихотворение Будищева Недвижно облака повисли над землёй.Много лет жил в Гатчине. Алексей Николаевич Будищев скончался 22 ноября (5 декабря) 1916 года в Петрограде. Похоронен на Литераторских мостках (южная часть). (wikipedia.org)

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 - September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1920.Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing, with the publication of The Circular Staircase (1908). (wikipedia.org)Mary Roberts graduated from the Pittsburgh Training School for Nurses in 1896. That same year she married physician Stanley M. Rinehart. She and her husband started a family, and she took up writing in 1903 as a result of difficulties created by financial losses. Her first story appeared in Munsey's Magazine in 1903. The Circular Staircase (1908), her first book and first mystery, was an immediate success, and the following year The Man in Lower Ten, which had been serialized earlier, reinforced her popular success. Thereafter she wrote steadily, averaging about a book a year. A long series of comic tales about the redoubtable "Tish" (Letitia Carberry) appeared as serials in the Saturday Evening Post over a number of years and as a series of novels beginning with The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry (1911).Rinehart served as a war correspondent during World War I and later described her experiences in several books, notably Kings, Queens and Pawns (1915). She produced as well a number of romances and nine plays. Most of the plays were written in collaboration with Avery Hopwood; her greatest successes were Seven Days, produced in New York in 1909, and The Bat, derived from The Circular Staircase and produced in 1920. She remained best known, however, as a writer of mysteries, and the growing popularity of that genre after World War II led to frequent republication of her works. Her most memorable tales combined murder, love, ingenuity, and humour in a style that was distinctly her own. Her autobiography, My Story, appeared in 1931 and was revised in 1948. At Rinehart's death her books had sold more than 10 million copies. (britannica.com)

This was an interesting glimpse into what American life was like in the run up to World War I. I learned some things--such as that sabotage was a very real threat in those days--and appreciated Rinehart's perspective on the attitudes of the time, both for and against entering the war. This was an inspirational read that vividly showed the difference between people who live their lives according to a moral code, even if it means turning their backs on happiness, and people who live only for themselves: Some time during the evening his thoughts took this form: that there were two sorts of people in the world: those who seized their own happiness, at any cost; and those who saw the promised land from a far hill, and having seen it, turned back. (Sophie)

Poor Miss Finch (1872) by Wilkie Collins is a novel about a young blind woman who temporarily regains her sight while finding herself in a romantic triangle with two brothers. Twenty-one-year-old Lucilla Finch, the independently wealthy daughter of the rector of Dimchurch, Sussex, has been blind since infancy. Shortly after the narrator, Madame Pratolungo, arrives to serve as her paid companion, Lucilla falls in love with Oscar Dubourg, her shy and reclusive neighbour, also wealthy, who devotes himself to craftsmanship in precious metals.After being attacked and knocked unconscious by robbers, Oscar is nursed by Lucilla and falls in love with her, and the couple become engaged. Their plans are jeopardized by Oscar's epilepsy, a result of the blow to his head. The only effective treatment, a silver compound, has the side-effect of turning his skin a permanent, dark blue-grey. Despite her blindness, Lucilla suffers a violent phobia of dark colours, including dark-complexioned people, and family and friends conceal Oscar's condition from her.Meanwhile, Oscar's twin brother, Nugent, returns from America, where he has dissipated his fortune pursuing a career as a painter. Oscar is devoted to his brother, who is as outgoing, confident and charming as Oscar is diffident and awkward. Knowing of Lucilla's blindness, Nugent has arranged for her to be examined by a famous German oculist, Herr Grosse. Herr Grosse and an English oculist each examine Lucilla but disagree on her prognosis. Lucilla elects to be operated on by Herr Grosse, who believes he can cure her. After the operation, but before the bandages are taken off, Madame Pratolungo pressures Oscar into telling Lucilla of his disfigurement, but his nerve fails and, instead, he tells her it is Nugent who has been disfigured.Nugent is secretly infatuated with Lucilla and now manipulates her into believing that he is Oscar. As Lucilla gradually regains her sight, Herr Grosse forbids family and friends from undeceiving her, since the shock might imperil her recovery. Oscar goes abroad, resigning his fiancée to his brother in despair. Madame Pratolungo intervenes decisively with Nugent, appealing to his conscience and threatening him with exposure if he continues with his plan to marry Lucilla under Oscar's name. He promises to go abroad to find his brother and return him home.Nugent soon returns to England and tracks Lucilla to the seaside, where, on Herr Grosse's orders, she is staying with her aunt, away from her immediate family. He pressures her to marry as soon as possible, without her family's knowledge, and works to poison her trust in Madame Pratolungo, who is away in Marseilles attending to her wayward father. Detecting but not understanding the change in her supposed fiancé, Lucilla becomes distraught, over-strains her eyes and begins to lose her vision.In the novel's denouement, Madame Pratolungo locates Oscar with the help of a French detective. His experiences have revealed an unexpected strength of character, and she conceives a new respect for him. The two of them race home to England to stop the marriage while there is still time. Held virtually prisoner at a Dubourg cousin's house, Lucilla is again totally blind. With the help of a kindly servant, she escapes to meet them, immediately recognizes the true Oscar, and is told the full story by Madame Pratolungo. A penitent Nugent returns to America, where he later dies on a polar expedition. Lucilla and Oscar settle in Dimchurch to raise a family, with Madame Pratolungo as her companion. Perfectly content in her blindness, she refuses Herr Grosse's offers to attempt another operation. (wikipedia.org)