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In London at the start of the twentieth century, Helen Wynton, a poor young secretary, dreams of seeing the eternal snows of the Alps. A rich American, Charles Spencer, overhears her wish. Without giving his name, he pays a small newspaper, which sends Helen to write articles at a grand hotel in Maloja, in Switzerland. But Mark Bower, a man far too interested in her, takes the same train. Among glaciers and mountain guides, Spencer watches over Helen, while an old guide, Stampa, hides an old grief connected with Bower. A story of love and suspense in the heart of the Alps. With plenty of dialogue, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

At the end of May 1889, endless rain swells the rivers around Johnstown, a factory town in Pennsylvania squeezed into the bottom of a valley. On 31 May, upstream, an earth dam gives way, and the lake it held back rushes down onto the town. Published that same year, this book gathers newspaper dispatches and eyewitness accounts: families taking refuge on rooftops, the fire in the wreckage piled against the stone bridge, then help arriving from all over the country. A direct and often heartbreaking account of a tragedy that moved the whole of America. Written like a long piece of reporting, the book is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman, is discovering Florence with her cousin, who keeps a close eye on her. At the pension, their room does not have the view they were promised. An odd old gentleman, Mr Emerson, then offers them his room and his son George's. Back in England, Lucy becomes engaged to Cecil, a cultured and very proper man, but she does not forget Italy. Part comedy, part love story, Forster gently pokes fun at convention and asks a simple question: should we listen to what is expected of us, or to what we feel? Its humorous dialogue makes it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together thirteen stories by the Irish-American writer Donn Byrne. In the title story, a former Broadway dancer is tried in New York for a murder committed ten years earlier. The policeman who brought her back from the South Seas tells the court how a shipwreck changed her. The other stories travel from Ireland to the Andes, from the streets of New York to the biblical times of Delilah and the Queen of Sheba: each story opens a different world. Lively and moving, they can be read one by one, at your own pace, in the language you are learning.

In 1908, in a seaside resort in the south of England, Ruth, a former housemaid, marries Ernie Caspar, a working man. He brings up little Alice, born before their marriage, as his own daughter. Children come along, Ernie loses his job and owes the rent to his brother Alf, who still wants Ruth. As strikes spread and war draws near, a trade unionist from the North falls in love with Ruth in his turn. It is a sensitive portrait of a working-class woman, strong and loyal, in England before 1914. Its absorbing story, close to everyday life, is easy to read in the language you are learning.

One June morning, a young man who calls himself Walker Farr is walking the roads of New England. He looks like a tramp, but he speaks like an educated man and hides his past. He stops at Marion, a cotton-mill town. Typhoid is striking its poor families, because of the water sold by Colonel Dodd's company. Dodd also controls the state's politicians. Asking nothing for himself, Farr joins the fight against him, and meets Kate Kilgour, Dodd's secretary. A lively novel about the courage of one man against a political machine. Absorbing from start to finish, this story is easy to read in the language you are learning.

John Algernon Owens tells the life of Willard Glazier, born into a modest family in New York State: his childhood on the farm, his years as a schoolteacher, then the Civil War in the Union cavalry, his capture, prison and escape. Now a successful writer, Glazier rides across the United States on horseback, then canoes down the Mississippi, whose true source he claims to have found, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. A life of adventure, told while its hero was still alive, from letters and articles of the time. Told like an adventure novel, this biography is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In this American novel from 1905, Jimmy Grayson, an almost unknown young lawyer from the West, is unexpectedly chosen as his party's candidate for President of the United States. Harley, a reporter for a New York newspaper, follows his campaign aboard a special train, and falls for Sylvia, the candidate's niece, an independent young woman from Idaho. But powerful financiers in the party want Grayson to keep quiet about tariffs. A lively account of what goes on behind the scenes of an election campaign, and of the price of honesty in politics. Its dialogue and travel scenes are easy to read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together Lu Xun's first stories, written in China in the years after the fall of the empire. A man becomes convinced that his neighbours want to eat him. A poor old scholar comes to drink his wine in a tavern where people laugh at him. A father buys a blood-soaked remedy to save his son. The most famous story follows Ah Q, a village labourer who turns every humiliation into an imaginary victory. In China, “the Ah Q spirit” still means this way of lying to yourself so as not to see your defeats. With the translation always in front of you, these short stories can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

In Vienna, Irene leads a quiet middle-class life with her husband, a lawyer, and their two children. One day, as she leaves the home of her lover, a young pianist, she is stopped by a woman she does not know. The woman accuses her of stealing this man from her, and demands money. The blackmail starts again, over and over, and the fear of being found out invades every moment of her family life. Zweig describes this anguish from the inside, with a tension that never lets the reader go. You can read this short story in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In a guesthouse on the Riviera, a married woman runs off with a young man she met the day before, and the other guests are outraged. Only the narrator defends her. Soon afterwards, an elderly Englishwoman, Mrs C., confides to him a secret she has kept for more than twenty years: a day in her life that began one evening at the Monte Carlo casino, watching the hands of a young gambler. Stefan Zweig is a master of the confession and of sudden passion: little by little we understand how twenty-four hours can turn a whole life upside down. You can read this short story in one sitting in the language you are learning.

During the war of 1870, ten travellers leave Prussian-occupied Rouen in the same stagecoach: local worthies, two nuns, a democrat and a prostitute nicknamed Boule de Suif. She is the only one who shares her food. But at an inn, a Prussian officer detains them and sets his conditions. This is the story that made Maupassant famous: with irony, he shows what fine principles are worth when everyone is thinking of themselves. Around it, the volume gathers eleven other stories about money, marriage and little middle-class arrangements. Short and lively, they can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

In the Caucasus in the 1830s, an old captain tells a traveller the story of Pechorin, a young Russian officer who is brilliant, jaded and dangerous to those who love him. Then the traveller gets hold of his journal. In it we read how Pechorin seduces a princess out of sheer boredom, and how he fights a duel coldly, almost out of curiosity. Lermontov, who himself died in a duel at twenty-six, made Pechorin one of the most fascinating characters in Russian literature: a hero who is no hero. Made up of five short stories, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together ten stories by Edgar Allan Poe. We enter the House of Usher, an old mansion that cracks along with the family who live in it. We attend the masked ball of Prince Prospero, shut away in his abbey while the Red Death ravages the land, and we listen to a murderer swear that he is not mad. Here too is the first case of the Chevalier Dupin: with this character, Poe invented the detective story, long before Sherlock Holmes. With the translation always in front of you, each story can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In Kentucky, young Patricia Adair has to save Rosemeade, the family home where her grandfather lives. She writes a play based on her great-grandmother's love letters. In New York, the producer Godfrey Vandeford buys it without reading it. He is even counting on the play failing, to teach the star of his shows a lesson. But Patricia arrives on Broadway full of confidence, and nothing goes as planned. A love story full of humour and high spirits, between the meadows of Kentucky and the wings of the theatre. Its lively, light tone makes it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

This travel book, published in 1910, visits the homes of the kings of France, in Paris and around the capital: the Louvre, the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, Versailles, Chantilly and Compiègne. It also tells of the art of the French formal garden and of the great royal hunts. Rather than dates, the author gathers the anecdotes left by the old chroniclers: a lively stroll through centuries of French history. The book goes from palace to palace and can be read at your own pace in the language you are learning.

Peter Moore, a wireless operator on Pacific liners, has the sharpest ear in the trade. In San Francisco's Chinatown, a woman throws him a note from a window ordering him to keep away. Soon he picks up a call for help in Morse code, and a young American woman is kidnapped. The adventure takes him all the way to a river near Shanghai, towards the domain of the “Grey Dragon”, a powerful mine owner. A fast-moving mystery in early twentieth-century China, with a hero who has more daring than caution. Its fast pace and direct sentences make it easy to read in the language you are learning.

Around 1890, on the banks of the Kootenai River, near the border between Canada and the United States, a sixteen-year-old girl who lives among the Native Americans dives into the icy water to save a child. Dan Overton, a guide respected throughout the region, takes her to live in the village of Sinna Ferry, in Idaho. There she calls herself Montana, refuses to say where she comes from and keeps the secret map of a place rich in gold. The portrait of a free and defiant heroine, in a land of forests and gold prospectors. This novel of the American West is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In a mountain valley in Virginia in the nineteenth century, Sybil Berners, a rich heiress with a passionate nature, has just married a penniless young lawyer whom she adores. Back from their honeymoon, the couple take Rosa Blondelle, a ruined young mother abandoned by her husband, into their home at Black Hall. Little by little, the guest's charm awakens Sybil's jealousy. One evening, Rosa is found dying, and she accuses Sybil in front of everyone. A novel of passion and suspicion that keeps you in suspense right to the end. Full of dramatic twists, it can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

With humour, the Scottish historian John Hill Burton paints a portrait of book hunters: the collector who ends up buying a second copy of a book he already owns, the browser who rummages through second-hand bookshops, the regular at auctions, the reader who reads a bit of everything. He also tells of the birth of the great libraries and of book collectors' clubs, such as the Roxburghe Club. A learned and good-humoured book for everyone who loves books and old editions. This edition opens with the author's biography, written by his widow. Its chapters can be read one by one, at your own pace, in the language you are learning.

Stella, nineteen and born in Italy, runs away from a boarding school in Florence and takes refuge in England with her uncle, James Etheridge, a dreamy old painter who lives on the banks of the Thames. There she meets Lord Leycester, the fiery heir to the neighbouring estate of Wyndward. Between them stand the pride of a noble family, which has another woman in mind for him, and Jasper Adelstone, a lawyer who will stop at nothing to marry Stella. A love story full of twists, carried by a frank and spontaneous heroine. Simply written, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

The son of a woman who followed the armies and robbed the dead on battlefields, Ferdinand is taken in by a generous nobleman, Count de Melvil, and brought up with his son Renaldo. But the boy dreams only of rising by cunning. He betrays his benefactors, then travels across Europe cheating at cards and seducing women, until he passes himself off as a count in London. The hero of this novel by Tobias Smollett is a true rogue, and we watch for each new trick with pleasure mixed with dread. With the translation always in front of you, you can discover this great adventure novel in the language you are learning.

Frank to the point of bluntness, a young man from Tokyo accepts a post as a maths teacher in a small town on Shikoku. On his very first night on duty at the school, his pupils slip grasshoppers into his bed. His colleagues turn out to be even more devious, and he gives them nicknames, such as “Red Shirt”. As incapable of lying as of scheming, he takes sides and makes enemies. It is one of the best loved novels in Japan: its author, Natsume Sōseki, taught in Matsuyama himself, and the town has made the novel's hero its own. Told by the hero himself, with humour and plain speaking, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

On Christmas Eve, little Marie finds a wooden nutcracker among the presents. When her brother Fritz breaks three of the poor toy's teeth, she takes it under her protection. Left alone in the drawing room, she sees the toys come to life and do battle with an army of mice, led by a seven-headed king. We also hear the story of Princess Pirlipat, in a fantasy stranger than you might think, where you never quite know whether Marie is dreaming. With the translation always in front of you, this short tale can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.