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In London, one rainy February, two women who do not know each other read the same small advertisement: a little medieval castle is to let for the month of April, in Italy, by the sea, among the wisteria and the sunshine. To share the cost, they join forces with two strangers, a young aristocrat and an old lady. Far from London and their habits, each of them slowly changes in the Italian light. A radiant novel full of humour, which makes you want to travel. Written in a light, lively style, it is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

Born on the banks of the Tormes into a wretched family, little Lázaro becomes the guide of a blind beggar, his first master. So as not to starve, he learns to steal from him: he drinks his wine through a straw and makes off with his sausage. He then serves a miserly priest, then a ruined squire who hides his poverty behind his fine clothes. Published without the author's name in 1554, then banned by the Inquisition, this short tale full of cunning and dark humour is the very first picaresque novel. Lázaro tells his own adventures mischievously, and the short chapters are easy to read in the language you are learning.

In Edinburgh in 1751, young David Balfour has just come into his inheritance. He wants to testify to save an innocent man accused of a political murder, but the men in power have already chosen their culprit, and they mean to stop David from speaking. At the same time, he meets Catriona Drummond, a strong-willed young woman from the Highlands. Plots, danger and a love story mix in the troubled Scotland of the eighteenth century, where David meets up again with Alan Breck, his rebellious, swaggering friend. Told by David himself, with plenty of dialogue, it is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

The only survivor of a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is washed up on a desert island. With what he saves from the wreck, he builds a shelter, learns to grow grain and keep goats, and counts the days by cutting notches in a post. One day, after years alone, he finds the print of a bare foot on the beach. It is the first great survival novel, the one that inspired every castaway story since, and the name of Friday has become as famous as Robinson's. Robinson tells his own adventure, like a diary, and the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together forty tales gathered by the Brothers Grimm: Snow White and the queen's magic mirror, Hansel and Gretel lost in the forest, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and lesser-known ones such as “The Blue Light”. Here we meet witches, talking animals and clever young heroes. These are the tales children have been told for two centuries, here in the text of the Grimms' last edition, from 1857, which is often darker than the versions we know. Short and simply written, they can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

John Carter, a former officer from Virginia, takes refuge in a cave in Arizona and suddenly finds himself on Mars. Because gravity there is weaker, he makes huge leaps and becomes astonishingly strong. Captured by giant green warriors, he wins their respect, then meets Dejah Thoris, a princess who is a prisoner like him. This novel, the first in a long series of adventures on Mars, has inspired generations of science fiction writers. Fights, friendship and love follow one another without a dull moment. Told by John Carter himself, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In the nineteenth century, the sailing ship taking two eight-year-old cousins, Dick and Emmeline, to San Francisco catches fire in the middle of the Pacific. The children escape in a small boat with Paddy Button, an old Irish sailor, and the fog separates them from the other boats. They land on a desert island, ringed by a coral reef that shelters a blue lagoon, where Paddy fishes, cooks and looks after them. The years go by: with no school and no society to explain the world to them, the children grow up free. As teenagers, Dick and Emmeline find their feelings changing. An adventure novel about nature, innocence and the discovery of love. Its absorbing story is easy to read in the language you are learning.

The secret son of King Uther, young Arthur is brought up by the knight Ector without knowing anything of his birth. At fifteen, he pulls from a stone the sword that no lord had been able to move, and becomes king. Around the Round Table, Lancelot, Tristram and Galahad set off on adventures and on the quest for the Grail. Merlin, Excalibur, Camelot: these legends, retold here from Thomas Malory, have inspired countless stories of knights. Told in a clear, lively style, they are a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

Twelve new cases of Sherlock Holmes, told by his friend Dr Watson. Holmes finds a famous missing racehorse, tells Watson about his very first case, and introduces him to his brother Mycroft, who is even better at observation than he is. The collection ends with his confrontation with Professor Moriarty, “the Napoleon of crime”, one of the most famous episodes in detective fiction. You can read each case in one sitting, and the lively dialogue makes them an ideal read in the language you are learning.

In Naples, while their fathers are away, Octave and Léandre have fallen in love. But these two miserly old men would never accept their sons' choice. The valet Scapin gets them out of trouble by inventing trick after trick to fool the fathers, even shutting one of them in a sack to give him a beating. Farce and wit mix in this comedy, in which Molière wrote one of his most famous lines: “What the devil was he doing in that galley?” Written in short, lively dialogue, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Hank Morgan, a foreman in a Connecticut arms factory, gets a blow on the head and wakes up in King Arthur's England, in the sixth century. Sentenced to be burnt at the stake, he saves himself by announcing an eclipse of the sun whose date he knows, and is at once taken for a magician more powerful than Merlin. Now known as “the Boss”, he brings the telegraph, newspapers and schools to the Knights of the Round Table. Mark Twain has fun with this clash between two eras, in one of the very first time-travel novels. Full of humour and lively dialogue, the novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

On Mars, Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth, is kidnapped, and Carthoris, the son of John Carter, is accused. To find her and clear his name, he crosses the deserts to Lothar, a forgotten city whose inhabitants can summon armies of phantom bowmen by the power of thought. This fourth novel in the Mars series hands over to a new generation of heroes, amid battles, jealous rivals and strange cities. Fast-paced from start to finish, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

One June evening in London, the American millionaire Theodore Racksole dines with his daughter Nella at the Grand Babylon, the smartest hotel in town. The head waiter refuses to serve them steak and beer, which he thinks unworthy of the house: Racksole buys the hotel that very evening. He soon discovers that its corridors hide a disappearance and a plot involving European princes. A humorous adventure novel in which a businessman leads the investigation himself, helped by his daughter Nella, who is as bold as he is. Fast-paced and full of twists, the novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

This collection brings together three sea stories. In “Youth”, Marlow remembers his first voyage as an officer, on a battered old cargo ship that catches fire on the way to the East. In “Typhoon”, Captain MacWhirr, a man without imagination, takes his steamer into the heart of a terrible storm, with two hundred Chinese labourers in the hold. In “The Secret Sharer”, a young captain hides a stranger on board, a man who swam up to the ship in the middle of the night. Conrad, who was a sailor for twenty years, makes you feel the sea like no one else: the danger, the captain's loneliness, the courage of ordinary men. With the translation always in front of you, you can discover them in the language you are learning.

As a child, Mark Twain dreamed of piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi. As a young man, he becomes an apprentice pilot and has to learn by heart every bend in the river and every sandbank, by day and by night. Twenty years later, he returns to the river and discovers how much the world has changed. Memories, anecdotes and humorous portraits: it is in this book that he explains where his pen name, “Mark Twain”, comes from: a call used by the boatmen who sounded the river. Full of true stories, this book is easy to read in the language you are learning.

One summer around 1880, Friedl, a young royal gamekeeper, watches over the game in the mountains of Bavaria, near the little village of Fall, on the River Isar. He is tracking a poacher who kills chamois and roe deer, and who can be recognised by the nine nails in the soles of his shoes. Friedl loves Modei, who tends cows in a mountain hut and is the mother of a little boy. But the child's father, Blasi, also has nine nails in the soles of his shoes. A novel of love and hunting, full of the simple life of Bavarian villages and mountain pastures. Simply written, with vivid scenes, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

The three Rover brothers, Dick, Tom and Sam, are spending the end of the summer at Valley Brook, the family farm in New York State. A trip into the mountains leads them to a cave where thieves hide their loot, while two swindlers steal their Uncle Randolph's bonds. Then come their last months at Putnam Hall, a military boarding school: rivalries between pupils, races in the snow and Christmas at the farm. A cheerful adventure about friendship and courage, from a series that thrilled generations of young readers. Its lively dialogue and light tone make it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

During the First World War, a German Zeppelin loses its observation car one night, and the car falls near a small town in Norfolk, on the English coast. The next day, a stranger calls on Philippa, Lady Cranston. Philippa's brother is a prisoner in Germany, and this man, who helped him there, brings her news of him. But the stranger serves the enemy, and he asks to live in the town under a false name. Torn between her duty to her country, her love for her brother and her attraction to this stranger, Philippa must choose. Told with elegance and suspense, this spy novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

James diGriz, known as “Slippery Jim”, is a former master swindler, forcibly recruited by the Special Corps, a secret police force that operates among the stars. He is bored filing records when he discovers that a small, peaceful planet, Cittanuvo, is secretly building a giant battleship of a type that vanished a thousand years ago. Disguised as an admiral, he sets off to investigate alone. A humorous science fiction adventure, told by a hero who is as clever as he is cheeky. Lively and ironic, this short story can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

For an article judged too frank, Stephen Silk, a young diplomat, is sent as ambassador to New Texas, a planet peopled by descendants of Texans, which supplies meat to the whole galaxy. His predecessor has just been assassinated there. Silk soon discovers that, on New Texas, killing a politician is not necessarily a crime: a court only decides whether the victim had it coming. A political comedy full of humour, in which the young ambassador must also foil an invasion being prepared by a neighbouring alien people. Fast-paced, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

On 5 November 1900, in the middle of the Atlantic, a flying ship of metal and glass draws alongside an American liner. Its owner, Lord Redgrave, a wealthy Englishman, takes on board Zaidie Rennick, a young American who was on her way to Europe to marry a man she does not love. They marry, and set off on their honeymoon to the Moon, Mars, Venus and the great planets. There they discover strange peoples and a dead world covered in ruins. This lively and often funny tale shows how people imagined the solar system before the aeroplane was even invented. Written with gusto, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Gordon Gregg, an English writer living near Leghorn, in Italy, stands in for the British consul for a while. He receives the owner of a stranded yacht, dines on board and finds the torn photograph of a young Englishwoman, Elma Heath. The next day, the consulate safe has been opened and the yacht has vanished. His investigation takes him to London, to Scotland, then to Finland, at that time a province of the Russian Empire, where the young woman seems to be in great danger. Amid false identities, an ordinary man tries to save a woman he does not know. Fast and full of mystery, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In 2353, Tom Corbett, a cadet at the Space Academy, shows off his ship, the Polaris, with his fellow cadets Roger and Astro, at a great exhibition on Venus. One night, two men dig a tunnel under the exhibition and steal the plans for a key that opens the safes of every ship. Now space pirates, they help the dangerous outlaw Bull Coxine to escape. To stop them, Tom disguises himself as a prisoner and goes aboard their ship. So begins a chase across the solar system. Fast and clear, this science fiction novel for young readers is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In 2430, Earth, Venus and Mars are linked by travel and messages. One May evening, the leaders of all three worlds are assassinated almost at the same moment. Jac Hallen, a young New York reporter, and his friend the scientist Brende receive a warning from Venus: “Beware of Tarrano!” Tarrano, once a minor officer, wants to rule all three worlds. He also wants Elza, the scientist's daughter, whom Jac secretly loves. An adventure of love and battle, in a future full of inventions: moving pavements, flying cars, news screens. Fast-paced from start to finish, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.