Le professeur Lidenbrock est persuadé d'avoir découvert le chemin qui mène au centre de la Terre. Accompagné de son neveu Axel, l'impétueux géologue part en Islande. Là, au fond d'un volcan, les deux explorateurs et leur guide s'enfoncent dans les entrailles mystérieuses du globe. Un voyage d'une folle audace, véritable défi lancé à la science.
Great Expectations (first published in 1860/61) is one of the most mature and serious of Dickens's novels. As Angus Calder points out in his introduction, it re- sembles a detective story — but in the sense in which Oedipus Rex also resembles one. From the first shock of the early pages, when Pip encounters the convict Magwitch, the mystery grips our attention and its psychological and moral truth holds us until the end. For, in discovering the secret of his •great expecta- tions'. Pip also begins to discover the truth about himself. The cover shows a detail from 'A Country Blacksmith Disputing the Price of Iron' by J. M. W. Turner (photo: Rodney Todd-White) The portrait of Charles Dickens inside the front cover is taken from an engraving after a painting by W. P. Frith, by permission of the Trustees of the Dickens House
One of the world's best-loved stories of shipwreck and survival, The Swiss Family Robinson portrays a family's struggle to create a new life for themselves on a strange and fantastic tropical island. Blown off course by a raging storm, the family-a Swiss pastor, his wife, their four young sons, plus two dogs and a shipload of livestock-must rely on one another in order to adapt to their needs the natural wonders of their exotic new home. Inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, this classic story of invention and adventure has fired the imaginations of readers since it first appeared in 1812. Freely translated over the years, with major sections excised and new subplots added, the novel is published here in its original English translation.