编辑推荐
世界文学名著表现了作者描述的特定时代的文化。阅读这些名著可以领略著者流畅的文笔、逼真的描述、详细的刻画,让读者如同置身当时的历史文化之中。为此,我们将这套精心编辑的“名著典藏”奉献给广大读者。
我们找来了专门研究西方历史、西方文化的专家学者,请教了专业的翻译人员,精心挑选了这些可以代表西方文学的著作,并听取了一些国外专门研究文学的朋友的建议,不删节、不做任何人为改动,严格按照原著的风格,提供原汁原味的西方名著,让读者能享受纯正的英文名著。
随着阅读的展开,你会发现自己的英语水平无形中有了大幅提高,并且对西方历史文化的了解也日益深入广阔。
送您一套经典,让您受益永远!
内容简介
《世界名著典藏:失落的世界(英文全本)》介绍19世纪与20世纪之交,车卓教授带领一个科学考察团,离开烟雾弥漫的伦敦,远赴南美雨林寻找时光停滞的传说之地——那里仍有恐龙漫步大地。同行的有车卓教授的学术劲敌萨马里教授、勇敢的猎人罗斯顿勋爵、年轻记者马龙。考察团将经历种种冒险,在失落的世界挣扎求存……
目录
Chaptet 1 There Are Heroisms All Round Us
Chaptet 2 Try Your Luek wifh Professor Challenger
Chaptet 3 He Is a Perfecfly Impossible Person
Chaptet 4 It‘s Just the Very Diggest Thing in the World
Chaptet 5 Ouesfion!
Chaptet 6 I Was the Flail of the Lord
Chaptet 7 Tomorrow We Disappear into the Unknown
Chaptet 8 The Ouflying Pickers of the New World
Chaptet 9 Who Could Have Foreseen It?
Chaptet 10 The Mosf Wonderful Things Have Happened
Chaptet 11 For Once I Was the Hero
Chaptet 12 It Was Dreadful in the Forest
Chaptet 13 A Sight I Shall Never Forger
Chaptet 14 Those Were the Real Conquesfs
Chaptet 15 Our Eyes Have Seen Greaf Wonders
Chaptet 16 A Procession! A Procession!
精彩书摘
MR. HUNGERTON, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth - a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism - a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. “Suppose,” he cried, with feeble violence, “that all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously and immediate payment insisted upon. What, under our present conditions , would happen then?” I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting. At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of fate had come! All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope, hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind. She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof!We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette - perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure - these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much as that - or had inherited it in that race-memory which we call instinct. Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold and hard, but such a thought was treason. That delicately-bronzed skin, almost Oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips - all the stigmata of passion were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head tonight. She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother. So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long and uneasy silence when two critical dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. “I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you wouldn‘t, for things are so much nicer as they are.” I drew my chair a little nearer. “Now, how did you know that I was going to propose?” I asked, in genuine wonder. “Don’t women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares? But, oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don‘t you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face as we have talked?” “I don’t know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with - with the station-master.” I can‘t imagine how that official came into the matter, but in he trotted and set us both laughing. “That does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you and your head on my breast, and, oh, Gladys, I want -” She had sprung from her chair as she saw signs that I proposed to demonstrate some of my wants. “You’ve spoiled everything, Ned,” she said. “It‘s all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in. It is such a pity. Why can’t you control yourself?.” “I didn‘t invent it,” I pleaded. “It’s nature. It‘s love!” “Well, perhaps if both love it may be different. I have never felt it.” “But, you must - you, with your beauty , with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you were made for love! You must love!” “One must wait till it comes.” “But why can’t you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?” She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand - such a gracious, stooping attitude it was - and she pressed back my head. Then she looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. “No it isn‘t that,” she said at last. “You’re not a conceited boy by nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It‘s deeper.” “My character?” She nodded severely. “What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really I won’t, if you‘ll only sit down!” She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my mind than her whole-hearted confidence How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white! And perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down. “Now tell me what’s amiss with me.” “I‘m in love with somebody else,” said she. It was my turn to jump out of my chair. “It’s nobody in particular,” she explained, laughing at the expression of my face, “only an ideal. I‘ve never met the kind of man I mean.” “Tell me about him. What does he look like?” “Oh, he might look very much like you.” “How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I don’t do? Just say the word - teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, Theosophist, Superman - I‘ll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only give me an idea what would please you.”
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前言/序言
世界名著典藏系列:科学幻想的先声与失落文明的追寻 本卷《世界名著典藏系列》精选了一部足以载入科幻文学史册的经典之作,它以惊人的想象力构建了一个宏大而未知的世界,带领读者进行一场深入地球腹地的惊险探险。这部作品不仅是探险文学的杰出代表,更是对人类已知世界边界进行大胆挑战的先驱之声。 聚焦主题: 本期典藏之书,聚焦于十九世纪末二十世纪初欧洲知识分子对未解之地的狂热探索精神,以及对科学与“原始”文明冲突与共存的深刻思考。它通过一个充满悬念的叙事结构,探讨了进化论、博物学、殖民主义的复杂性以及人性的坚韧与脆弱。 故事背景与核心冲突: 故事的引爆点,源于一桩伦敦上流社会的离奇失踪案,以及一份被意外截获的、充满神秘色彩的速写与信件。主人公,一位受人尊敬的动物学教授兼博物学家,凭借其严谨的科学素养和不屈的求知欲,坚信在南美洲的亚马逊河流域深处,存在着一个被时间遗忘的“活化石”生态系统。 在当时的科学界,主流观点倾向于物种的逐步演化和现代文明的普世性。然而,这份证据——描绘着与现代鸟类和爬行动物截然不同的巨型生物的粗糙图画——激发了一群性格迥异的探险家组成的考察队。他们肩负着证实科学猜想、赢得学术声誉,以及可能带回改变世界认知的物证的使命。 探险队的核心成员包括:学识渊博但略显迂腐的教授;一位经验丰富、拥有非凡洞察力的南美向导;以及一位充满理想主义和冒险精神的年轻记者(通常充当叙事者,负责记录旅程的每一个细节与转折)。 探险的深入与发现: 考察队沿着亚马逊河的一条支流深入,逐渐脱离了殖民者已知的航道。随着深入,环境变得愈发险恶,丛林的浓密、气候的变幻莫测,以及与世隔绝的部落的出现,都构成了对探险者生理和心理的严峻考验。 作品的标志性转折点在于,考察队克服了重重险阻,最终跨越了一道天然的屏障——一个巨大的、如同世界边缘般的高原台地。在这里,他们发现了一个被史前地质活动完美保护起来的“伊甸园”。 在这个与世隔绝的“失落之地”,时间仿佛停止了: 侏罗纪的遗存: 最引人注目的是各种史前爬行动物的生存。作品细致描绘了翼龙、巨大的剑龙类以及迅猛的食肉恐龙(如霸王龙的早期形态或近亲),它们构成了这个生态系统顶端的捕食者。 巨型动物群: 除了爬行动物,考察队还遭遇了巨型昆虫、史前哺乳动物的近亲,甚至一些介于已知物种之间的过渡生物,极大地冲击了当时生物学对物种界限的认知。 失落的人类文明: 与动物世界同样震撼人心的,是人类文明的残存。考察队发现了一个与世隔绝的古老部落。这个部落发展出了独特的社会结构和信仰体系,他们可能在数百万年前就与主大陆的智人演化路径分岔。他们的生活方式、原始的建筑技术,以及对周围巨型生物的恐惧与崇拜,构成了对“文明”定义的深刻反思。 哲学与伦理的张力: 这部作品的高明之处在于,它不仅仅满足于奇观的展示,而是深入挖掘了探险队在面对这些发现时的伦理困境: 1. 科学伦理与保护: 教授面临着巨大的诱惑——带回活体标本或化石证据,以证明自己的理论并获得无上荣耀。然而,这种干预是否会摧毁这个脆弱的、自洽的生态系统?他们是否有权利去“揭露”和“改造”这个静止的世界? 2. 殖民心态的反思: 探险队中一些带有当时主流殖民主义思想的成员,试图用武力或欺骗来控制部落,或将这些“原始”的生物视为可供利用的资源。这与教授和记者的保护主义立场形成了鲜明对比,揭示了在面对未知时,人性的贪婪与敬畏之间的永恒斗争。 3. 生存的法则: 在这个弱肉强食的史前环境中,现代文明的规则和道德体系显得苍白无力。探险队不得不迅速适应,学习如何避免成为顶级掠食者的猎物,这凸显了人类适应性的极限。 文学地位与影响: 本作品被公认为现代科学幻想文学的奠基石之一,它成功地将十九世纪的大英帝国探险热潮与达尔文主义的震撼完美结合。它启发了后世无数的作家和电影制作者,确立了“失落的世界”这一文学母题,即在现代地图上寻找未被发现的、承载着前历史生物的禁地的叙事模式。它以其严谨的科学推演(尽管部分细节已被现代科学修正)和惊心动魄的故事情节,为读者提供了穿越时空的史诗级阅读体验。它迫使我们思考:我们对地球的了解,究竟已经到了何种程度?