Format: 130 x 200 mm

Number of pages: 304

Karel Čapek (1890-1938) is among those few literary giants whose works have lost none of their readability even three quarters of a century after they were written. Of all his novels, prose and great feuilletons, Tales from the First and Second Pockets are among the best. Mostly detective stories, whose heroes are police commissioners, agents, constables, gendarmes, but also marriage fraudsters, criminals or fanatical collectors, bring much more than meets the eye. Čapek used all aspects of his exceptional talent in them. He is not only a great narrator of exciting stories, but at the same time a master of paradoxes, an author who once applies his sense of subtle irony (the poet subconsciously captures the number of a car that hit a woman in his verses), at other times approaches his concept of justice, which cannot be squeezed into any laws, at other times, half seriously, half with a quiet smile, he demonstrates a new psychoanalytical method for convicting a murderer and quickly recognizing a journalist. Čapko's short stories have been translated into all conceivable languages, most of them undoubtedly stand up to the work of the greatest masters of short prose in world literature, I admit that I have never read a book so many times and with such pleasure as this one.