Вопрос № 348793 - Английский язык

Joseph Turner, a famous English painter, lived in the 19-th century. His paintings were a great success. One day his favorite dog broke a leg. The artist was very sorry for the dog and wanted it to be well again. He was rich enough to send for the best surgeon in London instead of taking a veterinary.

When the surgeon arrived the artist begged him to help his dog because it was very important for him. Having got to know what the matter was the surgeon felt annoyed, but he treated the dog carefully and soon it was quite well.

The next week the surgeon asked Turner to come to his place. The artist believed that the surgeon wanted to see him in connection with his dog.

Joseph Turner arrived at the appointed time and was shown into the sitting-room. The surgeon met him very warmly and said: “Mr. Turner, I am so glad you’ve come. My door needs painting. I know you are too great a painter for this work, but I beg you to do it. It is so important for me.

Erich Segal is an American author, screenwriter and educator, whose books have popularity with the reading public. Erich Wolf Segal was born in 1937 in Brook Lyn, New York. He attended Harvard University. After graduating from it in 1958 he obtained his master’s degree and a doctorate.

He was a professor of Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University. Now he is teaching at Wolfson College, Oxford. In 1967, from the story by Lee Minoff, he wrote the screenplay for The Beatles 1968 motion picture, Yellow Submarine.

His book “Love Story” became the top selling work of fiction for all of 1970 in the United States. His novels “The Class” (1985), “Doctors” were also bestsellers.

What constitutes the main value of Erich Segal’s books in that the writer helps people become sensitive to everyday problems. He brings up a lot of questions for discussion.

Readers of the mid-twentieth century often turned to “the bible of the generation” - the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by D.Salinger. But there are books written later, in the 1980-s and in the early 21st century which are comparable to that one. Such is Sue Townsend’s cycle of books starting from “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13” written with mild humour and irony and profound psychological insight into the inner world of a teenager.

Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. She attended Glen Hills school in the early 50s and then went to South Wigston Secondary Modem for Girls. But she left school when she was 15 and changed jobs several times (so she worked as a shop assistant, garage attendant and in a factory)!

Her writing career started when she was 35 - she won the Thames Playwrights Award. Her most famous and best known book is “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole” (1985) - a diary kept by a 13 year old boy - sort of intellectual. The book was so successful that it was followed by a number of sequels.

She got married when she was 18 and had three children. But her husband left her so she brought them up alone. Sue Townsend later got married again. In 1999 doctors found out she had diabetes and she slowly began losing her sight. Today she is almost blind.

Grace Kelly was born on the east coast of the USA in 1929.

When she was 21, she went to Hollywood and began acting in films. She appeared in the film “High Noon”, and won an Academy Award (“Oscar”) for her acting in “A Country Girl”.

In 1956 she married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

She then retired from her career in America and devoted herself to her royal duties. She breast-fed her own babies, and publicly encouraged other mothers do the same. She died in 1982 after a car accident.

Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn.

When she was 3 months old she went to live at Ratfield, far from the King and the Queen. Her mother was executed by her father when the little girl was 2 and a half years old.

The young princess learnt Italian, French, Latin and Greek from royal tutors. She followed her half-brother Edward and her half-sister Mary to the throne.

She never married and ruled for 45 years as a strong and independent queen. She was much loved by the people of England, and her reign was one of power and glory for her country.

In 1778 the British had the strongest navy in the world. They laughed at the small navy of their American colonies who were fighting Britain for their independence. An American captain decided to show the British that size was not everything. Here is what happened.

On the night of April 24, 1778 Captain John Paul Jones silently brought the American ship “Ranger” into Whiteheaven harbour on the west coast of England. As soon as he arrived, he took a group of his men to a local inn, broke into it and had a drink with them.

Then they went back to the harbour and began their work. Some of them went to the fort and put the guns out of order, others began burning British ships. The British soldiers finally woke up and put up a good fight, but they lost to Jones and his men.

Captain Jones was pleased but not completely satisfied. So he sailed to the nearby Scottish coast and went to the home of the Earl of Selkirk. Jones and his men put all of the Earl’s silverware onto the “Ranger” to take back to America. The British did not laugh so much about America’s navy after Jones’ visit.