A guide for independent reading to improve reading skills and reading comprehension in English. lang. Comments and dictionary in Ukrainian. and Russian languages. The manual consists of two works of American literature of the first half of the 19th century. - stories “Peter Rugg, Missing” by William Austen and “Wives of the Dead” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The figurative, colorful language of these stories will expand the reader's understanding of the beauty and richness of the English language. These stories are about the unusual around and inside us: half a century passes like one long day, “a dream is indistinguishable from reality, and a carelessly thrown promise acquires fatal force.” The manual consists of the original text of the stories, comments to the text, a dictionary and a collection of exercises with keys to them. Recommended for junior students, as well as for anyone learning to read English.