Penguin Classics

New to Penguin Modern Classics, a searing novel from Tove Ditlevsen, author of the wildly acclaimed Copenhagen Trilogy. Copenhagen, 1968. Lise, a children's book writer and married mother of three, is becoming increasingly haunted by disembodied faces and taunting voices. Convinced that her housekeeper and husband are plotting against her, she descends into a terrifying world of sickness, pills and...

The autobiography of one of the world's most talented and intriguing writers, reissuing in Penguin Modern Classics. Speak, Memory, said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on, and of grand...

Hailed as the greatest modern lyrical poet of Germany, Rainer Maria Rilke's genius lies in his passion for perfection, artistic integrity and 'willingness to remain a perpetual beginner'. The verse contained in this selection ranges from the objective, naturalistic descriptions of his earliest works to the increasingly effusive outpourings of half-religious ecstasy and anguish that characterise his later poems. This...

Spain's greatest and most well-loved modern poet, Lorca has long been admired for the emotional intensity and dark brilliance of his work, which drew on music, drama, mythology and the songs of his Andalusian childhood. From the playful Suites and stylised Gypsy Ballads, to his own dark vision of urban life, Poet in New York, and his elegiac meditation on...

The most beautiful and powerful of Milosz's poems from across his writing life This selection brings together the most beautiful and powerful of Czeslaw Milosz's poems, spanning his writing life. In verses such as Cafe, he considers the upheaval, revolutions, and two world wars that he had witnessed, while My Faithful Mother Tongue reflects the loyalty he felt to his...

A tale of survival from one of the most beloved Nigerian writers, now in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. When Adah's dream of moving to England becomes a reality, she soon discovers that life for a young Nigerian woman living in London in the 1960s is far from what she had imagined. The cold weather and cramped, crumbling...

Arnold Bennett's superb London novel—both a story about one grim household and a panorama of the life of a great city. Henry Earlforward, a shabby Clerkenwell bookseller, has retired from life to devote himself (and his wife Violet) to a consuming passion for money. Miserliness becomes a fatal illness, and Bennett provides a terrifying description of its ravages. However, the...

These three great plays by one of the founding fathers of the theatre of the absurd are alive and kicking with tragedy and humour, bleakness and farce. In Rhinoceros, we are shown the innate brutality of people as everyone, except for Berenger, turns into clumsy, unthinking rhinoceroses. The Chairs depicts the futile struggle of two old people to convey the...

Le Carré's post-Cold War masterpiece, filled with suspense, betrayal, desire and drama. The Cold War is over and retired secret servant Tim Cranmer has been put out to pasture, spending his days making wine on his Somerset estate. But then he discovers that his former double agent Larry—dreamer, dissolute, philanderer and disloyal friend—has vanished, along with Tim's mistress. As their...

Marc Chagall's colourful, hilarious, dream-like autobiography. Chagall was born in Witebsk in White Russia, the son of a herring merchant who lived opposite a laundress and a chimney sweep. After the Revolution, while waiting for emigration papers, he wrote his autobiography at the age of 34. My Life reads like one of Chagall's paintings—emotional, fragmentary, humorous, colourful, and dream-like, soaked...

New to PMC Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a registrar of madness, a refined and civilised being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings...

One of Sylvia Townsend Warner's best-loved novels—a droll and deeply affecting story of love and disillusionment on a remote tropical island. After three years on the remote tropical island of Fanua, Timothy Fortune, a missionary from London, has made little headway. The islanders show very little interest in Christianity and he has only a single convert—a boy, Lueli. As Mr...

A Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age — The New York Times "On one side of the ducats was stamped the radiant profile of Archithorius, on the other - an image of his six hundred arms." Mortal Engines is a selection of the best of Stanislaw Lem's extraordinary miniature space epics, chosen by his heroic translator Michael Kandel, who...

New to PMC Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, a self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his...

First time in Modern Classics Claudia Hampton, a beautiful, famous writer, lies dying in hospital. But, as the nurses tend to her with quiet condescension, she is plotting her greatest work—a history of the world ... and in the process, my own. Gradually she re-creates the rich mosaic of her life and times, conjuring up those she has known. There...

The second novel in the Game, Set and Match trilogy is a gripping study in the art of spy enrolment. World-weary agent Bernard Samson is losing control of his personal and professional life. Sent to Mexico to aid the defection of a KGB agent to the West, he has a chance to prove his worth. Instead, he is torn between...

Maigret Travels delves into the intriguing circumstances surrounding the attempted suicide of a countess and the mysterious death of a multi-millionaire. Both incidents involve seemingly unrelated individuals, yet they occur in the same hotel. When multi-millionaire David Ward is found dead just hours after the countess's suicide attempt, Maigret suspects a connection between the two cases. The investigation intensifies when...

Maigret Takes a Room sees Maigret take on a complex undercover investigation in the heart of Paris. What he thought he had discovered, in place of the joyful candour that she usually displayed, was an irony which was neither less cheerful nor less childish, but which troubled him... He wondered now if his exultation wasn't down to the fact that...

Maigret's Secret explores Maigret's internal struggle with an old case whose conclusion continues to haunt him. At a dinner party, Maigret recounts the case of Adrien Josset, who was found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine. Despite all clues pointing to Josset's guilt under the controlling influence of the magistrate, Maigret remains unconvinced following his one...

Maigret's Revolver follows Maigret as he travels to London on the trail of a young man on the run. The most exasperating of all was the head clerk at reception, dressed in an elegant morning coat and stiff collar, which did not wilt with a drop of perspiration. He treated Maigret in a cordial manner, possibly feeling sorry for him....

Maigret's Patience follows Inspector Maigret as he delves into the murder of a criminal he had known for twenty years. Maigret finds himself back on the Rue des Acacias just ten days after cracking another case there. This time, it is the murder of a criminal Maigret has known for over twenty years, someone he always suspected was behind a...

A well-to-do Paris surgeon and his down-at-heel neighbour become the focus of Maigret's investigation. Maigret had questioned thousands, tens of thousands of people in the course of his career, some occupying important positions, others who were more famous for their wealth, and others still who were considered the most intelligent of international criminals. Yet he attached an importance to this...

An old woman's cries for help are left unanswered in this gripping story. A kind but seemingly paranoid old lady turns to Inspector Maigret for help. Against the judgement of his subordinates, he decides to pay a visit to her Parisian apartment to investigate, but is he already too late? Maigret's Madwoman is a tale of mystery and suspense that...

With Paris under siege following a series of murders, Maigret must hatch a cunning plan to lure the murderer out. High up in Montmartre, there was a festive atmosphere, people were crowding round the little tables where rosé wine was being served... Yet a hundred metres further on, the little alleyways were deserted, and the killer might find it easy...

When a toy salesman confides in Maigret, he quickly becomes caught up in a poisonous feud between husband and wife. An unusually quiet day for Maigret at the Quai des Orfèvres is disturbed by a visit from a mild-mannered toy salesman, Xavier Manton. Maigret is puzzled by Manton's admission that he suspects his wife of plotting to poison him, and...

A visit from an old school-friend leads Maigret to a murderous affair. When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the man's roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim and finds a complex web of relationships that leads him...

Maigret's Anger is a gripping tale where Maigret loses his composure when a suspect plots to tarnish his reputation. During a quiet spell in June, Maigret is called to investigate the disappearance of a reputable businessman. When a body is discovered near the famous Père Lachaise cemetery, Maigret struggles to find any clues to the perpetrator. He loses his temper...

Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters sees Maigret getting tangled up with some notorious American gangsters in this new translation. Maigret was less angry, in fact, than he seemed. Pozzo was a tough customer, but he didn't mind that. Nor did he mind dealing with characters who had sent the American police packing—genuine hard men who played for keeps. Maigret hadn't...

An impromptu visit to an old school friend in the Vendee draws Maigret into a disturbing local investigation. The mood of the town was still jittery. It was all very well for people to go about their day-to-day activities as usual, but there was a certain anxiety in people's eyes, and they seemed to be walking faster, as if they...

While on holiday Maigret gets involved in a local murder case. Maigret and his wife take a much-needed holiday to Vichy, where they quickly become accustomed to the slower pace of life. When a woman, whom they regularly pass by on their daily strolls, is murdered, Maigret can't help but offer his assistance to the local Inspector, a former colleague...

Maigret in Court sees Maigret called to testify in court, where he reveals his doubts about the guilt of the accused. Maigret receives an anonymous phone call concerning the brutal murder of a woman and a young child. The tip-off points to the woman's nephew, a mild-mannered man by the name of Gaston Meurant. Maigret, however, remains unconvinced of the...

A series of letters set Maigret up for a peculiar case. Maigret Hesitates features Inspector Maigret as he receives a series of letters warning of a murder that is going to take place. The letters do not reveal who will die, when it will happen, or who will do it. Maigret must trace the letters back to their source before...

Maigret Goes to School follows the renowned detective as he heads to a small seaside town where the residents are closing ranks to hide the truth. When a school teacher from near La Rochelle seeks Maigret's help to defend his innocence, Maigret accompanies him back to a small coastal town. There, he confronts the insular community in order to uncover...

During a much-needed holiday, Maigret pulls a prank on colleague Janvier. When Maigret's holiday plans go awry, he and his wife spend their vacation in Paris, on the condition that he has nothing to do with work. However, a case involving the death of a doctor's wife intrigues Maigret and he assiduously follows its development in the papers. He cannot...

When Maigret becomes the accused, he must rely on his investigative skills to prove his innocence. For the first time in his career, Inspector Maigret receives a written summons to the Prefect's office, where he learns that he has been accused of assaulting a young woman. With his career and reputation on the line, Maigret must fight to prove his...

Maigret and the Tramp by Georges Simenon follows Inspector Maigret as he investigates an attack on a Parisian tramp. When a tramp is recovered from the Seine after being badly beaten, Maigret must delve into the man's personal circumstances to figure out just who wanted to kill him.

An old acquaintance of Maigret's reappears on the streets of Paris, and the inspector finds himself caught up in her fate once more. Maigret's attitude came as a surprise to those who were working alongside him in Rue de la Ferme. Ever since the morning, there had been something unusual in the way that the inspector had been directing operations....

Maigret and the Saturday Caller introduces us to a tense encounter where Inspector Maigret finds himself face-to-face with a visitor who openly admits his intentions to commit murder. However, when this visitor goes missing, Maigret is left to worry that he himself may have become the victim. The story unfolds one evening when Maigret is followed home by a man...

Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses follows Maigret as he struggles to break through a victim's uncooperative family to uncover the truth behind a murder in book fifty-three of the series. Maigret is called to the home of the Lachaume family, where the eldest brother has been found shot dead. Upon his arrival, the family close ranks and claim to have...

Maigret and the Old People explores the intriguing investigation of a murder involving an esteemed official. Maigret is called to the home of Armand de Saint-Hilaire, a highly respected official who has been found shot dead in his study by his housekeeper. After interviewing everyone concerned, Maigret is at a loss regarding the identity of the perpetrator until he comes...

A new translation in the Penguin Maigret series – the inspector uncovers some poisonous family politics. The moon must have risen above the mist, which was now faintly incandescent, and, when Arlette stopped, he saw the pale shape of her face, with the wide line of her mouth... Then, still standing there in front of him, she said in a...

When a professional gambler is shot dead, all except Maigret suspect his mistress is to blame. Maigret is called to the home of professional gambler, Felix Nahour, who has been found shot dead by his chambermaid. Maigret is shocked to recognise a photo of the man's wife, who becomes the main suspect. All signs point to her guilt, but Maigret...

A gripping novel about the corrupt and avaricious world of politics, newly translated as part of the Maigret series. Was Maigret wrong? From one point of view, certainly, because he had nothing to gain but everything to lose in confronting as powerful and wily a man as Mascoulin. The latter, on his feet, was proffering his hand. In a flash,...

Maigret and the Man on the Bench draws Inspector Maigret into the poignant story of a man trapped in the monotony of everyday life. Were these yellow shoes part of the reason Maigret was so interested in this man? He would never admit it, but for years he too had longed to wear olive-green shoes. They were fashionable at the...

A homeless loner haunted by his past is found murdered in this murky tale. When a socially isolated vagrant is found dead in the condemned building where he had been sleeping in Les Halles, Paris, Maigret must delve into the victim's mysterious past to discover who could have killed him.

Maigret and the Lazy Burglar features Maigret's relentless pursuit of justice as he tracks down the murderer of a burglar he had known for thirty years. Set against a high-profile hunt for the latest criminal gang to hit Paris, Maigret is determined to uncover the truth behind the death of a quiet crook for whom he cannot help feeling affection...

Maigret and the Killer involves Inspector Maigret on a compelling investigation following the stabbing of a young man. When a tape recorder is discovered on the murder victim, Maigret sees it as a potentially crucial clue, which could lead him to the killer.

In the penultimate novel in the series, Maigret investigates a crime in Paris's seedy red light district. The body of a well-known Parisian restaurateur turns up on Avenue Junot in Montmartre, seemingly having been killed elsewhere. Inspector Maigret is on the case and soon discovers that the murder may be gang-related after a colleague working in the red-light district receives...

When a man is found dead at home, Maigret must look past the seemingly good intentions of the victim's family to figure out just who the culprit is. A retired manufacturer has been shot dead by his own pistol, last seen alive by his son-in-law. In this seemingly motiveless murder, Inspector Maigret must rely on his famous intuition to discover...

When a colleague is injured in an undercover operation, Maigret takes over and becomes embroiled in the dark underbelly of the Parisian art scene. During an undercover case, Inspector Lognon is shot in a room he was sharing with a beautiful woman who has since disappeared. Inspector Maigret retraces Lognon's secretive last few days and is drawn into the darker...

The last novel in Simenon's celebrated series When an elegant but nervous woman appears in Inspector Maigret's office and reports her rich and successful husband missing, Maigret and Lapointe find themselves on the trail of a man leading a double life— a prominent Parisian solicitor by day, a playboy known as Monsieur Charles by night.

The collection of short stories that launched one of the key figures of twentieth-century Italian literature to fame. A short story collection pivoting on life's ambiguities and the central question they pose in Tabucchi's fiction— is it choice, fate, accident, or even, occasionally, a kind of magic that plays a decisive role in the protagonists' lives? Set in Paris, Lisbon,...

An extraordinary collection of essays arguing for literature's complicity with evil, new to Penguin Modern Classics. Literature is not innocent, stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays, arguing that only by acknowledging its complicity with the knowledge of evil can literature communicate fully and intensely. These literary profiles of eight authors and their work, including Emily Brontë's...

A defining collection from Alistair Cooke's legendary BBC Radio broadcasts guiding us through nearly sixty years of changing life in the United States. When Alistair Cooke retired in February 2004, he was acclaimed as one of the greatest broadcasters of all time. His Letter from America radio series, which began in 1946 and continued every week for fifty-eight years until...

From the peerless author of The Lottery, a spectacular new volume of unpublished and newly discovered stories, essays, letters and drawings. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for with frank and inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays she wrote about her large, rowdy family; and revelatory personal letters and drawings. Jackson's...

The bluesy, gutsy, no-holds-barred memoir of jazz legend Billie Holiday. "I've been told that no one sings the word 'hunger' like I do. Or the word 'love'." Lady Sings the Blues is the inimitable autobiography of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century. Born to a single mother in 1915 Baltimore, Billie Holiday had her first run-in with...

A richly strange and funny novel follows one man grappling with love, life and creativity. On an ordinary day in a strangely unfamiliar London, Kleinzeit is fired from his advertising job and told he must go to hospital with a skewed hypotenuse. There on Ward A4, he falls in love with the divine, rosy-cheeked Sister and is sent spinning into...

A singular journey through the visionary world of Kafka and its captivating mysteries, now in Penguin Modern Classics. What are Kafka's stories about? Are they dreams? Allegories? Symbols? Things that happen every day? But where and when? In this remarkable book, Roberto Calasso sets out not to dispel the mystery but to let it be illuminated by its own light....

A remarkable collection of dark, funny and haunting short stories from the inimitable author of The Lottery. An anxious devil, a malicious old woman, and a mid-century Jack the Ripper; a pursuit through a nightmarish city, a small boy's thrilling train ride with a female thief, and a town where the possibility of evil lurks behind perfect rose bushes. This...

A jazz novel, a sermon and a song of praise to the richness of African-American experience. From Ralph Ellison, author of the classic novel, Invisible Man - the long-awaited follow-up. Here is the master of American vernacular - the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech - at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of...

The great writer's brilliant, blistering essay collection, chronicling how America—so great, so accomplished, so magical—began destroying its soul. "Sentence by sentence, page by page, Bellow is simply the best writer we have." - The New York Times Book Review In It All Adds Up, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow takes readers on a brilliantly insightful journey through literary...

Nightmarish, witty and immaculately conceived, Invitation to a Beheading unsparingly teases out the illogic of tyranny and will establish Nabokov in readers' minds as a serious and intelligent writer. Written in Berlin in 1934, Invitation to a Beheading contains all the surprise, excitement and magical intensity of a work created in two brief weeks of sustained inspiration. It takes us...

Illness as Metaphor is an examination of the fantasies concocted around conditions such as cancer and tuberculosis in our cultural history. Susan Sontag argues that illness is not a metaphor and that the most truthful way of regarding illness—and the healthiest way of being ill—is to resist such thinking. Her examples of metaphors and images of illness are taken from...

The unnamed spy of The IPCRESS File uncovers a secret buried deep in a Nazi U-Boat. A sunken U-Boat has lain undisturbed on the Atlantic ocean floor since the Second World War—until now. Inside its rusting hull, among the corpses of top-rank Nazis, lie secrets people will kill to obtain. The sequel to Len Deighton's game-changing debut The IPCRESS File,...

Herzog is alone, now that Madeleine has left him for his best friend. Solitary, in a crumbling house which he shares with rats, he is buffeted by a whirlwind of mental activity. People rumoured that his mind had collapsed. But was it true? Locked for days in the custody of his rambling memories, Herzog scrawls frantic letters which he never...

Anaïs Nin's classic exploration of love and sex in 1930s Paris. The brilliant tale of Anaïs Nin's true love affair with Henry Miller, and her ambiguous, charged relationship with his wife, June. Drawn from the journals of a single momentous year in Paris, Henry and June provides a wildly lyrical account of a woman's sexual awakening and the disillusion of...

Great Expectations by Kathy Acker features Pip switching identities, sexes, and centuries in a brilliant experimental explosion of literature, sex, and art. New York City is very peaceful and quiet, and the pale grey mists are slowly rising, to show me the world. Pip switches identities, sexes, and centuries in this punk, fairytale reimagining of Charles Dickens's original Great Expectations....

A brilliant feminist novel from Weimar Germany, from the author of Child of All Nations. Gilgi, One of Us introduces us to Gilgi, a young woman who knows where she's going in life—she's ambitious, determined, and fearless. She's not even derailed when her parents drop a massive bombshell on her twenty-first birthday. But then she meets the charming but aimless...

A Japanese masterpiece, reissued in Modern Classics. Written when Mishima was only twenty-six, Forbidden Colours is a depiction of a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but lacks the ability to love. As in Mann's Death in Venice, the older man's longing for the beauty of...

A myth-busting, page-turning history of the Battle of Britain History is swamped by patriotic myths about the aerial combat fought between the RAF and the Luftwaffe over the summer of 1940. In his gripping history of the Battle of Britain, Len Deighton drew on a decade of research and his own wartime experiences to puncture these myths and point towards...

Newly translated by Michael Hofmann, this is the funny and touching final novel from the author of Child of All Nations. Bombed-out Cologne after the war is a strange place to be. The black market in jam and corsets is booming, half-destroyed houses offer opportunities for stealing doors and eggcups, and de-Nazification parties are all the rage. Recently released from...

From the author of Cider With Rosie, this is a moving, lyrical portrait of the landscape of Laurie Lee's world. 'Living in our valley was like broad beans in a pod, so snug and enclosed and protective.' Laurie Lee walked out of his childhood village one summer morning to travel the world, but he was always drawn back to his...

This dark satire follows the egotistical Hermann Hermann, a murderer who thinks himself an artist. Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. With shattering immediacy, Nabokov...

Delta of Venus is Anaïs Nin's first incredible collection of erotic fiction. In Delta of Venus, Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the...

Evelyn Waugh's hilarious debut novel, with an introduction by Barbara Cooke. Sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather embarks on a series of bizarre adventures that start in a minor public school and end in one of HM prisons. In this, his first and funniest novel, Evelyn Waugh immediately caught the ear of the public with his account...

A new selection of stories featuring the celebrated literary detective, Inspector Maigret. An ageing boxer caught in a love triangle. A wealthy Parisian family on the brink of collapse. A mysterious murder in a hotel in Cannes. These tales of human frailty and deceit—three of which are being published in English for the first time—distil the atmosphere, themes and psychological...

Step into the unsettling world of Shirley Jackson this autumn with a collection of her finest, darkest short stories. There's something nasty in suburbia. In these deliciously dark tales, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts, and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the...

New to PMC Expecting to be inducted into the army, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Dangling Man is his journal, a wonderful account of his restless wanderings through Chicago's streets, his musings on the...

Years in insurance and marriage to the joyless Hilda have been no more than death in life to George Bowling. This and fear of another war take his mind back to the peace of his childhood in a small country town. But his return journey to Lower Binfield brings complete disillusionment. In Coming Up for Air, George Orwell keenly explores...

A man at his desk is interrupted by the appearance of a woodland elf in his room; the piano maestro Bachmann ends his career; a barber shaves the face of a man who once tortured him; a shy dreamer makes a deal with the Devil. In these sixty-five stories of magic and melancholy, Nabokov displays an astonishing range of inventiveness,...