Penguin Classics

On Heroes and Tombs is Sabato's masterpiece of obsessive love and murder set in 1950s Buenos Aires, now available in Penguin Modern Classics. This dark, philosophical novel is centred around a violent crime committed by Alejandra, the daughter of a prominent Argentinian family. Alejandra's act entangles the lives of three men: her father, Fernanda Vidal, who believes he is hunted...

New to Penguin Clothbound Classics, Joyce's seminal story collection about ordinary Dublin lives Dubliners, Joyce's first major work, written when he was only twenty-five, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire...

Mark Twain's great American masterpiece, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain's tale of a boy's picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft, conveying the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work had done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the 'sivilizing' Widow Douglas with...

The Three Musketeers, an enthralling tale of valour, intrigue, and brotherhood, penned by Alexandre Dumas and newly translated by Richard Pevear, takes readers on a captivating journey through 17th-century France. The story follows the spirited young Gascon, D'Artagnan, who arrives in Paris with dreams of joining the King's illustrious Musketeers. Upon his arrival, D'Artagnan's fiery temper and unyielding sense of...

The paperback publication of the first volume of the new, substantially complete translation of one of the best-known and most influential classics of world literature. Every night for three years, the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her the next morning. To end this brutal pattern and save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to...

Three thousand years of encounters with malevolent beings that have invaded our waking lives and our nightmares. A Penguin Classic For millennia, societies have told tales of their fears incarnate—otherworldly couriers of plague, death, temptation, and moral decline. The Penguin Book of Demons summons these supernatural creatures—and the humans who have hunted and been haunted by them—across cultures and continents:...

Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. A collection of seven notebooks on capital and money, it both develops the arguments outlined in the Communist Manifesto (1848) and explores the themes and theses that were to dominate his great later work Capital. Here, for the first...

One of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (1757-1827) was an artist, poet, mystic, and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience—which juxtapose poems such as 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger', and 'The Blossom' and 'The Sick Rose'—to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton, and...

A gorgeous clothbound edition of Jean Rhys's great masterpiece of desire and madness in the Caribbean. Jean Rhys's late masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn...

The searing, tragic French classic in a gorgeous clothbound edition. Madame Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her...

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known by the title of The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which The Warning Voice is the third, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family—a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the...

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is now available in a stunning new hardback edition. These sumptuous new hardback editions mark the 70th anniversary of Fitzgerald's death. Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night, his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing,...

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors, Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie, provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love. Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities — the theory that certain...

Truman Capote began writing when he was eight and became one of America's most versatile and gifted authors. A Capote Reader contains much of his published work: his fiction, including "Breakfast at Tiffany's", as well as his prolific output of short stories. Also included are travel sketches in which he evokes places from Tangiers to Brooklyn, and portraits of his...

One of the great masterpieces of 17th-century English prose, Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is a profound and influential work that delves into the nature of human society and the necessity of a strong central authority. Hobbes presents a compelling social contract theory, wherein individuals collectively agree to surrender some freedoms to a sovereign power in exchange for security and order....

In The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle delves into the intricacies of the art of persuasion, offering an extensive analysis of rhetoric as a central component of public discourse. The book is divided into three primary sections, each addressing different aspects of rhetoric: the speaker, the audience, and the speech itself. Aristotle's work not only explores the theory behind effective communication...

James Joyce's final, dazzlingly experimental masterpiece, with a new introduction by Brian Fox. Joyce's final work, Finnegans Wake, is his masterpiece of the night, as Ulysses is of the day. Supreme linguistic virtuosity conjures up the dark underground worlds of sexuality and dream. Joyce undermines traditional storytelling and all official forms of English and confronts the different kinds of betrayal—cultural,...

The definitive collection of tales of the supernatural, edited by Michael Newton. 'The ghost is the most enduring figure in supernatural fiction. He is absolutely indestructible... He changes with the styles in fiction but he never goes out of fashion. He is the really permanent citizen of the earth, for mortals, at best, are but transients' - Dorothy Scarborough This...

A richly varied anthology showcases a teeming, strange, magical world, about to be brought to an end by the catastrophe of 1914. The quarter century or so before the outbreak of the First World War saw an extraordinary boom in the popularity and quality of short stories in Britain. Fuelled by a large new magazine readership and vigorous competition to...

Dorothy Parker, more than any of her contemporaries, captured the spirit of her age in her writing. The decadent 1920s and 1930s in New York were a time of great experiment and daring for women. For the rich, life seemed a continual party, but the excesses took their emotional toll. With a biting wit and perceptive insight, Dorothy Parker examines...

Robert Louis Stevenson's immortal tale of personality and evil, now in a wonderful new clothbound edition. Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with damnable young man Edward Hyde, the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer, and the...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. The Body Politic explores the provocative statement: No true Democracy has ever existed, nor ever will exist.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a pioneering work that laid the groundwork for modern feminism and the enduring struggle for gender equality. Written in 1792 by the trailblazing philosopher and advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, this seminal treatise is a compelling call to arms for the emancipation and education of women. In an era marked by the revolutionary fervour...

Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here, Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery...

A Spy In The House Of Love explores the life of Sabina, a beautiful, bored, and bourgeois woman who leads a double life driven by her relentless desire for brief encounters with near-strangers. Propelled into infidelity by a desperate longing for sexual fulfilment, she weaves a sensual web of deceit across New York. However, when the secrecy of her affairs...

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche is a profound exploration of philosophical thoughts, conveyed through the allegorical journey of its protagonist, Zarathustra. It follows Zarathustra's descent from his mountain hermitage to share his wisdom with humanity, articulating revolutionary ideas about the human condition, morality, and the potential for human greatness. Through a series of discourses and parables, Zarathustra encounters various...

A richly varied anthology of Spanish short stories, curated by celebrated translator Margaret Jull Costa. This exciting new collection celebrates the Spanish short story, from its modern origins in the nineteenth century to the remarkable work being written today. Featuring over fifty stories selected by revered translator Margaret Jull Costa, it blends hidden gems and old favourites, surprising new voices...

Pornography is a landmark, searing critique of pornography that condemns how culture consumes and manipulates images of women and eroticises male dominance. Pornography is the orchestrated destruction of women's bodies and souls ... it is war on women. Pornography, Andrea Dworkin argued in this landmark work, is about power—the power of owning, of money, of sex. It is not merely...

A portrait of one of the greatest artists of the nineteenth century, from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth. Rossetti, Evelyn Waugh's first book, is an intimate account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tragic and mysterious life—the story behind some of the greatest poetry and painting of the nineteenth century. Shot through with Waugh's charm and dry wit, and...

An indispensable addition to the canon of Burroughs's works, this series of short stories and sketches guides the reader through his literary evolution. Interzone portrays the development of Burroughs's mature writing style by presenting a selection of pieces from the mid-1950s. His outrageous tone of voice represents the exorcism of four decades of oppressive sexual and social conditioning. Burroughs's close...

Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics - irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Tired of the bustling city, a man takes the train through the snow to Japan's mountains, to meet with a geisha he believes he loves. Beautiful and innocent, she is tightly bound by the rules...

Professor Timofey Pnin, late of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously perched on a college campus in the fast beating heart of the USA. In a series of funny and sad misunderstandings, Pnin does halting battle with American life and language.

Lucky Jim tells the story of Jim Dixon, who has accidentally found himself in a job at one of Britain's new red brick universities. A moderately successful future in the History Department beckons. As long as Jim can survive a madrigal-singing weekend at Professor Welch's, deliver a lecture on 'Merrie England', and resist Christine, the hopelessly desirable girlfriend of Welch's...

Hiroshima by John Hersey is a monumental work of journalism that captures the profound and harrowing experiences of six survivors in the aftermath of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945. As the bomb decimated the city and claimed over 100,000 lives, Hersey artfully recounts the personal stories of these individuals, unveiling not only their survival but...

When an unbridled schoolmistress with advanced ideas is in her prime, the classroom can take on a new identity, and no one can predict what will happen. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie introduces Jean Brodie, a teacher whose unconventional ideas put her at odds with the other members of staff at the Marcia Blaine School in Edinburgh. She endeavours...

The definitive portrait of the real Socrates Rich in drama and humour, they include the controversial Ion, a debate on poetic inspiration; Laches, in which Socrates seeks to define bravery; and Euthydemus, which considers the relationship between philosophy and politics. Together, these dialogues provide a definitive portrait of the real Socrates and raise issues still keenly debated by philosophers, forming...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics — irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Often described as the father of the modern short story, there is perhaps no other writer more closely associated with the form than Guy de Maupassant. Included here is his most famous story, Boule de...

Conrad's last great novel, featuring one of his most fascinating heroes, Victory is a psychological thriller, a tragic romance and a commentary on the lies that we tell ourselves. Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, believes he can avoid suffering by cutting himself off from others. Then he becomes involved in the operation of a coal company on...

Ruth is the story of Ruth Hilton, an orphaned young seamstress who captures the attention of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. When she loses her job and home, he offers her comfort and shelter, only to cruelly desert her soon after. Nearly dead with grief and shame, Ruth is given the chance of...

The Penguin English Library edition of the classic gothic novel that inspired Sarah Perry's new novel Melmoth The Penguin English Library Edition of Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin 'My hour is come ... the clock of eternity is about to strike, but its knell must be unheard by mortal ears!' This violent, profound, baroque, and blackly humorous novel is...

When Reverend Josiah Crawley, the impoverished curate of Hogglestock, is accused of theft, it causes a public scandal, sending shockwaves through the world of Barsetshire. The Crawleys desperately try to remain dignified while they are shunned by society, but the scandal threatens to tear them, and the community, apart. Drawing on his own childhood experience of genteel poverty, Trollope gives...

The Erotic Poems by Ovid explores the multifaceted nature of sexual desire through a collection of poems that range from passionate declarations of eternal love to light-hearted justifications for promiscuity. In the Amores, Ovid expresses his feelings through a series of elegies dedicated to Corinna, his captivating and elusive mistress. These early poems reveal an intimate and vulnerable side of...

Although written over 400 years after Alexander's death, Arrian's The Campaigns of Alexander is our best source of knowledge of the man and his deeds. Arrian had himself been a military commander, and his record of the exploits of the world's greatest conqueror reveals sympathy for his subject, without the adulation or contempt which so often mar other histories of...

A new translation of one of the best-loved and most important books of Christianity, by the Very Revd. Robert Jeffery. One of the most influential and well-loved books of Christianity, The Imitation of Christ is a passionate celebration of God's love, mercy and holiness, which has stimulated religious devotion for over five hundred years. With great personal conviction and deep...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. The bitter, deformed brother of the King is secretly plotting to seize the throne of England. Charming and duplicitous, powerfully eloquent and viciously cruel, he is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his goal - and, in his skilful manipulation of...

In this text, Rousseau demonstrates how the growth of civilisation corrupts man's natural happiness and freedom due to the artificial inequalities of wealth and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to civilised man, he believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members gained an unnatural advantage over the weaker. He also argued that...

One of the great novels of the twentieth century, now in a wonderful new cover. The Rainbow chronicles the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family over a period of more than 60 years, setting them against the emergence of modern England. The central figure of Ursula becomes the focus of Lawrence's examination of relationships and the conflicts they...

This was the most popular novel of Radcliffe's time, and Radcliffe's portrayal of her heroine's inner life raised the Gothic romance to a new level. The atmosphere of fear and the gripping plot continue to thrill today. This is the story of the orphaned Emily St Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the...

New translation by Roger Whitehouse for this tale of murder, passion, and possession. La Bête humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level, a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered...

The classic dystopian novel from Sweden, written at the midpoint between Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Leo Kall is a zealous, middle-ranking scientist in the totalitarian World State who has just made a thrilling discovery—a new drug, Kallocain, that will force anyone who takes it to tell the truth. At last, criminality will be dragged out into the open,...

Waugh's great novel of the lost golden age before the Second World War, new to the Penguin English Library. The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the years before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted...

In 1665, the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he...

Part of the Penguin Classics' fresh new editions of Tolstoy's major works - including Antony Briggs' stunning new translation of War and Peace. In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army and travelled to the Caucasus as a soldier. The four years that followed were among the most significant in his life, and deeply influenced the...

The story of Heloise and Abelard remains one of the world's most celebrated and tragic love affairs. Peter Abelard was a 12th-century French philosopher and celebrated logician. He taught in Paris, where Heloise was his pupil. Through their letters, we follow the path of their romance, from its reckless and ecstatic beginnings, through the suffering, the public scandal and enforced...

This edition includes a list of suggestions for further reading, a glossary of important philosophical words and phrases, and notes. Exploring the question of what exactly makes good people good, Protagoras and Meno are two of the most enjoyable and accessible of all of Plato's dialogues. Widely regarded as his finest dramatic work, the Protagoras, set during the golden age...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics — irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Arguably America's most influential short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe's tales of suspense never fail to spook and amaze. Gathered in this selection are his very best horror stories, including the gothic tour de force...

In 1926, de Saint-Exupery began flying for the pioneering airline Latécoère—later known as Aéropostale—opening up the first mail routes across the Sahara and the Andes. Wind, Sand and Stars is drawn from this experience. Interweaving encounters with nomadic Arabs and other adventures, the book presents a richly textured autobiographical narrative. It includes the extraordinary story of his crash in the...

The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously...

Le Carre's singular story of a cautious man plunged into recklessness, published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Aldo Cassidy is the naive and sentimental lover. A successful, judicious man, he is wrenched away from the ordered certainties of his life by a sudden encounter with Shamus, a wild, carousing artist, and Helen, his nakedly alluring wife. Cassidy,...

An enlightening anthology of George Orwell's journalism and non-fiction writing. Famous for his novels and essays, Orwell remains one of our very best journalists and commentators. Confronting social, political and moral dilemmas head-on, he was fearless in his writing — a champion of free speech, a defender against social injustice and a sharp-eyed chronicler of the age. But his work...

At long last, William S. Burroughs's cult classic and undoubted masterpiece enters Penguin Modern Classics. A cultural landmark and the most shocking novel in the English language, Naked Lunch is an exhilarating ride into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. An unnerving tale of an addict unmoored in New York, Tangier, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone,...

The dramatic and entertaining account of the revolution in Cuba, from the architect of its success. We were an army of shadows, of ghosts, walking as if to the beat of some dark psychic mechanism The Cuban Revolution changed the course of the twentieth century. Following years of brutal tyranny and poverty, a band of idealistic young people fought against...

One of the great novels of Paris, from the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. I am nothing. Nothing but a pale shape, silhouetted that evening against the cafe terrace, waiting for the rain to stop. Guy Roland, a private detective in Paris, is trying to solve the mystery of his own past. His memories erased by amnesia,...

Junky, Burroughs' first novel, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. A largely autobiographical account, Junky explores the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures, and relapses. It takes readers through junk neighbourhoods in New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City, detailing time spent kicking, dealing, and rolling drunks for money. The narrative delves into junk sickness and...

Since the original, prewar translation, there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic, and lucid Proust. In Search of Lost Time is one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to...

He belongs with those great demented realists ... whose writing pitilessly exposes the ridiculousness of the human condition. - Will Self A preacher called Deke O'Malley's been selling false hope — the promise of a glorious new life in Africa for just $1,000 a family. But when thieves with machine guns steal the proceeds — and send one man to...

A stunning new series look for one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Penguin Modern Classics. In the din and stink that is Cannery Row, a colourful blend of misfits—gamblers, whores, drunks, bums, and artists—survive side by side in a jumble of adventure and mischief. Lee Chong, the astute owner of the well-stocked grocery store, is also...

A riveting history of the Nazi conquest of Western Europe This is the story of the Nazi conquest of western Europe, from Hitler's rise to power and 'lightning-fast war', to his fatal mistake in halting the German advance on Dunkirk in 1940. Drawing on technical mastery and interviews with both Allied and German participants, Blitzkrieg sets out the technical thinking...

A critically acclaimed tale of abuse and betrayal in America's deep South. Carolina in the 1950s, and Bone—christened Ruth Anna Boatwright—lives a happy life, in and out of her aunt's houses, playing with her cousins on the porch, sipping ice tea, loving her little sister Reece and her beautiful young mother. But Glen Waddell has been watching them all, wanting...

One of the best American novels ever written - a rollicking, controversial New York fable. As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal...

A Murder of Quality is Le Carré's ingenious mystery, featuring his most famous recurring character, George Smiley. Stella Rode has twice disturbed the ancient cloisters of Carne School—firstly by being the wrong sort, with her doyleys and china ducks, and secondly by being murdered. George Smiley, who has his own connection with the school, is asked by an old Service...

A gritty, hilarious detective novel from Harlem's master crime writer. A golden Cadillac big enough to cross the ocean has been seen sailing along the streets of Harlem. A hit-and-run victim's been hit so hard she got embedded in the wall of a convent. A shootout with three heistmen dressed as cops has left an important politician in a coma—and...

The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged as well. Ignatius ignores them as he heaves his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity, and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him. Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his newfound employment to further...

A sensational and mystical novel from one of the 20th century's greatest modernist writers. A Breath of Life is Clarice Lispector's final novel, "written in agony," which she did not live to see published. Sensual and mysterious, it is a mystical dialogue between a god-like author and the creation he breathes life into—the speaking, shifting, indefinable Angela Pralini. As he...

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima is an introspective and vividly descriptive exploration of a young man's struggle with his concealed identity in post-war Japan. The protagonist, Kochan, a Japanese teenager, grapples with the awakening of his homosexual and sadistic desires in an acutely homophobic and conservative society. Each night, Kochan is haunted by intense fantasies in which he...

Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry Thoreau are two seminal works that reflect on personal freedom, individuality, and the inherent connection between humanity and nature. Walden is the fruit of Thoreau's two-year experiment in simple living on Walden Pond in Massachusetts. It meticulously follows the natural cycle of the seasons, weaving a thoughtful narrative that extends beyond a mere account...

Maurice by E.M. Forster is a deeply moving and intensely personal novel that traces the life and emotional journey of Maurice Hall, a young man from a privileged background. Maurice grows up with a keen sense of his societal role but finds himself increasingly drawn to relationships with other men, something that challenges the norms and expectations of early 20th-century...

In late 1888, only weeks before his final collapse into madness, Nietzsche embarked on the task of composing his autobiography. Ecce Homo remains one of the most intriguing and bizarre examples of the genre ever written. This extraordinary work traces Nietzsche's life, work, and evolution as a philosopher, presenting an intimate portrait of the man behind some of philosophy's most...

Set in a dystopian future in the year 1984, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four presents a chilling depiction of a totalitarian regime under the leadership of the Party and its mysterious figurehead, Big Brother. The society is characterized by omnipresent surveillance, incessant propaganda, and severe repression of free thought. Citizens live under the watchful eyes of telescreens, programmed to detect any...