Classics

"Once upon a time there were just the gods; mortal beings did not yet exist."We are used to thinking of myths containing lines like this simply as stories, and modern myths as made up and fictitious. For the ancient Greeks, however, a myth was unveiled...

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."Julian of Norwich is one of the most celebrated figures of the English Middle Ages. She is esteemed as one of the subtlest writers and profoundest thinkers of the period...

Here is twentieth-century woman in close-up, coping with the tragedies and upheavals of women's lives from the First World War to Greenham Common and beyond. This is the ‘edited’ diary of an individual woman, born in 1901, and a story of the...

The most famous anti-war novel ever written. In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is...

Based on the true experiences of Bao Ninh and banned by the communist party, The Sorrow of War is revered as the ‘All Quiet on the Western Front for our era’. Kien’s job is to search the Jungle of Screaming Souls for corpses. He knows...

Honored as a "Best Book of 2021" by Publishers Weekly."This volume of verse displays the undeniable legacy June Jordan left on both our literature and culture. Collected here are blazing examples of poetry as activism, stanzas that speak truth to power...

When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor...

A cult modern classic, Tropic of Capricorn is as daring, frank and influential as Henry Miller first novel, Tropic of Cancer -- new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin A story of sexual and spiritual awakening, Tropic of...

A runaway teen and an ageing cat whisperer collide in this fabulist extravaganza that showcases all of Murakami’s philosophical playfulness and surreal exuberance. Kafka on the Shore effortlessly siphons the legacy of magic realism into...

From one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, the author of The Trial: Three stories he published in his lifetime, including his best-known tale, “The Metamorphosis.”I have only one request," Kafka wrote to his publisher Kurt...

Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship – until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla’s actions become more...

Beautiful, bored and bourgeoise, Sabina leads a double life inspired by her relentless desire for brief encounters with near-strangers. Fired into faithlessness by a desperate longing for sexual fulfilment, she weaves a sensual web of deceit across New...

The Jane Austen brand is well established. Satire, love, quippy dialogue—and it’s all here in her final novel. It’s the story of Anne and Frederick, once engaged, now meeting again nearly a decade later. Will love win out? Probably...

Jane Austen's Emma is her masterpiece, mixing the sparkle of her early books with a deep sensibility' Observer Emma is young, rich and independent. She has decided not to get married and instead spends her time organising her acquaintances' love affairs...

Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers (1880) is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons - the atheist intellectual Ivan,...

A celebrated new translation of Dostoevsky’s masterpiece reveals the “social problems facing our own society” (Nation). Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment has left...

Dostoevsky’s final, greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, paints a complex and richly detailed portrait of a family tormented by its extraordinarily cruel patriarch, Fyodor Pavlovich, whose callous decisions slowly decimate the lives of his...

These remarkable short stories from the 1940s and 50s depict women and men caught between the pull of personal desires and profound social change. From a remote peninsula in Cornwall to the drawing rooms of the British Raj, domestic arrangements are...

Four Chinese women, four America daughters - can they learn to understand each other? In 1949 a group of Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and...

A showstopping luxury gift book to cherish for years to come.The Moomins: The World of Moominvalley is the ultimate guide for any Moomin fan, old and new. Step into the magical world of Moominvalley with this beautiful one of a kind book; a fun,...