Classics

'What can be said at all can be said clearly; and of what one cannot talk, about that one must be silent.'Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in German in 1921 and in English translation in 1922, is one of the most influential...

From 'A giant of twentieth-century science fiction' (Guardian), the adventures of Pirx, a hapless everyman in outer space. 'By now he fancied himself something of a rocket jockey, a space ace, whose real home was among the planets.' In a future where...

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...

The first volume in his Roads to Freedom trilogy, Jean-Paul Sartre's The Age of Reason is a philosophical novel exploring existentialist notions of freedom, translated by Eric Sutton with an introduction by David Caute in Penguin Modern Classics. Set in...

A coming-of-age story, The Virgin Suicides looks at how men perceive women through the eyes of boys transfixed with the Lisbon sisters living in their neighborhood. The five Lisbon girls each have their own personalities and ambitions but are...

The first English translation of the classic Japanese novel that has sold over 2 million copies—a childhood favorite of anime master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle), with...

The infamous and controversial work that made a lasting impression on both modern Protestant theology and existentialist philosophers such as Sartre and Camus Writing under the pseudonym of Johannes de silentio, Kierkegaard expounds his personal view of...

In this lyrical, exuberant follow-up to her novel The Bastard of Istanbul, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak incarnates Rumi's timeless message of love. The Forty Rules of Love unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives--one contemporary...

Albinus - rich, married middle-aged and respectable - is an art critic and aspiring filmmaker who lusts after the coquettish young cinema usherette Margot. Gradually he seduces her and convinces himself he is irresistible to her, but Margot has other...

A classic sci-fi dystopia that started out as a parody of H.G. Wells’s Utopian novels, Brave New World is a savage critique of the fallacy of the perfect state, the vogue for genetic engineering and the idea of the noble savage.  Far in the future,...

'May be the most detailed, painstaking anatomy of desire that we are ever likely to see or need again... An ecstatic celebration of love and language' -- Washington PostThe language we use when we are in love is not a language we speak. It is a language...

Time Regained, the final volume of In Search of Lost Time, begins in the bleak and uncertain years of World War I. Years later, after the war’s end, Proust’s narrator returns to Paris and reflects on time, reality, jealousy, artistic creation, and the...

The long-awaited fifth volume—representing "the very summit of Proust's art" (Slate)—in the acclaimed Penguin translation of "the greatest literary work of the twentieth century" (The New York Times)A Penguin Modern Classics Carol Clark's acclaimed...

In Either/Or, using the voices of two characters—the aesthetic young man of part one, called simply "A," and the ethical Judge Vilhelm of the second section—Kierkegaard reflects upon the search for a meaningful existence, contemplating subjects as...

In his first novel, A Happy Death, written when he was in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in I960, Albert Camus laid the foundation for The Stranger, focusing in both works on an Algerian clerk who kills a man...

The New York Times Bestseller   J.R.R. Tolkien's Beren And Lúthien is one of the three 'Great Tales' of the Elder Days. The epic tale of Beren and Lúthien became an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of...

(Available after 3-20 days)Oscar Wilde’s enduringly popular story of a beautiful and corrupt man and the portrait that reveals all his secrets—The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel as flamboyant and controversial as its incomparable author.Entranced...

Austerlitz is W. G. Sebald's haunting novel of post-war Europe.In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his...

'A Latin American James Dean or Jack Kerouac' -- Washington Post'It's true; Marxists just wanna have fun... a revolutionary bestseller' -- GuardianAt the age of twenty-three, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado set out from their native...

A hugely enjoyable, page-turning classic Japanese mystery with an ingenious conclusion from the author of The Decagon House Murders, translated into English for the first timeDon’t miss this beautifully constructed, highly entertaining and atmospheric...