Classics

“Comyns’ novel is deranged in ways that shouldn’t be disclosed.” —Ben Marcus.This is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room...

"One of the most acute and thoughtful achievements of French fiction at mid-century." — New York Times   Set in Paris on the eve of World War II and sizzling with love, anger, and revenge, She Came to Stay explores the changes wrought in the soul of a...

An obsessive and revealing self-portrait of a remarkable woman humiliated by the circumstances of her birth and by her physical appearance, La Bâtarde relates Violette Leduc’s long search for her own identity through a series of...

A Leopard-Skin Hat may be Anne Serre’s most moving novel yet. A masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance, it is the story of an intense friendship between the Narrator and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound...

A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers’s best stories, including her beloved novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” Glowingly impressive, informed with feeling and...

The same inimitable voice and dazzling insights that make Emily Dickinson's poems immortal can be found in the whimsical, humorous, and often deeply moving letters she wrote to her family and friends throughout her life. The selection of letters...

Vladimir Nabokov's early novel is the dazzling story of the coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius Luzhin. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of International Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion...

The Phantom of the Opera is Gaston Leroux's exquisite blend of Gothic horror and tragic romance, which formed the basis for a world-renowned stage musical. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Mireille Ribiere, and an introduction by...

Chevalier d'Albert fantasizes about his ideal lover, yet every woman he meets falls short of his exacting standards of female perfection. Embarking on an affair with the lovely Rosette to ease his boredom, he is thrown into tumultuous confusion when she...

When it is discovered that the reigning world chess champion, Mirko Czentovic, is on board a cruiser heading for Buenos Aires, a fellow passenger challenges him to a game. Czentovic easily defeats him, but during the rematch a mysterious Austrian, Dr B.,...

“Prescient and technically astonishing.” —Geoff Dyer, GQ.Often considered Jean Rhys’s most autobiographical novel, this masterful and moving work follows a chorus girl, Anna, who struggles to adjust to cold and inhospitable...

A modernist work of profound wisdom that continues to enthral readers with its subtle blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, the Penguin Modern Classics edition of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf is revised by Walter Sorell from the original...

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is the ultimate novel of retribution. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics bound in real cloth with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful...

A witty, moving philosophical novel, Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums is a journey of self-discovery through the lens of Zen Buddhist thought. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ann Douglas. Following the explosive energy of...

Moominpappa yearns to make a fresh start, to find a rocky island and lighthouse where he'll feel alert and important again. And so the Moomins set sail for a new home. Moominpappa's longed-for-island proves as mysterious and wild and he'd hoped. It even...

'It is only a bruise' A carefree Russian official has what seems to be a trivial accident... One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the...

A beautiful hardback edition to mark the 80th anniversary of one of the best-loved novels ever written. A gothic tale of love, secrets and jealousy. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SARAH PERRY 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century,...

Eighteen-year-old Merricat may, or may not be, a mass murderer. Six years ago everyone in the Blackwood family was poisoned by sugar laced with arsenic – everyone, that is, apart from Merricat and her elder sister Constance. They live in peaceful,...

Céline’s masterpiece―colloquial, polemic, hyper-realistic, boiling over with black humor Céline’s masterpiece―colloquial, polemic, hyper realistic―boils over with bitter humor and revulsion at society’s idiocy and...

A New York Times Notable Book of 2018."Wilson’s language is fresh, unpretentious and lean…It is rare to find a translation that is at once so effortlessly easy to read and so rigorously considered." —Madeline Miller, author of...