Classics

'A very captivating book. Wang Xiaobo's unique blend of rationality, serenity, candor, and sense of humour serves as an embodiment of the liberalism he ardently believes in' Ai Weiwei The dazzling essays of the beloved, subversive Chinese writer Wang...

One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books of 2011.“Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best . . . A joy to read—more entertaining, dynamic, engaging, and deeply hilarious than a dystopian novel...

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,...

Cicero lived through some of the most turbulent years in the history of Rome and witnessed first-hand the overthrow of the republic and its replacement by the tyranny of Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian. One of Rome's most memorable and keenly...

"The fates ordained the founding of this great city and the beginning of the world's mightiest empire, second only to the power of the gods"Romulus and Remus, the rape of Lucretia, Horatius at the bridge, the saga of Coriolanus, Cincinnatus called from...

Little Women is one of the best-loved children’s stories of all time, based on the author’s own youthful experiences. It describes the family of the four March sisters living in a small New England community. Meg, the eldest, is pretty and...

Vladimir Lenin created this hugely significant Marxist text to explain fully the inevitable flaws and destructive power of Capitalism: that it would lead unavoidably to imperialism, monopolies and colonialism. He prophesied that those third world...

The New York Times Bestseller J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth is a definitive collection of stories and essays ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring,...

Here is a lively, readable, and accurate verse translation of the six best plays by one of the most influential of all classical Latin writers—the only tragic playwright from ancient Rome whose work survives. Tutor to the emperor Nero, Seneca lived...

Jane Eyre (1847) has enjoyed huge popularity since first publication, and its success owes much to its exceptional emotional power. Jane Eyre, a penniless orphan, is engaged as governess at Thornfield Hall by the mysterious Mr Rochester. Her integrity...

Dumas’s epic novel of justice, retribution, and self-discovery—one of the most enduringly popular adventure tales ever written—in a newly revised translation.This beloved novel tells the story of Edmond Dantès, wrongfully...

David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired...

A tale of youth and warped masculinity, this is the suspenseful, lyrical and page-turning Japanese classic. A band of thirteen-year-old boys reject the stupidity of the adult world. They decide it is illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train...

Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite. Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of...

'Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial'Fearful that Caesar will become a tyrant, his friends plot to assassinate him in order to save Rome. But the conspirators' high...

The second novel by Donna Tartt,  bestselling author of The Goldfinch (winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize),  The Little Friend  is a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil. The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi,...

The master of horror manga brings the world's greatest horror novel—Frankenstein—back to life.Junji Ito meets Mary Shelley! The master of horror manga bends all his skill into bringing the anguished and solitary monster—and the fouler beast who created...

As I Lay Dying is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th-century literature.The title derives from Book XI of Homer's Odyssey (William Marris's...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte'The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself'Passionate, poetic and revolutionary, Jane Eyre is a novel of naked emotional power...

'It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life'Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach ... Everybody who is anybody is seen...