Classics

At 17, Nan wants to leave the family farm and go to study. Caught between her powerful mother and yielding, drunken father, she absorbs the tensions of their divided household and dotes on her new gelding, a gift from her father. When a sudden accident...

A stylishly original collection of seven newly translated stories from the iconic Japanese writerThe stories in this fantastical, unconventional collection are subtly wrought depictions of the darkness of our desires. From an isolated bamboo grove, to a...

Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the lady's bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gerti's Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the...

A darkly humorous Czech satire: a new super-breed tries to conquer the world... War with the Newts (1936) is Karel Capek's darkly humorous allegory of early 20th-century Czech politics. Captain van Toch discovers a colony of newts in Sumatra which can...

A riveting selection of short stories in Spanish alongside their English translations This new dual-language edition of ten stories selected from The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories celebrates some of the very best twentieth-century literature from...

A captivating selection of short stories in the original Japanese alongside their English translationsThis new dual-language edition of ten stories selected from The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories celebrates some of the very best Japanese...

Lord Dunsany mixes reality with fantasy in this forgotten collection of modern detective stories. Some are macabre, others have a lighter and more amusing touch, but every story stimulates the imagination and reveals the acknowledged master of the short...

A perplexed girl thinks she might have killed someone… Three single girls shared the same London flat. The first worked as a secretary; the second was an artist; the third who came to Poirot for help, disappeared convinced she was a murderer. Now...

Agatha Christie’s seasonal Poirot and Marple short story collection, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. First came a sinister warning to Poirot not to eat any plum...

A ruthless international cartel seeks world domination. Framed in the doorway of Poirot’s bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man’s gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was...

The ultimate alien invasion story, Wells’s electrifying yarn has been oft imitated but never bettered. Expertly combining the minutiae of late- Victorian England with the spectacular arrival of dazzlingly imagined extra-terrestrial beings, The War...

In these letters to his friends and relations, Pliny the Younger, lawyer, author, and natural philosopher, provides a fascinating insight into Roman life in the period 97 to 112 AD. Part autobiography, part social history, they document the career and...

The Expedition of Cyrus tells the story of the epic march of the Ten Thousand, an army recruited at the end of the fifth century BC by a young Persian prince, Cyrus, who rose in revolt agains his brother, the King of Persia. After Cyrus' death, the army...

'Who would you say knows himself?'In 399 BCE Socrates was tried in Athens on charges of irreligion and corruption of the young, convicted, and sentenced to death. Like Plato, an almost exact contemporary, in his youth Xenophon (c. 430-c. 354 BCE) was one...

Drawing on recent advances in Egyptology, R. B. Parkinson's new translations bring to life for the modern reader the golden age of Egyptian fictional literature, the Middle Kingdom (c. 1940-1640 BC). The book features The Tale of Sinuhe, acclaimed as the...

Starting with the most meagre resources, Philip made his kingdom the greatest power in EuropeThe Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily is one of our most valuable sources from ancient times. His history, in forty volumes, was intended to range from...

Sallust was one of the first classical historians to move beyond a dry recitation of fact to paint sharp-edged portraits of the moral and political degeneration of the Roman Republic. Sallust's abrupt and distinctive style is the perfect vehicle for his...

Essentially the start of Dazai's career, Schoolgirl gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates the prevalent social structures of a lost time, as well as the struggle of the individual against them–a theme...

Agatha Christie’s first Tommy & Tuppence book is a thrill-packed novel of international intrigue, murder and suspense. Tommy and Tuppence, two young people short of money and restless for excitement, embark on a daring business scheme –...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Ella Westland, University of Exeter. Illustrations by George Cruickshank. Dickens had already achieved renown with The Pickwick Papers.With Oliver Twist his reputation was enhanced and strengthened. The novel contains many...