Classics

'Hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.'Captivating aphorisms illustrating the Buddhist dhamma, or moral system.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics...

E-Myth \ 'e-, 'mith\ n 1: the entrepreneurial myth: the myth that most people who start small businesses are entrepreneurs 2: the fatal assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that...

With an Introduction by Dr Richard Serjeantson, Trinity College, Cambridge Since its first publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan has been recognised as one of the most compelling, and most controversial, works of political philosophy written in...

A pioneering work of young adult fiction, The Outsiders charts the entanglements two rival gangs in 1960s Oklahoma. A searing story of loyalty, trust, friendship and betrayal, Hinton’s remarkable, rebellious novel – written when she was only 17 –...

In the wake of her family's collapse, a writer and her two young sons move to London. The upheaval is the catalyst for a number of transitions- - personal, moral, artistic, and practical - as she endeavours to construct a new reality for herself and her...

One of the most influential and well-loved books of Christianity, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis appears here in Penguin Classics in a new translation by Robert Jeffery, with an introduction by Max Von Habsburg, notes, a chronology and...

Based on lectures given at Cambridge colleges and first published by the Hogarth Press in 1929, A Room of One's Own is an extended essay about the predicament of female writers and a stirring call for autonomy and recognition. As well as settling scores...

Read this classic exploration of political violence, traditional samurai values and right wing nihilism.Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the...

Following a struggling young writer in nineteenth-century Oslo, Hamsun paints an arresting portrait of a mind descending into despair and delusion in this visceral masterpiece about being starved out of your ideals. With an introduction by Jo...

With an Introduction and Notes by David Herd, Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and co-editor of 'Poetry Review'.Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg...

As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate young nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colourful delights of Queen Elizabeth's court. By the close, he will have transformed into a modern, 36-year-old woman and three centuries...

Cornelius von Baerle lives only to cultivate the elusive black tulip and win a magnificent prize for its creation. But when his powerful godfather is assassinated, the unwitting Cornelius becomes caught up in a deadly political intrigue. Falsely accused...

When O-lan, a servant girl, marries the peasant Wang Lung, she toils tirelessly through four pregnancies for their family's survival. Reward at first is meagre, but there is sustenance in the land - until the famine comes.Half-starved, the family joins...

Heartwarming and profound, this account of one writer's relationship with his beloved German Shepherd is "one of the bonafide dog-lit classics" (New Yorker).The distinguished British man of letters J. R. Ackerley hardly thought of himself as a dog lover...

Accompanied by Stevenson’s other stories brimming with Gothic unease, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is chilling slice of Victorian psychological horror, mining a rich seam of split personality, remorse and the nature of evil. His...

'The Alices are the greatest nonsense ever written, and far greater, in my view, than most sense.' - Philip Pullman Collecting Alice's complete adventures, a source of delight to children and adults alike for generations, the Penguin Classics edition of...

John Milton's celebrated epic poem exploring the cosmological, moral and spiritual origins of man's existenceA Penguin ClassicIn Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge...

'A masterpiece' -- Julian BarnesFlaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of a married woman's affair caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. Its heroine, Emma Bovary, is stifled by provincial life as the wife of a...

(Available after 3-20 days) Gorgeously reissued, this story - called the ‘most beautiful and unjustifiably forgotten novel of the twentieth century’ by Neil Gaiman - is a magic-tinged mystery threaded with folk and fairy tale. 'The single most...

New Penguin Essentials edition of Ralph Ellison's blistering, impassioned novel of African-American lives in 1940s America, Invisible Man. 'I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.'Defeated and embittered by a country which...