Classics

In what remains one of his most seminal papers, Freud considers the incompatibility of civilisation and individual happiness, and the tensions between the claims of society and the individual. We all know that living in civilised groups means sacrificing...

This eclectic, moving and richly enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature.Journeying through Korea's dramatic recent past, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating war between north and south and the...

"... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, and does it without going mad!"A group of passengers on a cruise ship...

J.M. Barrie's classic tale of the "boy who would not grow up"Peter Pan originally appeared as a baby living a magical life among birds and fairies in J.M. Barrie’s sequence of stories, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. His later role as flying boy hero...

'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly...

A collection of the most famous cases faced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's peerless creationThis collection of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes includes many of the famous cases - and great strokes of brilliance - that...

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is an inspiring and tragic account of an ordinary life lived in extraordinary circumstances that has enthralled readers for generations. This Penguin Classics edition is edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler,...

‘This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you’ -- Albus Dumbledore. Harry Potter is furious that he has been abandoned at the Dursleys’ house for the summer, for he...

Rosamond Lehmann’s enduring classic, told from the point of view of its seventeen-year-old heroine, who has been invited to her first dance.   Today is Olivia Curtis’s seventeenth birthday. In exactly one week, she will attend her...

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE BRITISH WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.Taking up where Invitation to the Waltz left off, The Weather in the Streets shows us Olivia Curtis ten years older, a failed marriage behind her, thinner, sadder, and apparently not...

Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naïve, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way...

A companion volume to Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro. Álvaro de Campos is one of the most influential heteronyms created by Portugal’s great modernist writer Fernando Pessoa. According...

'The greatest Scottish novelist of modern times.' -- Ian Rankin. In this first novel by Muriel Spark - author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - the only things that aren't ambiguous are Spark's matchless originality and glittering wit. With an...

A funny and clever novel about art and reality and the way they imitate each other, from the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. With an introduction by Mark Lawson. Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for the snooty, irascible Sir Quentin Oliver...

Poignant, hilarious, and spooky, Memento Mori addresses old age.   In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: an insinuating voice on the telephone reminds each: Remember you must die. Their geriatric feathers are...

When Clara returns home from the convent of her childhood to begin life at a local girls' school, she is at a loss: although she has comparative freedom, she misses the discipline the nuns imposed and worries about keeping her faith in a secular world...

'Frost in May is the unsurpassed novel of convent school life. This story of a clash between a determined young girl and an authoritarian regime is both perceptive and painfully emotional, convincing in every detail' - Hermione Lee, Observer.With a new...

In the magnificent feast of Clarice Lispector’s books, her crônicas—short, intensely vivid newspaper pieces—are the delicious canapés. The things I’ve learned from taxi drivers would be enough to fill a book. They...

This new translation of Zola's most acerbic social satire captures the directness and robustness of Zola's language and restores the omissions of earlier abridged versions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available...

The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist from the provinces who has come to conquer Paris and is conquered by the flaws in his own genius. While his boyhood friend Pierre Sandoz becomes a successful...