Classics

The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200–118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to be dominated by Rome. Opening with the Punic War in 264 BC, he vividly...

Two famous, firsthand accounts of the holy war in the Middle Ages translated by Caroline SmithOriginally composed in Old French, the two chronicles brought together here offer some of the most vivid and reliable accounts of the Crusades from a Western...

'The life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short'Written during the chaos of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan asks how, in a world of violence and horror, can we stop ourselves from descending into anarchy? Hobbes' case for a...

Athena seized the writhing serpent and hurled it into the sky, and fixed it to the very pole of the heavens. The constellations we recognize today were first mapped by the ancient Greeks, who arranged the stars into patterns for that purpose. In the...

Ulysses, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, has had a profound influence on modern fiction. In a series of episodes covering the course of a single day, 16 June 1904, the novel traces the movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus...

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,...

Saroyan’s debut collection of stories. A timeless selection of brilliant short stories that won William Saroyan a position among the foremost, most widely popular writers of America when it first appeared in 1934.With the greatest of ease William...

A beautiful hardback edition of Calvino's genre-switching masterwork. A book of surprise and adventure but you, the reader, are the hero. You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But alas there is a...

A beautiful hardback edition of Huxley's inconic dystopian classic, introduced by Yuval Noah Harari. 'A masterpiece of speculation... As vibrant, fresh, and somehow shocking as it was when I first read it' Margaret Atwood. 'If you have time for just one...

A new selection of the much-loved Father Brown stories, now part of the Penguin English Library.'No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be'With his round, unassuming face, his pipe and umbrella, the bumbling priest Father Brown...

Set in the freezing wastelands of the northern wilds, Jack London’s majestic adventure tale is a moving story of cruelty and redemption The wolf-dog White Fang, born in the biting cold and aching silence of the Yukon, grows up to learn the harsh...

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the...

‘Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.’ The lives of Humphrey and James Boyce, a seasoned antique dealer and his good-looking nephew, are changed for ever when the elegant Leonora Eyre glides into their bustling Bond Street...

INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT. When Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and an autobiographical essay, 'Finding a Voice', Pym's only written...