Classics

In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect. Through character sketches and anecdotes he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in his...

In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect. Through character sketches and anecdotes he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in his...

The famed Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s two masterworks—The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova—in one volumeA Penguin ClassicAs a philosopher, he wedded classical methods of inquiry to a Christian faith. As an autobiographer, he...

A collection of some of Tolstoy's most powerful powerful stories.The violent spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life that inspired his last period of creativity produced the stories in this compelling and startling collection. They portray the multifaceted...

Here are some of Tolstoy's extraordinary short stories, from "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." in a masterly new translation, to "The Raid," "The Wood-felling," "Three Deaths," "Polikushka," "After the Ball," and "The Forged Coupon," all gripping and eloquent...

Tolstoy's powerful semiautobiographical stories based on his time spent in the Russian army, part of our series of fresh new Tolstoy translationsIn 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army. The four years he spent as a soldier were...

The ten stories collected in this volume demonstrate Tolstoy's artistic prowess displayed over five decades - experimenting with prose styles and drawing on his own experiences with humour, realism and compassion. Inspired by his experiences in the army,...

The Little Nugget (1913) is one of the novels in which Wodehouse found his feet, a light comic thriller set in an English prep school for the children of the nobility and gentry. Into their midst comes eleven-year-old Ogden Ford, the mouthy,...

It is New Year's Eve, and Nellie, the pretty daughter of a landowning general, is sitting in her room looking in the mirror. Although she is tired and her eyes are half closed, she is spellbound as the reflection in the looking glass dissolves into a sea...

For two and a half thousand years The Art of War has been the core text of military strategy and planning, providing leaders with enduring insights into tactics, psychology, discipline and the nature of power. Favoured by countless great generals and...

The most ambitious narrative of nineteenth-century realism, Middlemarch tells the story of an entire town in the years leading up to the Reform Bill of 1832, a time when modern methods were starting to challenge old orthodoxies. Eliot's sophisticated and...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BERNARD CORNWELLWhen Andre-Louis witnesses the murder of his best friend by an arrogant and privileged aristocrat he swears to avenge his death. Forced to flee his hometown after stirring up revolutionary fervour in the citizens,...

The bestselling novel by Irvine Welsh that provided the inspiration for Danny Boyle’s hit film'Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and...

A work of scintillating creativity and imagination, Peake’s gothic phantasmagoria is fantasy writing for people who don’t like fantasy. Steerpike’s insidious social climbing and the compromised coming of age of Titus Groan are cradled...

'It was as if the sea, breaking down the wall protecting all the homes of the town, had sent a wave over her head'One of Conrad's most powerful, gripping storiesIntroducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black...

Translated from the Danish by Walter Lowrie, David Swenson, and Alexander DruThe Danish philosopher Kierkegaard is one of the master thinkers of the modern age, a defining influence on existentialism and on twentieth-century theology, and this...

One of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, Soren Kierkegaard (1814-55) often expressed himself through pseudonyms and disguises. Taken from his personal writings, these private reflections reveal the development of his own thought and...

A murderer is forced to reveal his crime by the sound of a beating heart, a mysterious figure wreaks havoc among a party of noblemen during the time of the plague, a grieving lover awakens to find himself clutching a box of his beloved blood-stained...

The intelligent and charming Newland Archer - a member of one of New York's most prominent families - is living the life that has always been expected of him: he is engaged to the beautiful and well-connected May Welland and understands the rarefied...

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZEFrom the acclaimed author of Swing Time, White Teeth and Grand Union, discover a brilliantly funny and deeply moving story about love and familyWhy do we fall in...