Classics

Pale Horse is a thinly disguised retelling of the assassination of Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich. Written in the form of a diary by the leader of a group of five revolutionaries, the novel provides a straightforward and clinical account of the...

"Alas that I ever did sin! It is so merry in Heaven!"The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1436-8) is the extraordinary account of a medieval wife, mother, and mystic. Known as the earliest autobiography written in the English language, Kempe's Bookdescribes the...

Most people are familiar, at least by repute, with Homer's two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, but few are aware that other poems survive that were attributed to Homer in ancient times. The Homeric Hymns are now known to be the work of various...

Orwell’s brilliantly bleak future vision of totalitarianism is arguably the greatest of all literary dystopias, contriving to look back to the Stalinist purges of the 1930s whilst simultaneously predicting with uncanny accuracy the worst excesses...

In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions,...

In his Book of Marvels and Travels, Sir John Mandeville describes a journey from Europe to Jerusalem and on into Asia, and the many wonderful and monstrous peoples and practices in the East. Written in the fourteenth century, the Book is a captivating...

“Marvelous . . . [Vonnegut] wheels out all the complaints about America and makes them seem fresh, funny, outrageous, hateful and lovable.”—The New York TimesIn Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved...

"...the more honourable animals have been allotted a more honourable soul..."What is the nature of the soul? It is this question that Aristotle sought to answer in De Anima(On the Soul). In doing so he offers a psychological theory that encompasses not...

ABOUT TO THE LIGHTHOUSE A beautiful edition of the groundbreaking classic novel, with a new introduction by award-winning writer Susan Choi“Without question one of the two or three finest novels of the twentieth century. Woolf comments on the most...

Virginia Woolf’s fantastical novel about an Elizabethan nobleman who lives for three centuries and transitions into a woman, with a new introduction by Carmen Maria Machado.The long-lived protagonist of Orlando begins as a passionate teenage...

Stefan's Zweig's posthumously-published Journey into the Past (Widerstand der Wirklichkeit) is a beautiful meditation on the effect of time on passion-one of the most intense and compelling works from a master of the novella form. Published by Pushkin...

'it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well developed human beings'Mill's four essays, 'On Liberty', 'Utilitarianism', 'Considerations on Representative Government', and 'The Subjection of Women' examine the most...

Brideshead Revisited is Evelyn Waugh's stunning novel of duty and desire set amongst the decadent, faded glory of the English aristocracy in the run-up to the Second World War. The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead...

George Orwell is a difficult author to summarize. He was a would-be revolutionary who went to Eton, a political writer who abhorred dogma, a socialist who thrived on his image as a loner, and a member of the Imperial Indian Police who chronicled the...

Nevil Shute’s most powerful novel—a bestseller for decades after its 1957 publication—is an unforgettable vision of a post-apocalyptic world.After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in...

"The greatest historian that ever lived." Such was Macaulay's assessment of Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) and his history of the Peloponnesian War, the momentous struggle between Athens and Sparta that lasted for twenty-seven years from 431 to 404 BC,...

The most beloved Iranian novel of the twentieth century.“God forbid, I’ve fallen in love with Layli!” So begins the farce of our narrator’s life, one spent in a large extended Iranian family lorded over by the blustering, paranoid...

Perfect for fans of fairy tales, and it just so happens to be written by the indelible Oscar Wilde. This is a collection of his short works that brings the depth of human feeling to fantastical stories and settings.Introducing Little Clothbound Classics:...

Stunning new edition of the standalone novella from Proust’s great masterpiece – an intoxicatingly witty story of infatuation and jealousyThis landmark new translation commemorates a century since the monumental masterpiece was first...

Filled with striking, river-like sentences and plenty of humour, the opening volume of Proust’s modernist masterpiece covers the Narrator’s childhood in Combray – including perhaps the most famous cake-eating scene in the history of...