Classics

Award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends, and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer's Iliad and...

A brilliant and impassioned biography of one of the founding fathers of humanism, from one of its greatest defenders in the 20th century.Written during the Second World War, Zweig's typically passionate and readable biography of Michel de Montaigne, is...

'It will be the biggest fiasco of the year - but I don't care a damn! It will be something nobody has ever done before, and I shall have said what I had to say.' As Joris -Karl Huysmans announced in 1884, Against Nature was fated to be a novel like no...

The Flowers of Evil, which T.S. Eliot called the greatest example of modern poetry in any language, shocked the literary world of nineteenth century France with its outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, its linking of sexuality and death, its...

Introduced by Claire-Louise Bennett, experience one new mother’s psychological journey in this lost 1930 foremother of Sylvia Plath''s The Bell Jar.''Astonishing and moving. A pretty amazing book.'' Tessa Hadley''Extraordinary. A...

Julian Green was born to American parents in Paris in 1900, and spent most of his life in the French capital. Paris is an extraordinary, lyrical love letter to the city, taking the reader on an imaginative journey around its secret stairways, courtyards,...

Newly revised and updated by Megan McDowell, and with a new introduction by Alejandro Zambra: at last, the unabridged, centennial edition of Donoso’s terrifying masterpiece sees the light of day   Deep in a maze of musty, forgotten hallways,...

'Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game' Economist 'Zweig belongs with those masters of the novella - Maupassant, Turgenev, Chekhov' Paul Bailey, TLS Chess champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean...

An elegantly hair-raising collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, selected and with a preface written by the author herself.No history of the American uncanny tale would be complete without mention of Edith Wharton, yet many of Wharton’s most...

To the Lighthouse is Woolf's most autobiographical and best-known novel, and this new edition provides a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of its appeal. David Bradshaw is a well-known and respected Woolf scholar whose OWC edition...

Selected & Introduced by David Stuart Davies. Traumatised by ghost stories in her youth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton (1862 -1937) channelled her fear and obsession into creating a series of spine-tingling tales filled with spirits...

A rediscovered gothic classic with a groundbreaking, gender-nonconforming protagonist at its heart.‘I do not sin,’ he smiled. ‘I am Sin’In a quiet medieval city, alone in his shadowy chambers, Dirk Renswoude worships the devil...

From the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author: a magnificent novel that recalls Iceland's medieval epics and classics, set in the early twentieth century starring an ordinary sheep farmer and his heroic determination to achieve independence. • "A...

Illuminating essays on philsophy, literature, soceity, and art by one of Ireland's greatest wits.Oscar Wilde--witty raconteur, flamboyant hedonist, and self-destructive lover--is most familiar as the author of brilliant comedies, including The...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books.'He stretched out his two long, lank arms, that looked like spider’s claws, and seemed to embrace with them the expanse before him.'His inheritance squandered and engagement severed, Guido di...

The second of a two-book set that contains the early myths and legends which led to the writing of Tolkien’s epic tale of war, The Silmarillion. This second part of The Book of Lost Tales includes the tale of Beren and Lúthien, Túrin...

Long hailed as a seminal work of modernism in the tradition of Joyce and Kafka, and now available in a supple new English translation, Italo Svevo’s charming and splendidly idiosyncratic novel conducts readers deep into one hilariously...

Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his workers. Robert considers marriage to the wealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar to solve his...

A passionate but unsentimental depiction of conflict between classes, sexes and generations.Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his...

The complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath—essential reading for anyone who has been moved and fascinated by the poet's life and work."A genuine literary event.... Plath's journals contain marvels of discovery." —The New York...