Classics

A philosophical novel described by fellow existentialist Sartre as 'perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood' of his novels, Albert Camus' The Fall is translated by Robin Buss in Penguin Modern Classics.Jean-Baptiste Clamence is a soul in...

One of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Vol. 1: The Way by Swann's is published in a new translation from the French by Lydia Davis in Penguin Classics.The Way by Swann's is one...

A Penguin ClassicIt is April 1793 and the final power struggle of the French Revolution is taking hold: the aristocrats are dead and the poor are fighting for bread in the streets. In a Paris swept by fear and hunger lives Gamelin, a revolutionary young...

A concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.With their accessible compendium of philosophy and social progress,...

This beautiful HarperCollins Children's Classics edition is perfect for every bookshelf. Sara Crewe's life is almost a fairy tale, and she is the fairy princess in it, happy and rich with a father who loves her dearly. But, in one horrible moment, that...

Middlesex is the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides—the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and...

Introduction and Notes by David Blair, Rutherford College, University of Kent. The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had been brought to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel Verrinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night, the...

‘When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else’ The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to...

(Available after 3-20 days)One the greatest literary dystopias ever written, Orwell’s brilliantly bleak future vision of totalitarianism remains eerily relevant to our day.   George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of the most famous and...

(Available after 3-20 days)Trapped in a stifling marriage, Anna Karenina is swept off her feet by dashing Count Vronsky. Rejected by society, the two lovers flee to Italy, where Anna finds herself isolated from all except the man she loves, and who loves...

Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent at Canterbury. Set in the reign of Richard I, Coeur de Lion, Ivanhoe is packed with memorable incidents - sieges, ambushes and combats - and equally memorable characters: Cedric of Rotherwood,...

The Penguin English Library Edition of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne'Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, - stern and wild ones, - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss'Fiercely romantic and hugely...

Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury. This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The...

This selection made by E.E. Cummings himself from eleven books of poems constitutes a comprehensive introduction to his work.Number of Pages: 128Dimensions: 130 x 200 x 5mm 

The world of fairy tales is one that we all love to enter. Many of these stories had been told for centuries, delighting children and adults alike with their mixture of magic, mystery, and truths older even than the stories themselves. Here twenty...

First serialized in a newspaper in 1905, The Jungle is a classic of American literature that led to the creation of food-safety standards. While investigating the meatpacking industry in Chicago, author and novelist Upton Sinclair discovered the brutal...

'It's a dreadful thing to yield...but resist now? Lay my pride bare to the blows of ruin? That's dreadful too.'The remarkable story of Greek tragedy's most intrepid heroine. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little...

With an Introduction by Dr Pamela Knights, Department of English Studies, Durham University. With this intensely moving short novel, Edith Wharton set out 'to draw life as it really was' in the lonely villages and desolate farms of the harsh New England...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton'He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface'Ethan Frome works his...

New Penguin Essentials edition of Ralph Ellison's blistering, impassioned novel of African-American lives in 1940s America, Invisible Man. 'I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.'Defeated and embittered by a country which...