Classics

When Matthew Lewis’s The Monk was published in 1796, readers were shocked by this gripping and horrific novel. Lewis’s story, which drove the House of Commons—of which he was a member—to deem him licentious and perverse, follows the abbot Ambrosio as he...

Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths is a collection of short stories and essays showcasing one of Latin America's most influential and imaginative writers. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby, with an...

An early-twentieth-century classic — the turbulent, dreamlike story of a businessman torn between middle-class respectability and sensational bohemia.“No one who has read it has failed to love it.” — Nicholas Lezard.Mihály...

A beautiful hardback edition of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel, from the great Toni Morrison.Sethe is now miles away from Sweet Home - the farm where she was kept as a slave for many years. Unable to forget the unspeakable horrors that took place...

Often described as the first ‘Non-Fiction novel’, Truman Capote’s infamous account of the appalling murder of a Kansas family which shocked America in the ‘50s is also a classic of the true crime genre, a fastidious piece of investigative journalism,...

The unsettling story of a young woman's descent into mental illness, from the author ofThe Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived at the Castle.'An amazing writer' Neil GaimanElizabeth Richmond is almost too quiet to be believed, with no...

The third volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth centuryThis acclaimed new translation of The Guermantes Way will introduce a new generation of readers to the literary richness of Marcel Proust. The third volume in Penguin Classics' superb...

The second volume of In Search of Lost Time, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth centuryJames Grieve's acclaimed new translation of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower will introduce a new century of American readers to the literary riches of...

Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions—sexual, racial, political, artistic.Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this "brilliantly and fiercely told" book (The New...

The Lost Estate is Robin Buss's translation of Henri Alain-Fournier's poignant study of lost love, Le Grand Meaulnes. This Penguin Classics edition also contains an introduction by Adam Gopnik. When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne,...

Immortalised by Audrey Hepburn's sparkling performance in the 1961 film of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany's is Truman Capote's timeless portrait of tragicomic cultural icon Holly Golightly, published in Penguin Modern Classics.It's New York in the...

'Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately it is within no one's reach.'In The Trouble With Being Born, E. M. Cioran grapples with the major questions of human existence: birth, death, God, the passing of time, how to relate to...

I have been womanfor a long timebeware my smileI am treacherous with old magicFilled with rage and tenderness, Audre Lorde's most acclaimed poetry collection speaks of mothers and children, female strength and vulnerability, renewal and revenge,...

Author of The Savage Detectives and 2666. Crushed by a devastating scandal, university professor Óscar Amalfitano flees Barcelona for Santa Teresa—a Mexican city close to the U.S. border, where women are being killed in staggering numbers...

Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. Unloved, unseen, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes. In this way she dreams of...

'This is as much a mystery as the Immaculate Conception, which of itself must make a doctor an unbeliever.' A stunning pair of short stories about faith and sacrificial love. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little...

For the first time—and in the best translation ever—the complete Book of Disquiet, a masterpiece beyond comparison. The Book of Disquiet is the Portuguese modernist master Fernando Pessoa’s greatest literary achievement. An...

Finally back in print, a frighteningly lucid feminist horror story about marriageThe Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of...

A beautifully packaged hardback edition of Haruki Murakami's classic mystery story about love, the cosmos and other fictional universes, now with a new introduction by the author Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. Miu is glamorous...

What does it mean to live a life of completeness? And how far must one go to understand the pain of others? Is change truly possible? This is the story that proves that it is. In what could be described as equal parts self-help book and a novelistic...