Classics

Rosamond Lehmann’s enduring classic, told from the point of view of its seventeen-year-old heroine, who has been invited to her first dance.   Today is Olivia Curtis’s seventeenth birthday. In exactly one week, she will attend her...

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE BRITISH WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.Taking up where Invitation to the Waltz left off, The Weather in the Streets shows us Olivia Curtis ten years older, a failed marriage behind her, thinner, sadder, and apparently not...

A companion volume to Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro. Álvaro de Campos is one of the most influential heteronyms created by Portugal’s great modernist writer Fernando Pessoa. According...

'The greatest Scottish novelist of modern times.' -- Ian Rankin. In this first novel by Muriel Spark - author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - the only things that aren't ambiguous are Spark's matchless originality and glittering wit. With an...

A funny and clever novel about art and reality and the way they imitate each other, from the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. With an introduction by Mark Lawson. Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for the snooty, irascible Sir Quentin Oliver...

Poignant, hilarious, and spooky, Memento Mori addresses old age.   In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: an insinuating voice on the telephone reminds each: Remember you must die. Their geriatric feathers are...

When Clara returns home from the convent of her childhood to begin life at a local girls' school, she is at a loss: although she has comparative freedom, she misses the discipline the nuns imposed and worries about keeping her faith in a secular world...

'Frost in May is the unsurpassed novel of convent school life. This story of a clash between a determined young girl and an authoritarian regime is both perceptive and painfully emotional, convincing in every detail' - Hermione Lee, Observer.With a new...

'One of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during this century' -- Elias Canetti.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM THIRWELL.One morning, Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. His family is...

Primo Levi's The Periodic Table is a collection of short stories that elegantly interlace the author's experiences in Fascist Italy, and later in Auschwitz, with his passion for scientific knowledge and discovery. This Penguin Modern Classics edition of...

The bestselling classic about three generations of a deaf family in modern America, by the author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. ‘A miracle of empathy, a tour de force’ -- The New York Times. Two young deaf people, Abel and Janice,...

Based on his experiences as a policeman in Burma, George Orwell's first novel presents a devastating picture of British colonial rule. Burmese Days describes corruption and imperial bigotry in a society where, 'after all, natives were natives'. When...

In the 1920s and '30s, H.P. Lovecraft pioneered a new type of weird fiction that fused elements of supernatural horror with the concepts of visionary science fiction. Lovecraft's tales of cosmic horror revolutionized modern horror fiction and earned him...

A writer is seized by apocalyptic visions; a voyeuristic marquis commits a brutal act; and a trio of beatniks dance to modern jazz in the ruins of an abandoned church. Here, stark autobiography contrasts with pure horror, and the tenderness of first love...

'Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!-and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing by the watermelons?' Profane and prophetic verses about sex, death, revolution and America by the great icon of Beat poetry. Penguin Modern: fifty new books...

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' This landmark missive from one of the greatest activists in history calls for direct, non-violent resistance in the fight against racism, and reflects on the healing power of love. Penguin Modern:...

A Penguin Classic.Joe Keller and Steve Deever, partners in a machine shop during World War II, turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of many men. Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped punishment and went back to business,...

A series of provocative discussions on everything from individual authors to contemporary religious thinking, Against Interpretation and Other Essays is the definitive collection of Susan Sontag's best known and important works published in Penguin...

A vivid picaresque comedy with serious, melancholy undertones, The Lonely Londoners documents the 1950s immigrant experience through the affectionate relationship of a new arrival and a rueful old timer.  Featured on Between the Covers Big...

When Heidi, a five-year-old orphan, is dumped on her reclusive grandfather who lives on a remote mountainside above a Swiss village, he is none too pleased by her arrival. But Heidi quickly wins him over with her cheerful disposition and kindness, and...