Fiction

Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English, unparalleled in its epic grandeur and scope. It tells the story of the heroic Beowulf and of his battles, first with the monster Grendel, who has laid waste to the great hall of the...

Bursting with energy and playful wit, Northanger Abbey tells the story of Catherine Morland and the gothic romances that fill her head and cloud her judgement. A shimmering example of Jane Austen’s supreme craft, this is an enduring English classic...

"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this "optimism" concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the "all for the best" approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to...

As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South skilfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction...

'In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she had supposed' Virginia WoolfJane Austen's moving late novel of missed opportunities and second chances centres on Anne Elliot, no...

A powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom, from the youngest of the Brontë sistersGilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'The Hound of the Baskervilles gripped readers when it was first serialised and remains one of Sherlock Holmes's greatest and most popular adventures.Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have...

A panoramic satire of English society during the Napoleonic Wars, Vanity Fair is William Makepeace Thackeray’s masterpiece. At its center is one of the most unforgettable characters in nineteenth-century literature: the enthralling Becky Sharp, a...

“There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.” A Penguin Classic One of Steinbeck’s most taught works, The Pearl is the story of the Mexican diver Kino, whose discovery of a magnificent pearl from the Gulf beds means the promise of a...

E.M. Forster’s beloved novel of forbidden love, culture clash, and the confines of Edwardian society Visiting Florence with her prim and proper cousin Charlotte as a chaperone, Lucy Honeychurch meets the unconventional, lower-class Mr. Emerson and his...

E. M. Forster’s meticulously observed drama of class warfare exploring the conflict inherent within English society—the inspiration for the award-winning two-part play The Inheritance, now on Broadway“Only connect…” A chance acquaintance brings...

The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadA consummate prankster with a quick wit, Tom Sawyer...

Dickens’ famous bildungsroman contains some of his most memorable characters, from redoubtable Betsey Trotwood and impecunious Mr. Micawber to slippery Uriah Heep and brooding Steerforth. At its centre is the eponymous hero, who takes the reader on an...

A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society, the Penguin Classics edition of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is edited with an introduction and notes by Robert Demaria, Jr. Gulliver's...

Parallel German text and English translation.The influence and popularity of Rilke’s poetry in America have never been greater than they are today, more than fifty years after his death. Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of...

The celebrated, last major verse written by Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot.Considered by Eliot himself to be his finest work, Four Quartets is a rich composition that expands the spiritual vision introduced in “The Waste Land.” Here, in four linked poems...

Although Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 2,000 poems, only a handful were ever published in her lifetime, and those anonymously. Today, she is recognized as one of the most important American poets of the nineteenth century, one whose unconventional use of...

The heart asks pleasure first,And then, excuse from pain;And then, those little anodynesThat deaden suffering;And then, to go to sleep;And then, if it should beThe will of its Inquisitor,The liberty to die.Generally considered among the greatest American...

The inspiration for the major motion picture The Green Knight starring Dev Patel.An early English poem of magic, chivalry and seduction Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events...

Mary Oliver was awarded the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems, Volume One. Since its initial appearance it has become one of the best-selling volumes of poetry in the country. This collection features thirty poems published only in this...