Gathers Vedic hymns about creation, death, sacrifice, ritual, and the various gods and characters of Hindu mythology, in a definitive translation that includes an updated bibliography, comprehensive notes, and informative introduction to the texts.…
From the reign of the Tsars in the early 19th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond, the short story has long occupied a central place in Russian culture. Included are pieces from many of the acknowledged masters of Russian literatu…
Dick Davis, "our pre-eminent translator from the Persian" (Washington Post) has revised and expanded his highly-praised translation of Ferdowsi's masterpiece, including more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis's elegant combination of pro…
Matthew Lewis's Gothic masterpiece, depicting a holy man slowly becoming entangled in a web of sin, The Monk is edited with an introduction by Christopher MacLachlan in Penguin Classics. Savaged by critics for its blasphemy and obscenity, particular…
Nietzsche's first published book, The Birth of Tragedy is a compelling argument for the necessity of art in life This landmark work of criticism is fuelled by Nietzsche's enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the music of…
'The masterwork of a great genius' William Makepeace ThackerayA novel of intense emotional power, heightened atmosphere and fierce intelligence, Jane Eyre dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and…
Barely acknowledged in his lifetime, the New Science of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is an astonishingly perceptive and ambitious attempt to decipher the history, mythology and laws of the ancient world. Discarding the Renaissance notion of the cla…
The poems of Emily Jane Bronte are passionate and powerful works that convey the vitality of the human spirit and of the natural world. Only twenty-one of her poems were published during her lifetime - this volume contains those and all others attri…
Cook led three famous expeditions to the Pacific Ocean between 1768 and 1779. In voyages that ranged from the Antarctic circle to the Arctic Sea, Cook charted Australia and the whole coast of New Zealand, and brought back detailed descriptions of th…
Spanning thirteen centuries from the age of Trajan to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, DECLINE & FALL is one of the greatest narratives in European Literature. David Womersley's masterly selection and bridging commentary enables the reader…
In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking cust…
The Lost Estate is Robin Buss's translation of Henri Alain-Fournier's poignant study of lost love, Le Grand Meaulnes. 'I read it for the first time when I was seventeen and loved every page. I find its depiction of a golden time and place just as po…
Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, singlehandedly responsible for popularising the essay as a literary form. This Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Essays is translated from the French and edited w…
Niels Lyhne is an aspiring poet, torn between romanticism and realism, faith and reason. Through his relationships with six women-including his young widowed aunt, a seductive free spirit, and his passionate cousin who marries his friend-his search…
Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirtee…
Penguin Classics relaunch. In "Paradise Lost", Milton produces a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting Satan and Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created…
A new translation of the idiosyncratic diary of a C10 court lady in Heian Japan. Along with the TALE OF GENJI, this is one of the major Japanese Classics.
Flamboyant, theatrical and ambitious, Margaret Cavendish was one of the seventeenth century's most striking figures: a woman who ventured into the male spheres of politics, science, philosophy and literature. The Blazing World is a highly original w…
Composed during a critical time in the evolution of European intellectual life, the works of Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) are some of the most powerful medieval attempts to achieve a synthesis between ancient Greek thought and the Christian faith.…
'The underlying message of the series is, of course, that Death comes for us all, and if it interrupts the recreations of the wealthy rather more insolently than those of the poor, then let that be a lesson to us' Nick Lezard, Guardian A new depart…
As Stephen King will attest , the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the na…
Smith's THE WEALTH OF NATIONS was the first comprehensive treatment of political economy. Originally delivered in the form of lectures at Glasgow, the book's publication in 1776 co-incided with America's Declaration of Independence. These volumes in…
A military leader of legendary genius, Caesar was also a great writer, recording the events of his life with incomparable immediacy and power. The Civil War is a tense and gripping depiction of his struggle with Pompey over the leadership of Republi…
Journey into the underworld through three thousand years of visions of hell, from the ancient Near East to modern AmericaFrom the Hebrew Bible's shadowy realm of Sheol to twenty-first-century visions of Hell on earth, The Penguin Book of Hell takes…
Providing a series of fascinating views of Imperial Rome, The Letters of the Younger Pliny also offer one of the fullest self-portraits to survive from classical times. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Betty Radice…
A haunting Modernist masterpiece and the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning film Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness explores the limits of human experience and the nightmarish realities of imperialism.Conrad's narrator Marlow, a sea…
Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world's first novel - and is certainly one of its finest. Genji, the Shining Prince, son of an emperor, is a passionate character…
'Robinson Crusoe has a universal appeal, a story that goes right to the core of existence' Simon Armitage Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, regarded by many to be first novel in English, is also the original tale of a castaway struggling to survive on…
Daniel Defoe's great masterpiece, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into…
Composed for recitation at festivals, these 33 songs were written in honour of the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon. They recount the key episodes in the lives of the gods, and dramatise the moments when they first appear before mort…
This is the essential one-volume edition of Tales from 1,001 Nights, drawn from the acclaimed landmark translation published in 3 volumes by Penguin Classics in 2008. It contains 'Aladdin', 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves', 'Sindbad the Sailor' and…
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Me…
This Penguin Classics edition of Louisa May Alcott's inspiring tale of sisterhood, Little Women, is edited with an introduction by Elaine Showalter.The charming story of four 'little women' - Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth - and their wise and patient mother…
Written from the ninth to the twentieth century, these poems represent the peak of Islamic Mystical writing, from Rabia Basri to Mian Mohammad Baksh. Reflecting both private devotional love and the attempt to attain union with God and become absorbe…
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories 1892-1895 collects stories which show Anton Chekhov beginning to confront complex, ambiguous and often extreme emotions in his short fiction. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Ronald Wilks, and an…
Through his writing and his own personal philosophy, Ralph Waldo Emerson unburdened his young country of Europe's traditional sense of history and showed Americans how to be creators of their own circumstances. His mandate, which called for harmony…
Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth. News From Nowhere, one of…
'Across the language barrier Dawood captures the thunder and poetry of the original' The Times The Koran is universally accepted by Muslims to be the infallible Word of God as first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel nearly fourte…
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 Baskervill…
'Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!'The death, quite suddenly, of Sir Charles Baskerville in mysterious circumstances is the trigger for one of the most extraordinary cases ever to challenge the brilliant analytical mind of Sh…
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 Baskervil…
This is volume 3. Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (the second and third volumes were originally published in 1781), is one of the most famous texts in the English language. David Womersley's annotated edition retur…
Describes the background of Menander's plays, and provides notes along with new translations of more than fifteen of his plays
Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - enc…
'Woman, who is equal to the moon in the flower of youth, Is equal to a little old ape after the onset of old age'This remarkable collection brings together a host of writings from across different regions and cultures of the Middle Ages, from the ni…
Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer energy of everyday Roman life. In The Sixteen Satires he evokes a fascinating world of whores, fortune-tellers, boozy politicians, slick law…
'Stallings's new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days - witty, gritty, and unsettlingly relevant - is not to be missed' TLS, Books of the Year SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 RUNICMAN AWARD A new verse translation of one of the foundational ancient Gre…
Writer and religious rebel, William Blake ((1757-1827) sowed the seeds for Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the visions that inspired him throughout his life. Whether describing his own spirituality, the innocence of youth or…
A profound examination of the nature of happiness by one of the giants of ancient Greek philosophy In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that happiness consists in 'activity of the soul in accordance with virtue' - for example, with moral virt…
One of the most important philosophical works of all time, in a new Penguin Classics translation by Adam Beresford 'Right and wrong is a human thing' What does it mean to be a good person? Aristotle's famous series of lectures on ethical topics ran…
'Poverty does not consist in the want of money,' I answered, 'nor is begging to be deplored. Poverty consists in the desire to have everything, and through violent means if necessary' From their founding in the fifth century BC and for over 800 year…
An unsettling new collection of Henry James's best short stories exploring ghosts and the uncanny 'There had been a moment when I believed I recognised, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously…
The companion book to Beyond Good and Evil, the three essays included here offer vital insights into Nietzsche's theories of morality and human psychology. Nietzsche claimed that the purpose of The Genealogy of Morals was to call attention to his p…
Written in the thirteenth century, Njal's Saga is a story that explores perennial human problems-from failed marriages to divided loyalties, from the law's inability to curb human passions to the terrible consequences when decent men and women are s…
