Kokoro, meaning 'heart', is a tantalising novel about the friendship between a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls Sensei. Set in the early twentieth century, when the death of the emperor Meiji gave way to a new era in Japanese politicia…
Aristotle's probing inquiry into some of the fundamental problems of philosophy, The Metaphysics is one of the classical Greek foundation-stones of western thought, translated from the with an introduction by Hugh Lawson-Tancred in Penguin Classics.…
'With icy remorselessness, it puts paid to any notion that the horrors of modern history might be an aberration - for it tells of universal war, of terrorism, revolution and genocide' Tom HollandThe long life-and-death struggle between Athens and Sp…
'That sense of the meaninglessness of existence that runs through much of twentieth-century writing - from Conrad and Kafka, to Beckett and beyond - starts in Dostoyevsky's work' Malcolm BradburyAlienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his…
'Venus in Furs' describes the obsessions of Severin von Kusiemski, a European nobleman who desires to be enslaved to a woman. Severin finds his ideal of voluptuous cruelty in the merciless Wanda von Dunajew. This is a passionate and powerful portray…
Mencius was one of the great philosophers of ancient China, second only in influence to Confucius, whose teachings he defended and expanded. The Mencius, in which he recounts his dialogues with kings, dukes and military men, as well as other philoso…
Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and yet to be free of them. This duality of vision infuses his work with a powerful energy from the earliest tales including 'Old…
The classic coming-of-age story presents David Copperfield, who suffers the wrath of his stepfather, the abusive Mr. Mudstone, and the betrayal of the scheming Uriah Heep, finds a new life with his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood, and falls deeply…
A young orphan, Pip, receives a fortune from a mysterious benefactor and travels to London in order to become a gentleman
In nineteenth-century England, Dorthea Brooke's wishes to defy social conventions are inhibited by the strict nature of her surroundings.
With their penetrating psychological insight and their emphasis on human dignity, respect and forgiveness, Dostoyevsky's early short stories contain the seeds of the themes that came to his major novels. Poor Folk, the author's first great literary…
Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her the next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king stories of adventu…
A study of America's national government, egalitarian ideals, and character offers reflections on the effect of majority rule on the rights of individuals and provides insight into the rewards and responsibilities of a democratic government, in a ne…
'Probably the most important archaeological find in history ... Vermes' translations are a standard in the field' Los Angeles Times The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean desert between 1947 and 1956 was one of the greatest finds of al…
'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' sees a baby born in 1860 begin life as an old man and then age backwards. F. Scott Fitzgerald hinted at this kind of inversion when he called his era 'a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought…
The late British explorer and travel writer recounts his travels in the "Empty Quarter" of Arabia between 1945 and 1950, and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins. Reissue. 10,000 first printing.
Ten Days That Shook the World is John Reed's eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution. A contemporary journalist writing in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm, he gives a gripping record of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, wh…
In January 1850 Dostoyevsky was sent to a remote Siberian prison camp for his part in a political conspiracy. The four years he spent there, startlingly re-created in The House of the Dead, were the most agonizing of his life. In this fictionalized…
Alcestis/Medea/The Children of Heracles/Hippolytus 'One of the best prose translations of Euripides I have seen' Robert Fagles This selection of plays shows Euripides transforming the titanic figures of Greek myths into recognizable, fallible human…
The biographies collected in this volume bring together Plutarch's Lives of those great men who established the city of Rome and consolidated its supremacy, and his Comparisons with their notable Greek counterparts. Here he pairs Romulus, mythical f…
Presents the English statesman's classic denunciations of sixteenth-century tyranny and corruption and vision of an ideal society, along with historical and biographical notes.
Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the master of haiku, was also a Buddhist monk and a life-long traveller. His poems combine 'karumi', or lightness of touch, with the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each poem evokes the natural wo…
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''The great poet of the city. He was created by London' Peter AckroydOur Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its legatees: young John Harmon, presumed d…
Making a major part of England's literary heritage accessible to a new audience, Peter Ackroyd's The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling renders Geoffrey Chaucer's timeless tales in lucid, compelling modern English prose, with illustrations by Nick Bantoc…
Machen's weird tales of the creepy and fantastic finally come to Penguin Classics. With an introduction from S.T. Joshi, editor of American Supernatural Tales, The White People and Other Weird Stories isthe perfect introduction to the father of weir…
During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Impassioned and iconocl…
The Voyage of the Beagle is Charles Darwin's account of the momentous voyage which set in motion the current of intellectual events leading to The Origin of Species. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Janet Bro…
Thomas Hardy's last novel, Jude the Obscure is a fearless exploration of the hypocrisy of Victorian society, edited with an introduction by Dennis Taylor in Penguin Classics.Jude Fawley's hopes of an education at Christminster university are dashed…
This stunning anthology gathers together the riches of poetry in Hebrew from 'The Song of Deborah' to contemporary Israeli writings. Verse written up to the tenth century show the development of piyut, or liturgical poetry, and retell episodes from…
Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king tales of adventure, lo…
The Gambler and Other Stories is Fyodor Dostoyevsky's collection of one novella and six short stories reflecting his own life - indeed, 'The Gambler', a story of a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian General, was written unde…
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 th…
The original 'Great American Novel', Herman Melville'sMoby-Dick is a masterful study of obsession. This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction by Andrew Delblanco, with explanatory commentary by Tom Quirk. 'Call me Ishmael.' So begins Her…
'The noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers ... ethically he is supreme' Bertrand RussellPublished shortly after his death in 1677, the Ethics is Spinoza's greatest work - a fully cohesive philosophical system that strives to provide a p…
Content with her life and not interested in marriage, Emma Woodhouse, a rich and beautiful heiress, causes complications with her matchmaking schemes.
This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition celebrates 200 years of Austen's beloved novel. With a beautiful cover designed by illustrator Dadu Shin and comprehensive notes sourced from the Jane Austen Collection, this is an edition to be treasured by stud…
One of the first woman authors, Julian of Norwich produced in Revelations of Divine Love a remarkable work of revelatory insight, that stands alongside The Cloud of Unknowing and Piers Plowman as a classic of Medieval religious literature. This Peng…
'A most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale' Oscar WildeThe Turn of the Screw, James's great masterpiece of haunting atmosphere and unbearable tension, tells of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and F…
'The father of science fiction' GuardianThe Time Machine is the first and greatest modern portrayal of time-travel. It sees a Victorian scientist propel himself into the year 802,701 AD, when he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been…
Raising questions that are as relevant to modern society as they were to the ancient world, Aristotle's The Politics remains central to the study of political science millennia after its compilation. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from…
On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. His calculating father Manfred fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself - despite the fact…
'The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the foo…
Presents the tale of a bizarre Carpathian count who drinks human blood to stay alive, and the Englishman who knows his secret.
'This world is the will to power - and nothing besides!' One of the great minds of modernity, Friedrich Nietzsche smashed through the beliefs of his age. These writings, which did much to establish his reputation as a philosopher, offer some of his…
Out of his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street stalks a figure to cause the criminal classes to quake in their boots and rush from their dens of inequity ... The twelve mysteries gathered in this first collection of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson's ad…
Described as 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know' by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron was the quintessential Romantic. Flamboyant, charismatic and brilliant, he remains almost as notorious for his life - as a political revolutionary, se…
The Portable Poe compiles Poe's greatest writings: tales of fantasy, terror, death, revenge, murder, and mystery, including "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue,"…
Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman atta…
Follows the 1872 adventures of the reserved Phileas Fogg, an imperturbable English gentleman, and his French manservant Passepartout, as he tries to win his rash wager that he can travel completely around the world in eighty days. Reprint.
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. Th…
The quintessential adventure story that first established pirates in the popular imagination, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is edited with an introduction by John Seelye in Penguin Classics.When a mysterious sailor dies in sinister circum…
Spans John Milton's career, from his earliest works to the magnificent epics of his later life. This volume includes considerable selections from "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" - Milton's late epics on the "Fall of Man" and "Christ's Tempta…
