Classics of Literature

Tender and bittersweet, these stories by Truman Capote form a captivating tribute to the Christmas season Selected from across Capote's writing life, the stories range from nostalgic portraits of childhood...

A revelatory and richly varied collection of Korea's greatest short stories This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea's dramatic twentieth...

An epic novel of love, war and revolution from Mikhail Sholokhov, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature One of the most important Russian masterpieces of the 20th century, And...

The first novel by the great American novelist, now the subject of a major new film starring Jude Law Eugene Gant, born in 1900 to hard-drinking stone-cutter Oliver and entrepreneurial...

Scarcely out of print since the early 1870s, For the Term of His Natural Life has provided successive generations with a vivid account of a brutal phase of colonial life....

Mowgli, the man-cub who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series...

Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and his family with facts, he bans fancy and...

During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive Catherine Morland experiences fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances- flirtatious Isabella, who introduces Catherine to...

Amory Blaine, intent on rebelling against his staid, Midwestern upbringing, longs to acquire the patina of Eastern sophistication. In his quest for sexual and intellectual enlightenment, he progresses through a...

A stunning new series look for one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Penguin Modern Classics Steinbeck's first major critical and commercial success, TORTILLA FLAT is also...

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write....

F. Scott Fitzgerald's last completed novel, Tender is the Night is edited by Arnold Goldman with an introduction and notes by Richard Godden in Penguin Modern Classics. Between the First...

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs...

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to this day entrances readers with its passionate portrayal of a woman struggling to make a life for herself in a cruel and indifferent world. As...

A new translation by Helen Constantine of de Laclos's great novel of moral and emotional depravity. Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a...

Penguin Classics relaunch. In the summer of 1348, as the Black Death ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside. They amuse themselves by each telling a...

A new translation of this ever-popular adventure story, featuring an introduction by Brian Aldiss One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across...

Beautifully designed, clothbound edition 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...

VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS- Bound to be beautiful A beautiful hardback edition of the most famous anti-war novel ever written, translated by Brian Murdoch. 'A necessary, shattering read' Irish Times In...

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with...

Jane Austen's finally and arguably most sophisticated novel, in a beautiful new clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable...

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound...

Swift's brilliant and satirical classic, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions...

One of the greatest novels of Chinese literature The Story of the Stone (c.1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The...

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known by the title of The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. The Story...

"Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature."-Haruki Murakami The father of modern Japanese literature's best-loved novel, in its first new English translation in half...

With a new introduction by Ali Smith WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITH Katherine Mansfield's clear, sparkling and perceptive short stories revolutionized the genre, and this collection represents the whole...

Michael Hulse's new translation perfectly conveys the unsettling beauty of the original and is accompanied by an introduction on Rilke's life and the biographical and literary influences on the Notebooks....

The fierce, irreverent novel of aspiration and rebellion that is both a cornerstone of Australian literature and a feminist classic Miles Franklin began the candid, passionate, and contrary My Brilliant...

This indispensable translation is as close to the original as it is possible to get while at the same time being a clear and fluid rendering of the Russian. 'If...

Mann's semi-autobiographical and sweeping family epic. The book that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature Discover Mann's Nobel Prizewinning semi-autobiographical and sweeping family epic. The Buddenbrook clan is everything...

When the young nobleman Harold Transome returns to England from the colonies with a self-made fortune, he scandalizes the town of Treby Magna with his decision to stand for Parliament...

The first novel from one of Italy's most innovative writers of the 20th century 'The seething cauldron of life, the infinite stratification of reality, the inextricable tangle of knowledge are...

Another outstandingly wry and funny novel from the inimitable Rosemary Tonks, author of The Bloater Gut-wrenching, ingenious, absolutely hilarious, this is the rediscovered story of woman's desperate quest for freedom....

Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world 'He must know by now, I should think, that I can give...

The Vintage Classics Russians series - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history 'The best translation of Crime...

Sylvia Townsend Warner's tale of a Victorian woman's love for her husband's mistress is an extraordinary re-imagining of historical fiction The story of a young English aristocrat, who - cut...

A lyrical translation of Kafka's first novel - a menacing allegory of modern life Karl Rossman has been banished by his parents to America, following a family scandal. There, with...

One of the strangest novels ever written - part daydream, part diatribe and part autobiography - by one of the great eccentrics of English literature The titlular character of Hadrian...

Maigret is called to investigate the stabbing of a young man When a tape recorder is found on a murder victim, Inspector Maigret hopes this will be the clue he...

A visit from an old school-friend leads Maigret to a murderous affair When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the...

Inspector Maigret investigates an attack on a Parisian tramp When a tramp is recovered from the Seine, after being badly beaten, Maigret must delve into the man's personal circumstances to...

Maigret has a visitor who admits his intentions to commit murder but when he goes missing Maigret worries that he himself has become the victim Inspector Maigret is followed home...

A jazz novel, a sermon and a song of praise to the richness of African-American experience From Ralph Ellison - author of the classic novel, Invisible Man - the long-awaited...

Kafka's last great, unfinished novel - the book that hangs over the whole modern era like a nightmare The Castle is the story of K., the unwanted Land Surveyor who...

New edition of this classic novel, edited by Philip Horne and Ruth Yeazell This story of the alliance between Italian aristocracy and American millionaires is "a work unique among all...

A new edition of the least well known of Charlotte Bronte's novels, but one of the most fascinating, for its engagement with the 'woman question' and the vivid depiction of...

Penguin Classics relaunch. In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following...