Classics of Literature

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...

'One of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during this century' Elias Canetti 'One of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during...

A beautiful repackage of Chandler's most famous and popular novel of all - part of the Chandler reissue series Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family....

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...

A savage indictment of British society at the turn of the century, from the author of Mrs Dalloway. The Years is the story of three generations of the Pargiter family...

The final novel in the Great Plains trilogy, this is a celebration of the American midwest with Cather's strongest heroine at its heart Jim and ntonia meets as children in...

Le Carre's singular story of a cautious man plunged into recklessness, published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time Aldo Cassidy is the naive and sentimental lover. A successful,...

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...

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...

Part of a series of new editions of Henry James's most famous novels and short stories one of a series of new editions of Henry James's most famous short stories...

Peter Carson's new translation of Turgenev's vivid and honest tale of generational conflict When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond...

Part of a series of new editions of Henry James's most famous novels and short stories Emerging from the grit and stigma of poverty to a life of fairytale privilege...

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...

Penguin Classics relaunch When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec...

A remarkably powerful yet simple tale of the struggle and triumph of innocence reviled, which Balzac considered his 'remarkable tour de force' In 1842, eight years before his death, Balzac...

Orwell's first novel, a devastating account of colonial rule in Burma, in a stunning new cover look for his great works Set in the days of the Empire, with the...

The great underwater adventure story by the 'Father of Science Fiction' In this thrilling adventure tale, three men embark on an epic journey under the sea with the mysterious Captain...

A reissue with a new introduction by Geoff Dyer Anthony and Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour. A brilliant and magnetic couple, they fling themselves at life with...

A stunning new series look for one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Penguin Modern Classics THE PEARL is Steinbeck's flawless parable about wealth and the evil...

Hilarious, intelligent and moving, Pnin is the tale of a generation irrevocably severed from its past Professor Timofey Pnin, previously of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously positioned at the heart...

A new translation of one of the most popular satires on the Russian Revolution and on Soviet society - first time in Penguin Classics This is Bulgakov's semi-autobiographical story of...

A superb new translation by Judson Rosengrant of Tolstoy's semi-autobiographical trilogy Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age...

A new translation of Stendhal's masterpiece chronicling the fortunes of Febrice del Dongo at an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France. Headstrong and naive, the young Italian aristocrat Fabrizio del Dongo...

Contains ten stories- The Two Hussars; Strider; A Prisoner in the Caucasus; God Sees the Truth But Waits; What Men Live By; Neglect a Spark; Two Old Men; How Much...

Perhaps his most famous work, mile Zola's Ther se Raquin is a dark and gripping story of lust, violence and guilt, set in the gloomy back streets of Paris. This...

New to Penguin Classics, this is Chekhov's only full-length novel When a young woman dies during a shooting party at the country estate of a dissolute count, a magistrate is...

A sparkling new translation of Pushkin's masterpiece Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's...

A collection of von Kleist's haunting, unsettling stories In The Marquise of O-, a virtuous widow finds herself unaccountably pregnant. And although the baffled Marquise has no idea when this...

'Envy remained hidden in her heart, like a plague germ which may come to life and devastate a city' Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending...

Charles Dickens's final, unfinished novel, and one that has puzzled readers and inspired writers since its publication, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is edited with an introduction by David Paroissien...

Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire's son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted...

A new edition of Henry Fielding's exuberant satire, chronicling the life, loves and fortunes of Tom Jones. A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr Allworthy on his country...

Penguin Classics relaunch When country-girl Grace Melbury returns home from her middle-class school she feels she has risen above her suitor, the simple woodsman Giles Winterborne. Though marriage had been...

Dickens' last completed novel portraying a dark, macabre London Our Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its legatees, young John Harmon, presumed...

George Eliot's last novel is a richly textured portrait of British society and the Jewish experience within it As Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared...

A radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism, this is a fascinating satire about a society on the verge of moral bankruptcy. Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign...

A new translation by Tony Briggs of Tolstoy's last major novel Resurrection (1899) tells the story of a nobleman's attempt to redeem the suffering his youthful philandering inflicted on a...

'The American Chekhov' Sunday Times With this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed...

Inspector Maigret falls victim to a pickpocket and is drawn into a peculiar incident A pickpocket steals Maigret's wallet only to return it the following day, on the condition that...

Woolf's innovative modernist novel Tracing the lives of a group of friends, this novel follows their development from childhood to middle age. While social events, individual achievements and disappointments form...

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...' 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...' Lucie Manette has been separated from...

'One of the most compelling and influential works of English literature in the last century' - Independent WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY TIM BUTCHER The silence of the jungle is broken...

Virginia Woolf's final novel, now in Penguin Black Classics Outwardly a novel about life in a country-house in whose grounds there is to be a pageant, Between the Acts is...

A classics tale of romance in urban Nineteenth-century America When timid and plain Catherine Sloper acquires a dashing and determined suitor, her father, convinced that the young man is nothing...

At the outbreak of World War I, Dominic Langton leaves his wife on a remote sheep farm in New South Wales to enlist in the British Army. What he experiences...