Fiction

From one of our greatest historians, the epic story of how 20th-century Europe went to hell and back In the summer of 1914 most of Europe plunged into a war...

A uniquely ambitious study of the Bible's creation- how it came to be written, how its contents were selected - and how it really relates to the religions that endorse...

Where have the people in any particular place actually come from? What are the historical complexities in any particular place? This evocative historical journey around the world shows us. After...

Drawing together for the first time his poems, letters, essays, songs and photographs, this wide-ranging collection is the essential record of the Beat icon Visionary poet Allen Ginsberg was one...

One of the great masterpieces of 17th century English prose, with a major new introduction Thomas Hobbes lived through the Thirty Years War and Britain's civil wars, and the trauma...

Legends from the Ancient North brings together some of the magical texts that most influenced Tolkien 'They summoned their friends, readied their horses, and prepared their helmets, shields, swords, coats...

What is history and how should it be written? This important new anthology contains all the seminal texts that relate to the writing of history in the ancient world The...

A new and original anthology that introduces the use of rhetoric in the classical world, from Aristotle to Cicero and beyond Classical rhetoric is one of the earliest versions of...

New to Penguin Modern Classics for Sontag's exploration of the most important artists of our time Susan Sontag's third essay collection brings together her most important critical writing from 1972...

A collection of some of Freud's most famous essays, including ON THE INTRODUCTION OF NARCISSISM; REMEMBERING, REPEATING AND WORKING THROUGH; BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE; THE EGO AND THE ID and...

A magical and acclaimed history, bringing back to life the lost realms of Europe, now in trade paperback We habitually think of the European past as the history of countries...

'A definitive study' (Financial Times) of Judaism, from its origins to the present Judaism is by some distance the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions and, despite the extraordinarily varied...

The epic history of consumption, and the goods that have transformed our lives over the past 600 years In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history...

Alain de Botton brings his trademark powers of insight to what most of us do all day- work Work makes us. Without it we are at a loss; in work...

First time in Penguin Classics for this masterpiece of French 'decadent' literature J.-K. Huysmans's gaudy, shocking, and largely autobiographical novel, The Damned (L -Bas) was quickly condemned and just as...

An insight into the splendour, squalor and energy of everday Roman life Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer...

A fascinating view of how the world was perceived in the first century Pliny's Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography...

Passionate and perceptive, the three short novels that make up Balzac's History of the Thirteen are concerned in part with the activities of a rich, powerful, sinister and unscrupulous secret...

R. J. Hollingdale's translation conveys the simple elegance of the original. Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the...

Goethe's famous account of his time and travels in Italy In 1786, when he was already the acknowledged leader of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, Goethe set out on...

Geoffrey of Monmouth's history - or legend - of the earliest kings of Britain Completed in 1136, The History of the Kings of Britain traces the story of the realm...

In his introduction, Dennis Walder discusses Dickens's social commentary and view of London, and places the Sketches in the tradition of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reportage. Charles Dickens's first published book,...

A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY won pretty much every prize for which it was eligible This tremendously attractive, ambitious, dizzying book is in every way a worthy successor to Figes' bestselling A...

The great modern biography of Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire Octavian was a young soldier training abroad when he heard news of Julius Caesar's brutal assassination - and discovered...

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize 'Of the "Great Powers" that dominated Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Prussia is the only one to have vanished ... Iron...

Gertrude Stein, as a college student at Radcliffe and a medical student at Johns Hopkins Medical School, was a privileged woman, but she was surrounded by women who were trapped...

If you were enthralled by Capote's In Cold Blood, read The Executioner's Song WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDREW O'HAGAN In the summer of 1976 Gary Gilmore robbed two men. Then...

A mesmerising, epic, utterly involving masterpiece from Haruki Murakami A mesmerising, epic, utterly involving masterpiece from Haruki Murakami The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no...

The most authoritative life of Mao ever written, by the bestselling author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday. The most authoritative life of Mao ever written,...

Who was who in the classical world - from the clash of the Titans to the end of the world What were the twelve labours of Herakles? Why did Zeus...

An explosive new vision of geopolitics from two trail-blazing political scientists Deep beneath our feet, vast and sprawling, lies one of the most sophisticated empires the world has ever known....

What compels a person to set out to sea? A solo sailor explores the exhilarating and frightening world of the wide ocean Sailing on a boat by yourself out at...

The dazzling essays of the beloved, subversive Chinese writer Wang Xiaobo, a continual bestseller in China, now in English for the first time Wang Xiaobo made his name as a...

An inspiring testament to China's dissident historians and activists, from the 1940s to the present A documentary filmmaker who uncovered a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice...

The epic story of one of the world's most enduring civilisations and empires. 'For who is so indifferent or indolent as not to wish to know by what means the...

A dark contemporary fractured fairy tale reimagining of The Little Mermaid by BookTok sensation Emily McIntire. From USA Today bestselling author Emily McIntire comes the final dark and delicious fractured...

Newly discovered stories by the greatest Czech writer of the twentieth century Enter the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague, the steelworks run by singed men, the covered market that smells...

The greatest story of military conquest in history from a 'master storyteller' (Guardian) Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known, whose empire stretched from...

WITH A NEW EPILOGUE BY THE AUTHOR The most affecting, intelligent, important and constructive book on depression there has ever been - a key text by a New Yorker writer...

A young woman chosen as the crown prince's bride must travel to the royal palace to meet her new husband-but her world is shaken when she discovers the dark truth...

From the two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Australian Book Review describes Kim Scott's True Country as ' a vital, often lyrical and always uncompromising novel.' Billy,...

China's past is key to the modern world. This nimble history of rogues, revolutions and rebellions can be read in a day, but will transform your view for a lifetime....

Secrets follow these sisters like shadows... 2024 NetGalley Must Read Debut Author "A nail-biting story of sisterhood, suspicion, and suspense. When She Was Me weaves together past and present seamlessly...

A wonderfully entertaining overview of all of psychology by a world expert Are you a human? Do you have a mind? Then this book is for you. Nothing is more...

A landmark feminist intervention- a dazzlingly original reassessment of women's stories, bodies and art - and how we think about them. 'Destined to become a new classic' Chris Kraus A...

The legendary author of Behave shows that free will can not exist and explores the radical and disturbing implications What if free will is an illusion? In Determined one of...

Kohta Hirano's Hellsing is a worldwide phenomenon, a science-fiction-horror manga masterpiece of shocking intensity and wild ingenuity. Kohta Hirano's Hellsing is a worldwide phenomenon, a science-fiction-horror manga masterpiece of shocking...

The manga that spawned the worldwide hit anime, Kohta Hirano's Hellsing returns in new editions with revised translations and new graphic design. Hellsing blends gothic horror, violent action, and dark...