Fiction

Since its first publication in 1762, Of the Social Contract has shaped political thinking. Viewed by some as a revolutionary statement of democratic freedoms and by others as a precursor...

The great novel of 1920s Berlin life, in a superb translation by Michael Hofmann The subject of this book is the life of the former cement-worker and haulier Franz Biberkopf...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, as part of our Achebe relaunch Ezeulu, headstrong chief priest of the god Ulu, is worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. But he is...

New to Penguin Black Classics, the fully annotated edition of Mireille Ribi re's acclaimed translation Rumours that a ghost stalks the dark passages and cellars of the Paris Opera House,...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, to tie in with the release of the Steven Spielberg film, and with a new introduction by Brian Aldiss Matthew's parents are worried. At eleven,...

G. K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece, edited and with an introduction by Matthew Beaumont Can you trust yourself when you don't know who you are? In a park in London, secret...

Bawdy and moving, hilarious and reflective - these stories offer the very best of Boccaccio's Decameron in a brilliant, playful new translation This hugely enjoyable volume collects the best stories...

A light revision of our definitive collection, translated with an introduction by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The cliches...

A drama of decay in Southern America, this depiction of patriarchy, power and repression is one of Williams' landmark works 'Big Daddy' Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi...

One of Williams' best-loved plays, this emotional rollercoaster tells the tale of the iconic Blanche DuBois and her demise by Stanley Kowalski Fading southern belle Blanche Dubois depends on the...

Penguin Modern Classics presents Tennessee Williams' first successful play which has continued to win audiences over ever since Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her...

'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked' Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. This...

All My Sons brought Miller his first major success, and continues to be a bestseller today In Joe and Kate Keller's family garden, an apple tree - a memorial to...

The definitive 25th-anniversary edition of Burroughs's legendary second novel Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma - both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a...

At long last William S. Burroughs's cult classic and undoubted masterpiece enters Penguin Modern Classics A cultural landmark and the most shocking novel in the English language, Naked Lunch is...

New to Penguin Modern Classics Why Read the Classics? is an elegant defence of the value of great literature by one of the finest authors of the last century. Beginning...

A guidebook to the wilderness of mind and an indispensable resource from the founding father of psychedelia for the first time in Modern Classics The Psychedelic Experience, created by the...

New to Penguin Modern Classics Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. No woman...

First time in Penguin Modern Classics In Ponyboy's world there are two types of people. There are the Socs, the rich society kids who get away with anything. Then there...

A towering philosophical novel that is the summation of her Objectivist philosophy, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is the saga of the enigmatic John Galt, and his ambitious plan to 'stop...

New to Modern Classics When a deranged boy, Alan Strang, blinds six horses with a metal spike he is sentenced to psychiatric treatment. Dr Dysart is the man given the...

New to Modern Classics Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a genius, the most brilliant musician the world will ever see. But the court of eighteenth-century Vienna doesn't recognize his talents -...

Ayn Rand's most famous and controversial novel comes to Penguin for the first time Ayn Rand's story of Howard Roark, a brilliant architect who dares to stand alone against the...

First new translation since publication of Albert Camus's story collection The stories of Exile and the Kingdom explore the dilemma of being an outsider - even in one's own country...

'He's a writer who, once you read him, makes you want to read everything he's done' Martin Amis, Sunday Times Prosperous, good-looking and empty inside, 28-year-old advertising executive David Bell...

With a new introduction by Christopher de Bellaigue Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution...

At long last Ken Kesey's 1962 cult classic novel has entered Modern Classics series. Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal...

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...

Hartley's classic novel of innocence lost, now reissued with a new jacket When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school friend at Brandham Hall, he begins...

Reissuing in Penguin Modern Classics as part of our Paul Bowles relaunch, with a new introduction by Paul Theroux 'The Sheltering Sky is a book about people on the edge...

We're the one percenters, man - the one percent that don't fit in and don't care. 'A phalanx of motorcycles cam roaring over the hill from the west ... the...

A landmark collection of Orwell's writings, with a new Introduction by Jeremy Paxman 'Shooting an Elephant' is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer...

The captivating autobiography by one of America's most influential folk singers, Woody Gutherie Bound for Glory is the funny, cynical and earthy autobiography of Woody Guthrie, the father of American...

To read this extraordinary book is to gain a unique insight into the compelling nature of organized, industrialized violence. Michael Hofmann's superlative translation retains all the coruscating vitality of the...

Arguably Achebe's most important novel, Things Fall Apart has sold over 10 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than fifty languages Okonkwo is the greatest warrior alive, famous...

Imagine the world if the Allies had lost the Second World War... Philip K Dick trips the switches of our minds with his vision of the world as it might...

Frantz Fanon's seminal work on the trauma of colonization made him the leading anti-colonialist thinker of the twentieth century. Written at the height of the Algerian war for independence from...

Steinbeck's last great novel focuses on the theme of success and what motivates men towards it. Reflecting back on his New England family's past fortune, and his father's loss of...

When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can...

An Inspector Calls, first produced in 1946 when society was undergoing sweeping transformations, has recently enjoyed an enormously successful revival. While holding its audience with the gripping tension of a...

A searing account of George Orwell's observations of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire in the 1930s, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant...

Nabokov's suspenseful whodunit and one of his most acclaimed works The American poet John Shade is dead; murdered. His last poem, Pale Fire, is put into a book, together with...

'She has examined the heart of man with an understanding ... that no other writer can hope to surpass' Tennessee Williams Carson McCullers' prodigious first novel was published to instant...

A stunning new series look for one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Penguin Modern Classics Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's...

Famously associated with the term 'magical realism', Marquez is probably South America's most famous literary export An acknowledged masterpiece, this is the story of seven generations of the Buendia family...

With prose that is every bit as raw, intense and bitingly honest as the world it depicts, Barry Hines's A Kestrel for a Knave contains a new afterword by the...

In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenar recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes...

'Carson's books brought ecology into popular consciousness' -- Daily Telegraph Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, SILENT SPRING exposed the destruction of wildlife...