Fiction

Le Carre's ingenious mysery, featuring his most famous recurring character, George Smiley Stella Rode has twice disturbed the ancient cloisters of Carne School- firstly by being the wrong sort, with...

The final novel featuring Smiley, Le Carre's most enduring character, and a gripping feat of narrative brilliance The Cold War is over and Ned has been demoted to the training...

A spy story, a love story, and a fable for our time Barley Blair is not a Service man- he is a small-time publisher, a self-destructive soul whose only loves...

An extraordinary collection of essays arguing for literature's complicity with evil, new to Penguin Modern Classics 'Literature is not innocent,' stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays,...

New to Penguin Classics, The Joyous Science is Nietzsche's most personal book - and one of his best The Joyous Science is a liberating voyage of discovery as Nietzsche's realization...

New to Penguin Classics, The Will to Power includes some of Nietzsche's most important thoughts on nihilism, metaphysics and the future of Europe Assembled by Nietzsche's sister after his death,...

Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, this volume presents the songs with music, and annotations on their original sources and meaning. The definitive collection of...

Le Carre's breakthrough work of 1963 was an award-winning number one global bestseller and brought him international renown, redefining the spy story as a gritty and terrible tale of men...

Calvino's fascinating and cerebral collection of essays celebrating all aspects of the visual, translated for the first time and new to Penguin Modern Classics Italo Calvino claimed that 'the brain...

The first collected and annotated edition of Carroll's brilliant, witty poems, edited by Gillian Beer 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...' wrote...

A tale of wasted love, and beauty, by Japan's literary master Shimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the...

One of the most influential books of the 20th century comes into Modern Classics When Betty Friedan produced The Feminine Mystique in 1963, she could not have realized how the...

First time in Penguin Classics for this Japanese work dedicated to the art of drinking tea - and much more - introduced by Christopher Benfey For a generation adjusting painfully...

A funny and charming novel about four women in Italy, introduced by Salley Vickers A notice in The Times addressed to 'Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine' advertises a 'small...

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...

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...