Literary Theory

The official biography of the award-winning and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett, written by Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the author's literary estate. WINNER OF...

'When I was at primary school, my teacher asked if any of us had heard of Charles Dickens. I was amazed she knew his name, because, until that moment, I...

You've heard all about the 'brilliant men' of ancient myth, but what about the scheming and scandalous women who were so often lost in their shadow? Bad Girls of Ancient...

'How truth thickens and deepens when it migrates from didactic fable to the raw experience of a visceral awakening is one of the thrills of Tolstoy's stories' Sharon Cameron in...

A bold and expansive history that traces the changing and contested project of Australia's national story. You will think about this country differently after reading this book. 'Clark brings a...

Thoughts and advice on the creative writing process from an international master of literature. Words have power. Yet that power must be rooted in truth and justice. Words must never...

A thrilling study of the greatest of all epic poems, by one of the world's leading classicists Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy....

'Somebody must have laid false information against Josef K., for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong.' From this first sentence onwards, Josef K. is on trial...

A View from the Bridge is a tragic masterpiece of the inexorable unravelling of a man Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman and a straightforward man, with a strong sense of...

For Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and 'it was like a kaleidoscope slowly...

Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into...

One of the masterpieces of classical literature, the Histories describes how a small and quarrelsome band of Greek city states united to repel the might of the Persian empire. But...

A major new translation by award-winning poet and translator David Constantine that captures the lyrical liveliness of Goethe's original. Goethe's Faust reworks the late-medieval myth of Dr Faust, a brilliant...

Penguin Classics relaunch The work of a young novelist at the height of his powers, NICHOLAS NICKLEBY is one of the touchstones of the English comic novel. Around the central...

A landmark in Boswell and Johnson studies In Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality, in a...

An essential new translation of the author's complete, uncensored diaries - revealing the idiosyncrasies and rough edges of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers Dating from 1909 to...

Part of a series of new editions of DH Lawrence's most famous novels, stories and poems In these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of...

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...

In these groundbreaking studies, Sontag strips away the myths that surround the two most stigmatized diseases of our time Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor in 1978, while suffering from breast...

Brings together the major writings of the great Italian philosopher. In his reflections on Christianity, Saint Thomas Aquinas forged a unique synthesis of ancient philosophy and medieval theology. Preoccupied with...

A curated collection of essays that shaped Australia's culture and society Since the 1940s, Meanjin essays have set the national cultural agenda. Arthur Phillips' idea of 'cultural cringe' has become...

A profound, funny and uplifting collection of reminiscences about a life in books Here are forty texts to read at some stage in your life- forty texts that can enrich...

The comprehensive guide to a deeply human tradition of memory, mourning and consolation Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practised by the Romans,...

These essays, reviews and articles illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of this century - a man who created a unique literary manner from...

Also included are selections from B chner's letters and philosophical writings. Collected in this volume are powerful dramas and psychological fiction by the nineteenth-century iconoclast now recognized as a major...

The great epic of Western literature, translated by the acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles A Penguin Classic Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy...

'Brilliant-a feast' Guardian 'This brilliant collection of essays should be a feast for his admirers, as well as for those who approach his dazzling oeuvre for the first time-Calvino is...

A collection of the finest essays by the 'Best of the Booker' winner, following on from his much-acclaimed STEP ACROSS THIS LINE From 'Best of the Booker' winner Salman Rushdie,...

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...

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...

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...

All of Orwell's brilliant writing on England and Englishness collected in a single volume Much of George Orwell's best writing, brought together in this comprehensive collection, is concerned with England,...

An exhilarating collection of Orwell's writing on the Spanish Civil War The volume collects together Orwell's writings on his experience of the Spanish Civil War - the chaos at the...

An expansive collection of George Orwell's writing on the down and out The vivid, impassioned writings collected together in this powerful volume chronicle Orwell's first-hand experiences of life among the...

The definitive collection of George Orwell's timeless political writing This comprehensive collection brings together the best of George Orwell's powerful political essays and journalism with his timeless satire on totalitarianism,...

Compelling new translation of the Annals, by Cynthia Damon Tacitus' Annals recounts the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus to the death of Nero...

A fine collection of the greatest French tales about the legend of Arthur Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly...

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...

Five of Euripides' boldest and most moving tragedies,all focussing on strong female characters Written during a period overshadowed by the fierce struggle for supremacy between Sparta and Euripides' native Athens,...

"I am large, I contain multitudes" A Penguin Classic When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the...

'We, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation' James Baldwin's impassioned plea to 'end the racial nightmare' in America...

An intimate conversation about music and creativity, between the internationally bestselling writer Haruki Murakami and world-class conductor, Seiji Ozawa. An intimate conversation about music and creativity, between the internationally bestselling...

Before you can fly, you have to be free. A new edition of the phenomenal international bestseller. From bitter poverty to the stardom of the West - this is the...

The 'invigorating', 'stupendous' and 'exhilarating' guide (Observer) to the beguiling form which has attracted many of our most beloved writers 'It is hard to know how it could possibly be...

In her memoirs, Simone de Beavoir created a remarkable portrait of a twentieth-century woman's struggle for independence A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth...

The autobiography of one of the world's most talented and intriguing writers, reissuing in Penguin Modern Classics 'Speak, memory', said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him...

Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about...

The heroic Greek dramas that have moved theatergoers and readers since the fifth century B.C. Towering over the rest of Greek tragedy, the three plays that tell the story of...