Penguin Black Spine

A new translation of Marcus Aurelius's pithy and inspirational philosophical notebooks. Written in Greek by an intellectual Roman emperor without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's powerful meditation on faith, meaning and morality, The Brothers Karamazov is translated with an introduction and notes by David McDuff in Penguin Classics. When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov...

Penguin Classics relaunch The award-winning new translation of the great Russian novel.Leo Tolstoy (Author) Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Tula province. He studied at the University of...

Penguin Classics relaunch The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature. Confronted by...

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of...

Penguin Classics relaunch Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to...

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double...

Basho's beautifully-written and closely observed descriptions of his travels in Japan In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When...

Penguin Classics relaunch Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord....

Reissued with a new cover and lower price as part of Penguin Classics overhaul of Jane Austen's editions The culmination of Jane Austen's genius, a sparkling comedy of love and...

A guaranteed best-seller - a brilliant new edition of one of Penguin's top-ten classics - more than 35k of the Black Classic edition sold every year. Orphaned Jane Eyre grows...

The acclaimed new translation of Tolstoy's masterpiece, for the first time in Black Classics after the successful hardback and Red Classics editions - 10,000+ hbks and by time of BC...

A newly updated edition of the landmark translation by the esteemed Biblical scholar The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean desert between 1947 and 1956 transformed our...

Eusebius is regarded as *the* historian of Christian antiquity Eusebius's account is the only surviving historical record of the Church during its crucial first 300 years. Bishop Eusebius, a learned...

A new translation of Dostoyevsky's great novel of suffering and sickness Inspired by an image of Christ's suffering, Dostoyevsky set out to create a protagonist with \"a truly beautiful soul\"...

"I think this version is terrific. The light enjambed English hexameters are a great success. The effect is properly propulsive." - Prof A D Nuttall, Oxford Ovid's deliciously witty and...

Robin Kirkpatrick's superb translation of the most famous work of Italian literature, in a one-volume edition The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his...

Aristotole's examination of the nature of happiness In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets out to examine the nature of happiness. He argues that happiness consists in 'activity of the soul...

Rilke's powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet, now in Penguin Classics At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a...

First time this book has been published as a Penguin Classic Ambrosio, the worthy superior of the Capuchins of Madrid, falls to the temptations of Matilda, a fiend-inspired wanton who,...

The definitive version of Jane Austen's timeless novel of love's triumph over adversity When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is...

George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search...

Elegant and rich Persian poetry Thirteenth-century Persian philosopher, mystic, scholar and founder of the order of the Whirling Dervishes, Jelaluddin Rumi was also a poet of transcendental power. His inspirational...

Penguin Classics relaunch In Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in...

A new translation by Richard Pevear Young D'Artagnan arrives in Paris to join the King's elite guards, but almost immediately finds he is duelling with some of the very men...

The original Gothic novel On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. His calculating father Manfred fears that his dynasty...

For the bicentennial of its first publication, Mary Shelley's original 1818 text, introduced by National Book Critics Circle award-winner Charlotte Gordon. Mary Shelley's classic novel, presented in its original 1818...

A fascinating collection of medieval Arabic travel writing, translated into English by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a...

A rich new selection of Buddhist writings, representing the full range of historical periods, geographical origins and literary styles. While Buddhism has no central text such as the Bible or...

A new translation of Sade's most notorious, shocking and influential novel This horrible but hugely important text has influenced countless individuals throughout history- Flaubert and Baudelaire both read Sade; the...

Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects the tradition of Western thought with its notions of truth and...

Woolf's innovative modernist novel, in a new Black Classics edition Tracing the lives of a group of friends, this novel follows their development from childhood to middle age. While social...

New translation of one of the central texts of Sanskrit The Bhagavad Gita is an early epic poem that recounts the conversation between Arjuna the warrior and his charioteer Krishna,...

'I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading Villette - There is something preternatural about its power' George Eliot With...

A terrifying vision of scientific progress without moral limits, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein leads the reader on an unsettling journey from the sublime beauty of the Swiss alps to the desolate...

Three sparkling short works showcasing Austen's range and humour, in a clean new setting These three short works show Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary styles, from melodrama...

New to Classics, a wide-ranging survey of the Jewish mystical tradition 'The Torah is both hidden and revealed . there is a secret meaning to the holy Torah that is...

Penguin Classics relaunch. That proud, impassioned soul, so ungovernable now that she has felt the sting of injustice' 'Medea', in which a spurned woman takes revenge upon her lover by...

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...

Penguin Classics relaunch. Writing at the time of Napoleon's greatest campaigns, Prussian soldier and writer Carl von Clausewitz created this landmark treatise on the art of warfare, which presented war...

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and...

The definitive translation of the world's oldest known epic, now revised in a second edition (2020) and updated with newly discovered material. The definitive translation of the world's oldest known...

New translation by Roger Pearson of the novel considered to be Zola's masterpiece Considered by Andre Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, Germinal...

The companion book to Beyond Good and Evil, the three essays included here offer vital insights into Nietzsche's theories of morality and human psychology Nietzsche claimed that the purpose of...

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...

An enlightening collection of works by the most eloquent advocate of Stoicism It is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us ... without it no one can lead a...

A new edition of the acclaimed translation, by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis, of this masterpiece of Persian literature Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's great mystical...

Penguin Classics relaunch The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter...