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...

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...

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 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...

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...

Traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, an older contemporary of Confucius (551 - 479 BC), it is now thought that the work was compiled in about the fourth century BC. An...

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....

A major anthology of great Japanese short stories, now in Penguin Classics This fantastically varied and exciting collection celebrates the great Japanese short story, from its modern origins in the...

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 most influential political statement of the twentieth century The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, is one of the most important and influential...

One of the greatest works of philosophy, political theory, and literature ever produced, Plato's Republic has shaped Western thought for thousands of years, and remains as relevant today as when...

A new translation of the oldest non-canonical Christian gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Judas In the early years of Christianity, several...

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...

Penguin Classics relaunch Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading romances of chivalry that he determines to become a knight errant and pursue bold adventures, accompanied by his squire,...

"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...

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\"...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The international bestselling tale of love and loss in 1920s Berlin, now a Penguin Classics paperback 'The pain of losing something precious can be forgotten over time. But our missed...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

'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...

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. 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

One of the most influential - and best loved - spiritual autobiographies Born in the Castilian town of vila in 1515, Teresa entered the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation when...

A selection of Lafcadio Hearn's brilliantly entertaining and eerie ghost stories, regarded as major classics in Japan In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out...

A new translation and abridgement of one of the four classical Chinese novels, this is the epic story of the fall of the Han dynasty and rise of the Three...