Penguin Black Spine

The volume that completes our new 4-book collection of Euripides plays. Through their sheer range, daring innovation, flawed but eloquent characters and intriguing plots, the plays of Euripides have shocked...

One of the greatest philosophical works of all time, in a new translation for the twenty-first century Widely regarded as one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth...

Aristotle's probing look at the fundamental questions of philosophy The Metaphysics presents Aristotle's mature rejection of both the Platonic theory that what we perceive is just a pale reflection of...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. When young prince Hamlet is...

Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person account of one of the most startling military episodes in history- the overthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruthless Hernan...

Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus up to the death of Nero in AD 68. With clarity...

Drawing on his fascination with African lore and his love of adventure to create a seminal work of fantasy, H. Rider Haggard's She is edited with an introduction by Patrick...

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling tales of the supernatural Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings,...

The anniversary paperback edition of our new On the Origin of Species edited by Professor William Bynum This exciting anniversary edition has a new introduction and scholarly references by William...

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Lermontov's only novel was influential for many later nineteenth-century authors, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian...

new to Modern Classics Katharine Hilbery is beautiful and privileged but uncertain of her future. She must choose between becoming engaged to the oddly prosaic poet William, and her dangerous...

A thrillingly dark novel from 'Japan's Agatha Christie' (Sunday Times) While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a...

Penguin Classics relaunch A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful,...

The essential 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 1923,...

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...

A revised edition of a classic translation, with completely new editorial material Taking the form of a dialogue between Socrates, Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, GORGIAS debates perennial questions about the...

with an introduction by Lorna Sage Innovative, startlingly perceptive and aglow with colour, these fifteen stories were written towards the end of Katherine Mansfield's tragically short life. Many are set...

'Gogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange' Vladimir Nabokov Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and...

In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerge a series of subtle reflections on gender...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery A noble but impoverished Venetian asks a friend, Antonio, for a loan to...

Penguin Classics relaunch The hero of Charlotte Bronte's first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There, however, his entanglement...

New critical introduction, outlining the novel's publishing history, and discussing its reception, the character of Little Nell, Dickens's style, and the illustrations The tale of Little Nell gripped the nation...

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...

Published to co-incide with the pbk of Claire Tomalin's Whitbread Prize-winning biography The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events - the Restoration, the...

Hume's masterpiece on human nature, attacking traditional religious thought One of the most significant works of Western philosophy, Hume's Treatise was published in 1739-40, before he was thirty years old....

A new and original anthology that introduces the use of rhetoric in the classical world, from Aristotle to Cicero and beyond Classical rhetoric is one of the earliest versions of...

Vivid biographies of famous characters from the Ancient Greek world, in a revised edition of Ian Scott-Kilvert's seminal translation The Parallel Lives of Plutarch are cornerstones of Western literature, and...

The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity, Aeschylus' The Oresteia is translated by Robert fagles with an introduction, notes and glossary written in collaboration with W.B. Stanford...

The fourth volume of Livy's history of the Roman Empire In The War with Hannibal, Livy (59 BC-AD 17) chronicles the events of the Second Punic War between Rome and...

Penguin Classics relaunch Keats's first volume of poems, published in 1817, demonstrated both his belief in the consummate power of poetry and his liberal views. While he was criticized by...

Penguin Classics relaunch A new selection of Vincent Van Gough's letters, based on an entirely new translation, revealing his religious struggles, his fascination with the French Revolution, his search for...

New edition of this classic novel, edited by Philip Horne and Ruth Yeazell This story of the alliance between Italian aristocracy and American millionaires is "a work unique among all...

Penguin Classics relaunch. When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon...

New to Classics The Book of Chuang Tzu draws together the stories, tales, jokes and anecdotes that have gathered around the figure of Chuang Tzu. One of the great founders...

The original handbook of decadence - has enjoyed a cult readership since its publication, with fans including Oscar Wilde and Marianne Faithfull The hero of this curious novel is des...

Xenophon's fascinating defence of Socratic thought After the execution of Socrates in 399 BC, a number of his followers wrote dialogues featuring him as the protagonist and, in so doing,...

One of the most startling literary debuts of all time, now in Penguin Black Classics As the First World War reaches its final year, an illicit love affair is beginning...

A comic masterpiece that has never been out of print since it was first published in 1889, Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat includes an introduction and notes...

A new edition of the finest poems by Tennyson Tennyson's poetry epitomizes the Victorian age, for which he became a spokesman. His finest poems are often steeped in a sensuous...

A landmark, searing critique of pornography that condemns how culture consumes and manipulates images of women and eroticises male dominance 'Pornography is the orchestrated destruction of women's bodies and souls...

A disturbing, enthralling, Sensation novel Weathering critical scorn, Lady Audley's Secret quickly established Mary Elizabeth Braddon as the leading light of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, sharing the honour only with Wilkie...

Burke's hugely influential work - particularly in art - on the sublime and the beautiful Edmund Burke was one of the foremost philosophers of the eighteenth century and wrote widely...

St Ignatius' thoughts and work on Christian spirituality One of the key figures in Christian history, St. Ignatius of Loyola (c. 1491-1556) was a passionate and unique spiritual thinker and...

The legends surrounding the royal house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create a powerful trilogy of mankind's struggle aginst fate. KING OEDIPUS tells of a man who brings pestilence to...

A compelling narrative of the life of the greatest conqueror of all time- Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt,...

New translation and new to Penguin Classics This is Bulgakov's surreal tale of a Moscow doctor who befriends a stray dog and performs on it a human transplant - with...

A new selection of foundational works from the influential philosopher who developed the theory of mimetic desire Rene Girard eludes easy categories, bridging the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, sociology,...

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,...