Penguin Black Spine

Michael Hulse's new translation perfectly conveys the unsettling beauty of the original and is accompanied by an introduction on Rilke's life and the biographical and literary influences on the Notebooks....

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...

The great German poem on the completion of the story of the Holy Grail Composed in the early thirteenth century, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival is the re-creation and completion of...

"One of the ten most significant books" - Sigmund Freud No book made a greater impact on the intellectual world of its first Victorian readers nor has had such an...

A classic of travel writing - new to Classics, with an introduction by Rolli Lucarotti 'Get away from here before you're completely bewitched and enslaved...' Dorothy Carrington was told, while...

A new translation by Alan H. Sommerstein of four of Aeschylus' most celebrated plays Aeschylus (525-456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens,...

New translation of Dante's masterpiece by acclaimed Robin Kirkpatrick In Purgatorio Dante, having described his journey into Hell, narrates his ascent of Mount Purgatory with Virgil, as he encounters penitents...

A selection of Baudelaire's explicit and unsettling poems The poems of Charles Baudelaire are filled with explicit and unsettling imagery, depicting with intensity every day subjects ignored by French literary...

A collection of political speeches from the greatest orator of Rome Amid the corruption and power struggles of the collapse of the Roman Republic, Cicero (106-43BC) produced some of the...

Caesar's own account of his struggle with Pompey over leadership of Republican Rome A military leader of legendary genius, Caesar was also a great writer, recording the events of his...

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...

A collection of Bacon's vibrant, intelligent essays covering subjects ranging from ambition to the vicissitude of things One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)...

The poignant story of an outsider falsely accused of murder from the celebrated author of the Maigret series She was beautiful, full of vitality, and he was sixteen years older,...

A lyrical translation of Kafka's first novel - a menacing allegory of modern life Karl Rossman has been banished by his parents to America, following a family scandal. There, with...

A savage indictment of British society at the turn of the century, from the author of Mrs Dalloway. The Years is the story of three generations of the Pargiter family...

A gripping novel that ultimately questions our capacity for moral strength and the depths of human integrity 'It was I who removed de P- this morning.' With these chilling words...

Part of a series of new editions of DH Lawrence's most famous novels, stories and poems Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable...

Part of a series of new editions of Henry James's most famous novels and short stories one of a series of new editions of Henry James's most famous short stories...

Peter Carson's new translation of Turgenev's vivid and honest tale of generational conflict When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond...

A new edition of the least well known of Charlotte Bronte's novels, but one of the most fascinating, for its engagement with the 'woman question' and the vivid depiction of...

Penguin Classics relaunch. The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was...

Bringing together the masterpieces of classical tragedy in one volume, this is the ideal single-volume introduction for theatre goers, actors, general readers, and students of Classics, English Literature, and Drama....

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery A vivacious woman and a high-spirited man both claim that they are determined...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery The beautiful but sharp-tongued Katherina has sworn never to accept the demands of...

The extraordinarily powerful story of an Untouchable in India's caste system, with a new introduction by Ramachandra Guha, author of Gandhi Before India Bakha is a proud and attractive young...

The provocative historical work on social economy, demography and population control Malthus' life's work on human population and its dependency on food production and the environment was highly controversial on...

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 selection of Cicero's philosophical writings on 'the good life', in a lively new translation by Thomas Habinek In the first century BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero, orator, statesman, and defender...

Plato's riveting account of the trial and death of Socrates, in a new translation by Christopher Rowe 'Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone- whether or not...

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...

One of the great masterpieces of Russian literature Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and...

One of the great works of 19th century Realism, and one of Zola's best-known novels Set in the taverns of Paris, this is perhaps the first classical tragedy of working-class...

Sallust (86-c. 35 bc) is the earliest Roman historian of whom complete works survive, a senator of the Roman Republic and younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar. His...

Perhaps his most famous work, mile Zola's Ther se Raquin is a dark and gripping story of lust, violence and guilt, set in the gloomy back streets of Paris. This...

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs...

The Black Classics edition of our glorious new translation and selection of 30 tales to mark the 200 year anniversary of Andersen's birth in 2005 With this new translation and...

A sparkling new translation of Pushkin's masterpiece Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's...

An updated translation of this risque and comic account of three travellers The Satyricon is one of the most outrageous and strikingly modern works to have survived from the ancient...

A collection of Chekhov's latest and haunting short stories In the final years of his life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, and also produced...

Recently updated and expanded volume of the landmarks of ancient literary criticism The works collected in this volume have profoundly shaped the history of criticism in the Western world- they...

A satirical, witty text from the greatest humanist of the Renaissance Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1466-1536) is one of the greatest figures of the Renaissance humanist movement, which abandoned medieval...

Two of Nietzsche's final and most devastating works 'Twilight of the Idols', an attack on all the prevalent ideas of his time, offers a lightning tour of his whole philosophy....

Hugo's Gothic tale of Quasimodo In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmerelda, a...

Maupassant's story of a man whose ideals are corrupted by the world Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as...

Rene Descartes was a central figure in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. In his Discourse on Method he outlined the contrast between mathematics and experimental sciences, and the...

'The most moving lines literature has achieved' Jorge Luis Borges In Paradise, having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory, Dante ascends to Heaven,...

A selection of Cicero's speeches and letters, which have had a profound effect on the Western liberal tradition of political thought Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero...

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...