Penguin Modern Classics

Marc Chagall's colourful, hilarious, dream-like autobiography Chagall was born in Witebsk in White Russia, the son of a herring merchant who lived opposite a laundress and a chimney sweep. After...

A short, brilliantly evocative novel set in the bleak eastern European borderlands before the First World War An artillery officer is persuaded by his resentful wife to leave the Austro-Hungarian...

Part biography, part detective story- the extraordinary life of the eccentric writer Frederick Baron Corvo One summer afternoon A.J.A. Symons is handed a peculiar novel called Hadrian the Seventh and,...

Jody Tiflin has the urge for rebellion, but he also wants to be loved. In THE RED PONY, Jody begins to learn about adulthood - its pain, its responsibilities and...

Author: R. D. Laing Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 240 Laing's radical approach to insanity offered a rich existential analysis of personal alienation and made him a cult figure in...

A shimmering collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, translated into English for the first time A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a...

A new translation of this haunting collection of short stories that evoke 1930s Ferrara, with an introduction by Ali Smith Isolated lives and a lost world are evoked in these...

The final masterwork that was nearly destroyed, from one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century Dr Philip Wild, a man of brilliance, wit, fortune and tremendous bulk, is...

A masterpiece of American literature, Call It Sleep is a glorious ode to the migrant experience David Schearl arrives in America in his mother's arms. Waiting for them is a...

Spain's greatest and most well-loved modern poet, Lorca has long been admired for the emotional intensity and dark brilliance of his work, which drew on music, drama, mythology and the...

The British Secret Service turn their attentions to a linguistic prodigy in the Congo in this espionage thriller, new to Penguin Modern Classics At a top-secret meeting between Western financiers...

In the penultimate novel in the series Maigret investigates a crime in Paris's seedy red light district The body of a well-known Parisian restaurateur turns up on Avenue Junot in...

A powerful collection of sermons by Martin Luther King, Jr., published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time As Martin Luther King, Jr. prepared for the Birmingham campaign in...

Truman Capote began writing when he was eight and became one of America's most versatile and gifted authors.A Capote Readercontains much of his published work- his dazzling fiction, includingBreakfast at...

Bennett's remarkable 'sermon against parental tyranny' set in the industrial world of early twentieth century England Against the beautifully evoked backdrop of the Potteries district, the 'Five Towns'--a gossipy community...

A sensational and mystical novel from one of the 20th century's greatest modernist writers A Breath of Life is Clarice Lispector's final novel, 'written in agony', which she did not...

New to Penguin Classics For more than two thousand years, Sun-tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics and management strategies. An elemental part...

When an unbridled schoolmistress with advanced ideas is in her prime the classroom can take on a new identity and no one can predict what will happen. Jean Brodie is...

Sci-fi meets the Old West in this obscene and hilarious novel from Naked Lunch author and Beat icon William S. Burroughs This surreal fable, set in America's Old West, features...

Years in insurance and marriage to the joyless Hilda have been no more than death in life to George Bowling. This and fear of another war take his mind back...

An indispensable addition to the canon of Burroughs's works, this series of short stories and sketches guides the reader through his literary evolution Interzone portrays the development of Burroughs's mature...

A man, dispirited by ageing, endeavours to steal a younger man's face; a doctor yearns for a virus that might eliminate his discomfort by turning everyone else into doubles of...

In one of the wittiest novels of them all, Nancy Mitford casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class. Set in...

Kerouac's stunningly vivid and gritty second novel, new to Penguin Modern Classics In 1960 Jack Kerouac was near breaking point. Driven mad by constant press attention in the wake of...

One of fifteen new translations of Freud's key writings, this project, under the general editorship of Adam Phillips, reimagines one of the modern era's greatest writers One of Freud's central...

One of the most remarkable artists of our age.' MARIO VARGAS LLOSA THE BOOK OF SAND was the last of Borges' major collections to be published. The stories are, in...

With a new introduction by Emma Larkin Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma, Burmese Days describes both indigenous corruption and Imperial bigotry, when...

The new Penguin Freud, under Adam Phillips' general editorship, offers a fantastic opportunity to see Freud in a fresh light. This endlessly beguiling, suggestive, thought-provoking writer can be appreciated nowhere...

Saki is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England's 'Golden Afternoon' - the slow and peaceful years before the First World War. Although, like so many of his generation, he...

Reissue of the collected stories, now including 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', the extraordinary fable of a man who lives his life backwards Encompassing the very best of F....

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...

Published for the centenary of his birth, a gathering of lucid, intensely lyrical poetry from one of the twentieth century's pre-eminent literary voices be courageous when reason fails you be...

An uproarious exploration of Carribean immigrant experience from one of the great writers of the twentieth century Moses thinks he's got it made. Originally a poor Caribbean immigrant, he is...

A brilliant feminist novel from Weimar Germany, from the author of Child of All Nations Gilgi knows where she's going in life- she's ambitious, determined and fearless. She's not even...

Pip switches identities, sexes, and centuries in Kathy Acker's brilliant experimental explosion of literature, sex and art 'New York City is very peaceful and quiet, and the pale grey mists...

Enthralling and thought-provoking, The Little Drummer Girl is le Carre's only spy novel set in the Middle East, and is now published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time....

Kawabata's serenely observed and enormously affecting portrait of old age Ogata Shingo is growing old, and his memory is failing him. At night he hears only the sound of death...

One of America's most influential and admired short story writers, new to Penguin Modern Classics From the gothic Old South to revolutionary Mexico, few writers have evoked such a multitude...

In The House of Bernarda Alba, a tyrannical matriarch rules over her house and five daughters, cruelly crushing their hopes and needs. The other plays here also portray female characters...

Depicting the daily struggle of the individual against a tyrannical dictatorship, We the Living shows the terrible impact of a revolution on three people who demand the right to live...

New to Penguin Modern Classics on the 40th anniversary of first publication In The Empty Space, groundbreaking director Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to...

An ancient bridge collapses over a gorge in Peru, hurling five people into the abyss. It seems a meaningless human tragedy. But one witness, a Franciscan monk, believes the deaths...

A haunting, dreamlike portrayal of the encroaching horror of the Holocaust onto a genteel MittelEuropean resort town 'A masterpiece ... the greatest novel of the Holocaust' The Guardian Badenheim, a...

A startling, densely poetic portrait of 1970s Ghana as it emerges from colonial rule Winner of the Valco Fund Literary Award for Fiction and the Ghana Book Award Search Sweet...

A magnificent account of Occupied France in both the First and Second World Wars The most difficult and often savage relationship in 20th century western Europe was between the French...

An essential guide to the life and work of one of America's most controversial writers Advertisements for Myself is a comprehensive collection of the best of Norman Mailer's essays, stories,...

From the American master of historical fiction, an award-winning coming-of-age story set amidst the gangster underworld of Depression-era New York City It's 1930s New York and Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old...

All My Sons brought Miller his first major success, and continues to be a bestseller today In Joe and Kate Keller's family garden, an apple tree - a memorial to...