Penguin Paperbacks

'One of the best novels of recent years, a complete success'-Le Monde (France) 'One of the best novels of recent years, a complete success'-Le Monde (France) Following years of unrequited...

David Malouf's first novel recreates the war-conscious forties, the pubs and brothels of the fifties, and the years away treading water overseas. 'Despite Johnno's assertion that Brisbane was absolutely the...

One of the great observers of Australian life, Henry Lawson looms large in our national psyche. Yet at his best Lawson transcends the very bush, the very outback, the very...

Tim Winton's Breath, winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, is a story about the wildness of youth and learning to live with its passing. Tim Winton's Breath, winner of...

'Thoroughly engrossing ... his literary gifts and prodigious research make for a deeply satisfying reading experience studded with narrative surprise, hopping back and forth between El Salvador and the wider...

A lively cultural history of the book from a charmingly idiosyncratic bookseller 'The right book has a neverendingness, and so does the right bookshop.' This is the story of our...

New to Penguin Classics, the remarkable, devastating collected stories by the author of Wide Sargasso Sea Some of Jean Rhys's most powerful writing is to be found in this rich,...

How do babies learn to speak? Why are there so many languages? Do we think in our mother tongue? Who decides what's correct English? How did language evolve? In this...

The perennially popular book of advice on how to achieve personal and professional success, new to Penguin Classics Written over 350 years ago, The Pocket Oracle and the Art of...

New to Penguin Classics In 1933 Robert Byron began a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Teheran to Oxiana--the country of the Oxus, the ancient name...

Published alongisde other Conrad's works, on the 150th anniversary of his death Heart of Darkness has been considered for most of this century as a literary classic, and also as...

Rediscover H.G. Wells - what does he mean to you? When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful...

Penguin Classics relaunch At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break...

The next in our rejacketing of a crucial Classics author Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John...

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,...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery The bitter, deformed brother of the King is secretly plotting to seize the...

This sparkling collection of Austen's early writings - some penned when she was just eleven years old - is playful, subversive and shot through with wit. Jane Austen's brilliant, hilarious...

The Koran, in a masterful, fully revised translation The Koran is universally accepted by Muslims to be the infallible Word of God as first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by...

Written by a Communist insider, a candid portrait of one of the most dangerous men in history This extraordinarily vivid and unnerving book three meetings held with Stalin during and...

Mad, lascivious, sadistic and ridiculous, the provincial schoolteacher Peredonov torments his students and has hallucinatory fantasies about acts of savagery and degradation, yet to everyone else he is an upstanding...

An unsettling story of a teenage girl's self-destruction from the author of The Lottery Natalie Waite, daughter of a mediocre writer and a neurotic housewife, is increasingly unsure of her...

A breathtaking international bestselling novel about family secrets, and Javier Marias's masterpiece In the middle of a family lunch Teresa, just married, goes to the bathroom, unbuttons her blouse and...

Le Carre shows espionage at its best and worst in this novel, new to Penguin Modern Classics When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic...

An extraordinary collection of essays arguing for literature's complicity with evil, new to Penguin Modern Classics 'Literature is not innocent,' stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays,...

Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, this volume presents the songs with music, and annotations on their original sources and meaning. The definitive collection of...

A tale of wasted love, and beauty, by Japan's literary master Shimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the...

A funny and charming novel about four women in Italy, introduced by Salley Vickers A notice in The Times addressed to 'Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine' advertises a 'small...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, as part of our Achebe relaunch Ezeulu, headstrong chief priest of the god Ulu, is worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. But he is...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, to tie in with the release of the Steven Spielberg film, and with a new introduction by Brian Aldiss Matthew's parents are worried. At eleven,...

New to Penguin Modern Classics Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. No woman...

'He's a writer who, once you read him, makes you want to read everything he's done' Martin Amis, Sunday Times Prosperous, good-looking and empty inside, 28-year-old advertising executive David Bell...

With a new introduction by Christopher de Bellaigue Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution...

Reissuing in Penguin Modern Classics as part of our Paul Bowles relaunch, with a new introduction by Paul Theroux 'The Sheltering Sky is a book about people on the edge...

The captivating autobiography by one of America's most influential folk singers, Woody Gutherie Bound for Glory is the funny, cynical and earthy autobiography of Woody Guthrie, the father of American...

NADJA is a Surrealist romance, and has come to be known as a book which defined that movement's attitude towards life. With its blend of intimate confession and sense of...

A new collection of some of Cicero's greatest and most stirring speeches, translated by Siobhan McElduff Cicero (106-43BC) was the most brilliant orator in Classical history. Even one of the...

This edition contains a revision of the existing translation, revision of chronology and genealogy, and a new introduction of 4-6000 words, new notes and a new selection of further reading...

A vivid and richly anecdotal portrait of Spartan society. Plutarch's vivid and engaging portraits of the Spartans and their customs are a major source of our knowledge about the rise...

The best of Gogol in a single volume - his most famous drama and the most brilliant of his short stories. Author, dramatist and satirist, Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) deeply influenced...

This edition includes a list of suggestions for further reading, a glossary of important philosophical words and phrases, notes Exploring the question of what exactly makes good people good, Protagoras...

New to Penguin Classics, this is Chekhov's only full-length novel When a young woman dies during a shooting party at the country estate of a dissolute count, a magistrate is...

Three stories that form Flaubert's last complete work and reveal him as a master of the short story form. First published in 1877, these three stories are dominated by questions...

New translation by Alicia Stallings, with an introduction by Richard Jenkyns Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry...

Penguin Classics relaunch A penetrating account of Greek tragedy, it demonstrates how the elements of plot, character and spectacle combine to produce 'pity and fear' - and why we derive...

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...

Nietzsche's final testament of his beliefs In late 1888, only weeks before his final collapse into madness, Nietzsche (1844-1900) set out to compose his autobiography, and Ecce Homo remains one...

Aristotle's profoundly influential examination of the concept of the soul For the Pre-Socratic philosophers the soul was the source of movement and sensation, while for Plato it was the seat...

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,...