Poetry & Plays

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...

Ovid's poems on the experience of sexual desire This collection of Ovid's poems deals with the whole spectrum of sexual desire, ranging from deeply emotional declarations of eternal devotion to...

A new edition of Christina Rossetti's poetry This new selection of Rossetti's poems brings together works by one of the most significant nineteenth-century English poets. It includes an illuminating introduction,...

"I have come to have a feeling, almost a superstition, that it is a kind of obligation laid upon me to testify for Rudyard Kipling whenever the opportunity presents itself",...

Poems organised according to genre, to demonstrate the progress and variety Coleridge achieved Living in a revolutionary age, Coleridge's poetry was written in a spirit of moral and emotional inquiry...

The complete collection of Donne's poems, including his famous Holy Sonnets, 'The Flea' and 'The Sun Rising' No poet has been more wilfully contradictory than John Donne, whose works forge...

READ THE STORY BEHIND THE NEW BBC/NETFLIX EPIC SERIES, TROY- FALL OF A CITY A stunning new translation of Homer's great war epic, the legendary tale of honour, love, loss...

A beautiful new collection of poetry from one of Britain's best-loved poets From 'Adultery in Isolation' to 'After You. No, After You' to 'Seaside Staycation,' a new collection from one...

The landmark poetry collection that transformed 20th-century Arabic poetry, in a brilliant new translation by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and Ivan Eubanks Written in the early 1960s by Adonis, 'the most...

The most acclaimed volume of poetry by the legendary 'Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet' I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old...

A new collection of Pushkin's great narrative and lyric verse, translated by Antony Wood WINNER OF THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2020 Alexander Pushkin established what we know as Russian literature....

The critically acclaimed exploration of mounting racial aggressions in 21st century daily life and in the media In this moving, critical and fiercely intelligent collection of prose poems, Claudia Rankine...

Published to coincide with the release of the film Bright Star, written and directed by Oscar Winner Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut), starring Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth- The Golden...

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...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery Pericles, Prince of Tyre, must solve a riddle in order to marry the...

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...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery In need of money, the fat and foolish Falstaff devises a scheme to...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery The jealous King of Sicily becomes convinced that his wife is carrying the...

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...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery When it seems that Julius Caesar may assume supreme power, a plot to...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery The King of Britain, enraged by his daughter's disobedience in marrying against his...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery It is the seventh year of the Trojan War. The Greek army is...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery An embittered Roman General returns from war, having captured the Queen of the...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery A poor physician's daughter cures the King of France, and in return is...

A new translation of the most widely known and popular collection of Japanese poetry The best-loved and most widely read of all Japanese poetry collections, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu contains...

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...

'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked' Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. This...

W.B. Yeats's Selected Poems is edited with an introduction and notes by Timothy Webb in Penguin Modern Classics. Few have lived their ideas so passionately and nobly as W.B. Yeats...

For the first time in Penguin Classics, a new translation of Sappho's complete poetry More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west...

'An important book ... William Radice's introduction is excellent' Sunday Times The poems of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) are among the most haunting and tender in Indian and in world literature,...

The definitive translation of the world's oldest known epic, now revised in a second edition (2020) and updated with newly discovered material. The definitive translation of the world's oldest known...

"the perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism... likely to be the best modern version of Dante." - Bernard O'Donoghue Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil...

New translation of a book that has sold over 100,000 in its previous version A new translation of the idiosyncratic diary of a C10 court lady in Heian Japan. Along...

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...

Deeply sensitive and faithful to the original work, Guy Lee's verse translation is here paralleled by the original Latin text. Haunting and enigmatic, Virgil's Eclogues combined a Greek literary form...

Only widely-available edition of Khayyam's lyrical poetry Revered in eleventh-century Persia as an astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, Omar Khayyam is now known first and foremost for his Ruba'iyat. The short...

'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,...

'The most moving lines literature has achieved' Jorge Luis Borges Beginning with Dante's liberation from Hell, Purgatory relates his ascent, accompanied by Virgil, of the Mount of Purgatory - a...

Dante's descent into the Underworld to find his lost love. Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards...

The verses have influenced artists from the Renaissance onwards, from Botticelli to Shelley and Tennyson, Andre Gide and Stravinsky. Composed for recitation at festivals, these 33 songs were written in...

A selection of Browning's finest works, including the chilling 'My Last Duchess' and the popular 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' Robert Browning was one of the greatest of English poets,...

A wonderful collection of Housman's much-loved poetry, new to Penguin Classics A. E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and...

Part of a series of new editions of Lawrence's works From early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the ground-breaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts...

Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems...

With an introduction that discusses Blake's life and career, his reputation and the major themes of his work, and explores the relationship between the poetry and the illustrations. Writer and...

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 fresh selection of Wordsworth's poetry from the poet's biographer. One of the major poets of Romanticism, Wordsworth epitomized the spirit of his age with his celebration of the natural...