Classic Fiction

Penguin Classics relaunch The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and Franklin piece together a puzzling series...

A beautiful heiress is fatally poisoned in a West End restaurant… Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary – in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously. No one present on that fateful night would ever...

STAGED - Timeless tropes, enduring stories - a new Puffin Classics collection. I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest. Love, deception and discord are flourishing in the court of Messina. Sweet, innocent Hero and the famed soldier Claudio are immediately infatuated, while the bickering Beatrice and Benedick can agree on just one...

Puffin Classics—the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child. Rediscover the Puffin Classics collection and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation, including this charming edition of Just So Stories. The delightful tales of whales and cats and kangaroos and crabs include everything from how the camel got in a humph (and got his hump!) to how the...

Rediscover Puffin Classics - the world's favourite stories. An ancient book is opened by the eccentric Professor Lidenbrock and his life - and the life of his nephew Axel - is changed forever. An old piece of paper has tumbled from the book, a priceless parchment that will lead them on a terrifying journey to find what lies at the...

A marvel of psychological insight from one of the most important Italian literary figures of the twentieth century. This enormously engaging, strange novel is both an engrossing saga of a family and a hilarious account of addiction and failure. Its helpless hero, notionally undergoing psychiatric help, manages spectacularly to fail to give up smoking, run his business, or make sense...

A gorgeous clothbound edition of Jean Rhys's great masterpiece of desire and madness in the Caribbean. Jean Rhys's late masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn...

A beautiful new edition to accompany the Brontës' other great novels in Penguin Clothbound Classics. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster, and her own...

Vanity Fair is Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure, presented in a gorgeous new clothbound edition. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, this edition is designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. No one is better equipped in...

Now a feature film based on the Booker Prize-winning novel. As he flees the police, Ned Kelly scribbles his narrative in semi-literate but magically descriptive prose. To his pursuers, he is a thief and a murderer. To his own people, he's a hero for opposing the English. Ned, who saw his first prison cell at fifteen, has become the most...

Vintage Voyages - A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind. Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene takes us on a wild, unconventional, and enlightening voyage with an ordinary, retired bank manager and his eccentric, daring aunt. Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in...

To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionist depiction of a family holiday, and a meditation on a marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. Its use of stream of consciousness, reminiscence and shifting perspectives give the novel an intimate, poetic essence. At the time of publication in 1927, it represented an utter rejection of Victorian...

Beautifully designed, clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful...

The classic English children’s novel of three young friends and one special garden, stunningly reimagined in a deluxe full-colour edition, is illustrated with beautiful artwork and unique interactive features created by the award-winning design studio behind the graphics for the Harry Potter film franchise, MinaLima—sure to delight fans of the live-action film versions coming in 2018 from Disney and Universal...

An unforgettable portrait of a woman bravely confronting loneliness and despair in her quest for self-determination, from the author of Wide Sargasso Sea. Jean Rhys was a talent before her time, with an impressive ability to express the anguish of young, single women. In Good Morning, Midnight, Rhys created the powerfully modern portrait of Sophia Jansen, whose emancipation is far...

With an introduction and notes by Terence Brown Dubliners, Joyce's first major work, was written when he was only twenty-five, bringing his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption, and...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart. A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with the illegitimate child of...

One of the great novels of the twentieth century, now in a wonderful new cover. The Rainbow chronicles the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family over a period of more than 60 years, setting them against the emergence of modern England. The central figure of Ursula becomes the focus of Lawrence's examination of relationships and the conflicts they...

A new edition of Henry James's great masterpiece about a spirited young American in Europe, edited by Philip Horne. When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy her freedom, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics - irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. The gift of a handsomely decorated, enigmatic nutcracker sets the stage for a Christmas like no other. There will be legends of ancient curses, battles with the dreaded Mouse King, and a visit to the...

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge. However, behind his success always lurks the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone...

A stunning clothbound edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge, a haunting study of guilt and lost love. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife...

One of the greatest novels ever written, now in a wonderful new clothbound edition. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire, defies any attempt to categorise it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy...

In the final years of his life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist and also produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces. The poignant The Lady with the Little Dog and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage — its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. In stories...

New edition of Kipling's best-loved book, featuring such unforgettable characters as Mowgli the man-cub, Baloo the bear and Shere Khan the tiger. The story of Mowgli, the man-cub who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters...

The Garden Party and Other Stories comes 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 in the author's native New Zealand, others in England and the French Riviera. All stories are revelations of the unspoken, half-understood emotions that...

Part of the Les Rougon-Macquart series, The Drinking Den explores two branches of a French family traced through several generations. The behaviour of the two families is depicted as being influenced by environmental factors and inherited characteristics, particularly focusing on themes of drunkenness and mental instability.

As David and Rosalind grow older, it becomes more difficult to conceal the differences which would label them as mutants from the village elders. Soon, they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands. The Chrysalids is a post-nuclear apocalypse story of genetic mutation in a devastated world. It explores the lengths the...

A new translation of Stendhal's masterpiece chronicling the fortunes of Febrice del Dongo at an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France. Headstrong and naive, the young Italian aristocrat Fabrizio del Dongo is determined to defy the wrath of his right-wing father and go to war to fight for Napoleon. He stumbles on the Battle of Waterloo, ill-prepared, yet filled with enthusiasm...

The Castle, Kafka's last great, unfinished novel, hangs over the whole modern era like a nightmare. This edition includes a new introduction and notes by John Zilcosky. The Castle tells the story of K., an unwanted Land Surveyor who is never admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, yet cannot return home. As he faces the dualities of...

New translation by Roger Whitehouse for this tale of murder, passion, and possession. La Bête humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level, a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics- irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Few writers have expressed loneliness, the need for human understanding and the search for love with such power and poetic sensibility as the American writer Carson McCullers. The Ballad of the Sad Café is her masterpiece—an...

Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilisation? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the power and originality of Defoe's famous book. 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Pygmalion is George Bernard Shaw’s classic play and satire of the British class system, first performed in 1913.

Peril at End House is Agatha Christie’s sensational mystery thriller set in her Devonshire homeland. On holiday in Cornwall, Poirot meets a pretty young woman with an unusual name, Nick Buckley. Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick’s sun hat, the great detective decides the girl needs his protection. He also begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn’t...

One of the greatest of the Rougon-Macquart series, Zola's prostitute represents the destructiveness of a corrupt and decaying society. Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Théâtre des Variétés. She soon rises from the streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of her...

Madame Bovary presents the compelling story of Emma Bovary, a beautiful yet dissatisfied woman, trapped in her mundane marriage to a mediocre doctor. Stifled by the banality of provincial life, Emma becomes an ardent reader of sentimental novels, longing for the passionate adventures she reads about. In pursuit of these desires, Emma indulges in fantasies of high romance, engages in...

The searing, tragic French classic in a gorgeous clothbound edition. Madame 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 for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her...

Beautifully designed, clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her...

Kipling's masterpiece about a boy's journey through imperial India, edited by Harish Trivedi. Kim is Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India and is also his greatest long work. Two men - Kim, a boy growing into early manhood, and the lama, an old ascetic priest - are fired by a quest. Kim is white, although born in...

Jude the Obscure tells the story of Jude Fawley, a stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege. He finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union, it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless...

The new paperback series- Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of Howards End by E. M. Forster 'The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can' 'Only connect.' is the idea at the heart of this book, a heartbreaking and...

The new paperback series – Penguin English Library. 'The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape...

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in...

Launching a major new paperback series - Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens "What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?" "I can't guess what it is, ma'am." "It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!" Great Expectations, Dickens's funny, frightening and...

The mysterious tale of an orphan who is made into a gentleman, with one of the best opening scenes you'll ever read! 'Hold your noise! Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!' Little orphan Pip scarcely imagines how a terrifying encounter with a convict on the lonely marshes will later transform his life. Pip is more troubled...

Eight years ago, Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married—until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up, and he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlowe meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe’s...

Rediscover a dread of Dracula in this handsome new Vintage Classics edition. Within the pages of this book can be found one of the most terrifying creatures in all of literature. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOSEPH O'CONNOR Rediscover a dread of Dracula in this beautifully designed new Vintage Classics edition. This classic of horror writing is composed of diary entries,...

Daniel Deronda, George Eliot's last novel, is a richly textured portrait of British society and the Jewish experience within it. As the story opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English upper classes. While Gwendolen loses...

Beautifully designed, clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Cranford, Gaskell's best-known work, is set in a small rural town, inhabited largely by women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and...

When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders, an eccentric group of relatives suffering from a wide variety of ailments. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. Armed with common sense...

A beautiful clothbound edition of Waugh's great novel of the lost golden age before the Second World War. The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmain family and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they...

Bleak House by Charles Dickens is a Dickensian sweeping family saga, presented in a gorgeous new clothbound edition. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, these delectable and collectible editions are designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. They are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce...

Sabrina is a firebird blazing through 1950s New York: she is a woman daring to enjoy the sexual licence that men have always known. Weaving a sensual web of deceit as she plays dangerous games of desire, she deliberately avoids commitment, gripped by the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. In A Spy in the House of Love, Anaïs...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics—irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Beautiful, bored, and bourgeois, Sabina leads a double life inspired by her relentless desire for fleeting romance. But when the secrecy of her affairs becomes too much to bear, Sabina makes a late night phone call to...

One ill-fated evening at the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions 20,000 pounds that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days - and he is determined not to lose. Travelling by train, steamship, sailing boat, sledge and even elephant, the reserved Englishman and his manservant must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks and...

A new translation of this ever-popular adventure story, featuring an introduction by Brian Aldiss. One night in the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and...

A delightfully satiric comedy of manners and an immensely satisfying love story. 'You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you . . .' Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened...

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 unquenchable optimism, he throws himself into the strange experiences that lie before him as he slowly makes his way into the interior of the great continent. Kafka's first novel (begun...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's tender and magical classic fable, adapted for picture book readers for the very first time! Please – draw me a sheep. I blinked. The voice belonged to a charming little prince. The characters of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic tale have captured the hearts of generations of readers. Meet the pilot stranded in the desert. Meet the Little...

A stunning clothbound edition of Tolstoy's great novel, soon to be a major BBC drama. At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon's army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical...

War looms in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and when Napoleon invades Russia in 1812, it forever changes those whose lives it engulfs. Although told on a panoramic scale, Tolstoy's epic novel focuses on the chaos of battle, the horror of death and bloodshed, and the expression of the noble virtues of love and valour through their impact on the...

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 beautiful gypsy dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmerelda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy...

On an ordinary summer's afternoon, Alice tumbles down a hole and an extraordinary adventure begins. In a strange world with even stranger characters, she meets a grinning cat and a rabbit with a pocket watch, joins a mad tea-party, and plays croquet with the Queen! Lost in this fantasy land, Alice finds herself growing more and more curious by the...

A man is shot at in a juvenile reform home – but someone else dies… Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr...

Jane Austen's masterworks in a single beautiful Penguin English Library volume. Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Here in one volume are her seven great novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. Through her vivacious and spirited...

One of the greatest translations of all time, Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three stunning clothbound volumes designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love, and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time,...

One of the greatest translations of all time – Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three stunning clothbound volumes designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 1 is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A...

Captain Hastings recounts 18 of Poirot’s early cases from the days before he was famous… Hercule Poirot delighted in telling people that he was probably the best detective in the world. So turning back the clock to trace eighteen of the cases which helped establish his professional reputation was always going to be a fascinating experience. With his career still...

Eight years ago, Anne rejected the man she loved because her friends and family persuaded her that he wasn't rich or important enough. In all that time, she's never found anyone to match Captain Wentworth. With her snobbish father and spoiled sister always ready to embarrass her in polite society, Anne wonders if she'll ever find the courage to follow...

Jane Austen’s Persuasion is now available in an exclusive collector’s edition featuring a delicate laser-cut jacket on a textured book with foil stamping and ribbon marker, ideal for fiction lovers and book collectors alike. The Persuasion Jane Austen Collection Edition: Presents Jane Austen’s final fully completed novel, viewed by many literary scholars as her most maturely written work; its 1817...

A middle-aged diplomat is accosted in an airport lounge, and his identity is stolen... Sir Stafford Nye’s journey home from Malaya to London takes an unexpected twist in the passenger lounge at Frankfurt. A young woman confides in him that someone is trying to kill her. Yet their paths are to cross again and again – and each time, the...

What secrets lie in the past? Fifteen years ago, during the Great War, Louise Leidner’s first husband was tried as a spy, sentenced to death, and then escaped, only to die in a train crash. So how is he sending her death threats from beyond the grave? Death threats upon which someone has followed through. Only the world’s greatest detective...

An all-new collection of winter-themed mysteries from the master of the genre, just in time for the festive period. There's a chill in the air and the days are growing shorter… It's the perfect time to curl up in front of a crackling fireplace with this winter-themed collection from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. But beware of deadly snowdrifts and...

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library 'We have all been more or less to blame ... every one of us, excepting Fanny' Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole...

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—and often outrageous—early stories, sketches, and pieces of nonsense. Jane Austen's earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years old and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into...

These three short works show Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of social classes and settings. The early epistolary novel Lady Susan depicts an unscrupulous coquette, toying with the affections of several men. In contrast, The Watsons is a delightful fragment, whose spirited heroine—Emma—finds her marriage opportunities limited by...

The inspiration for A Haunting in Venice – now a major motion picture. When a Hallowe’en party turns deadly, it falls to Hercule Poirot to unmask a murderer… During a night of party games, Joyce Reynolds boasts that she once witnessed a murder. No one believes her, but then she is found drowned, face down in an apple-bobbing tub. Set...

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition...and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. Set in the fictional country village of Highbury and its surrounding estates, Emma involves the relationships among people from a small number of upper class families. It is a novel...