Classic General Fiction

Another addition to Penguin Modern Classics' key Kerouac holdings, alongside On the Road, The Town and the City & The Subterraneans. As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records life on the road in prose of pure poetry. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first...

Keep the Aspidistra Flying follows Gordon Comstock, a man who loathes dull, middle-class respectability and the worship of money. He abandons a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, intending to gain more time to write. However, instead of flourishing, he slides into self-induced poverty, which gradually destroys his creativity and spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has...

A jazz novel, a sermon and a song of praise to the richness of African-American experience. From Ralph Ellison, author of the classic novel, Invisible Man - the long-awaited follow-up. Here is the master of American vernacular - the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech - at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of...

A collection of folktales to transport the reader into a world of adventurers, tricksters, kings, peasants, and saints. Meticulously selected and artfully recreated, the selection of stories in Italian Folktales is vast and ranges geographically from Corsica and Sicily to Venice and the Alps. Calvino is himself clearly captivated by the folkloric imagination and communicates this in what is a...

June 1940 was the summer of defeat for the French soldiers, deserted by their officers, utterly demoralised, awaiting the Armistice. Day by day, hour by hour, Iron in the Soul unfolds what men thought and felt and did as France fell. Men who shrugged, men who ran, men who fought and tragic men like Mathieu, who had dedicated his life...

Since the original, prewar translation, there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic, and lucid Proust. In Search of Lost Time is one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to...

Since the original, prewar translation, there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic, and lucid Proust, creating one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, Penguin makes...

Since the original, prewar translation, there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic, and lucid Proust, creating one of the greatest, most enjoyable reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is...

The rhapsodic, ground-breaking cult classic about a young woman's battle with schizophrenia. With a Foreword by Esme Weijun Wang and an Afterword by the author 'She fought them with her head and her teeth while the restraints were being tied, trying, doglike, to bite herself.' Sixteen-year-old Deborah's identity is shattering as she retreats further and further from the 'normal' world...

Primo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Wracked by fear, hunger and fierce rivalries, they link up, fall apart, struggle to stay alive and to sabotage the...

A brilliant feminist novel from Weimar Germany, from the author of Child of All Nations. Gilgi, One of Us introduces us to Gilgi, a young woman who knows where she's going in life—she's ambitious, determined, and fearless. She's not even derailed when her parents drop a massive bombshell on her twenty-first birthday. But then she meets the charming but aimless...

Newly translated by Michael Hofmann, this is the funny and touching final novel from the author of Child of All Nations. Bombed-out Cologne after the war is a strange place to be. The black market in jam and corsets is booming, half-destroyed houses offer opportunities for stealing doors and eggcups, and de-Nazification parties are all the rage. Recently released from...

Delta of Venus is Anaïs Nin's first incredible collection of erotic fiction. In Delta of Venus, Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the...

Evelyn Waugh's hilarious debut novel, with an introduction by Barbara Cooke. Sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather embarks on a series of bizarre adventures that start in a minor public school and end in one of HM prisons. In this, his first and funniest novel, Evelyn Waugh immediately caught the ear of the public with his account...

A new selection of stories featuring the celebrated literary detective, Inspector Maigret. An ageing boxer caught in a love triangle. A wealthy Parisian family on the brink of collapse. A mysterious murder in a hotel in Cannes. These tales of human frailty and deceit—three of which are being published in English for the first time—distil the atmosphere, themes and psychological...

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 to the peace of his childhood in a small country town. But his return journey to Lower Binfield brings complete disillusionment. In Coming Up for Air, George Orwell keenly explores...

“We're not Christians, Christ stopped short of here, at Eboli.” Exiled to a remote and barren corner of Italy for his opposition to Mussolini, Carlo Levi entered a world cut off from history and the state. It was a land hedged in by custom and sorrow, devoid of comfort or solace, where the peasants lived with an eternal patience amidst...

A stunning new series look for one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Penguin Modern Classics. In the din and stink that is Cannery Row, a colourful blend of misfits—gamblers, whores, drunks, bums, and artists—survive side by side in a jumble of adventure and mischief. Lee Chong, the astute owner of the well-stocked grocery store, is also...

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 'after all, natives were natives - interesting, no doubt, but finally only a "subject" people, an inferior people with black faces'. Against the prevailing orthodoxy, Flory, a white timber merchant,...

The final spy novel featuring the unnamed hero of The IPCRESS File series finds him up against a Texan billionaire with an all-powerful computer. Texan billionaire General Midwinter will stop at nothing to bring down the USSR—even if it puts the whole world at risk. The fourth and final novel featuring the cynical, insolent narrator of The IPCRESS File sees...

One of the first bestsellers in Germany after the Second World War, Berlin Finale is a breathtaking novel of the most dramatic period of upheaval in modern history. April 1945, the last days of the Nazi regime. While bombs are falling on Berlin, the Gestapo are still searching for traitors, resistance fighters, and deserters. People mistrust each other more than...

Berlin Alexanderplatz is the great novel of 1920s Berlin life, in a superb translation by Michael Hofmann. The subject of this book is the life of the former cement-worker and haulier Franz Biberkopf in Berlin. As our story begins, he has just been released from prison, where he did time for some stupid stuff, and now he is back in...

The heart-wrenching autobiographical novel that paved the way for feminist writers in Italy ‘To love, to sacrifice oneself, and to submit! Was this what all women were destined for?’ When her carefree, aspirational childhood in a seaside town is brought brutally to an end, the nameless narrator of Sibilla Aleramo's blazing autobiographical novel discovers the shocking reality of life for...

Flann O'Brien's first novel is a brilliant impressionistic jumble of ideas, mythology and nonsense. Operating on many levels, it incorporates plots within plots, giving full rein to O'Brien's dancing intellect and Celtic wit. The undergraduate narrator lives with his uncle in Dublin, drinks too much with his friends and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely characters. One of these...

An epic novel of love, war, and revolution from Mikhail Sholokhov, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. One of the most important Russian masterpieces of the 20th century, And Quiet Flows the Don is an epic novel depicting the lives and struggles of Don Cossacks during the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Civil War. The story...

A boundary-breaking, riveting romance narrative from the seminal Brazilian writer, Clarice Lispector. A lonely woman in Rio de Janeiro makes a connection that will change her life. Ulisses, a mysterious man, has penetrated her soul and turned her inside out. An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures is a devastating novel of the interior, of a woman yearning to love,...

A high-octane story from the great Eric Ambler, of a journalist on the run in the south of France. Lucia Bernardi was last seen driving a car at top speed away from a villa—and the body of her murdered Iraqi lover—in Switzerland. Now, disgraced journalist Piet Maas has been sent to find her in the south of France. When he...

A brilliant hybrid of myth, history and fantasy from Sylvia Townsend Warner, one of the twentieth century's great novelists. Don Juan, that notorious libertine, has disappeared. Has he been dragged down to hell by demons, as rumoured - or has he escaped? Dona Ana, the woman he tried to seduce, will stop at nothing to discover the truth. Set in...

Depicting a young woman's life in Nazi Germany, this is the masterpiece from the author of Child of All Nations. Nineteen-year-old Sanna just wants to drink her beer in peace, but that's difficult when Hitler has come to town and his motorcade is blocking the streets of Frankfurt. What's more, her best friend Gerti is in love with a Jewish...

Nabokov's other great love story, following an extraordinary relationship across decades and continents. Written in mischievous and magically flowing prose, Ada or Ardor is a romance that follows Ada from her first childhood meeting with Van Veen on his uncle's country estate, in a 'dream-bright' America, through eighty years of rapture, as they cross continents, are continually parted and reunited....

Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Matilda by Mary Shelley is a compelling and haunting tale of forbidden emotions and tragic destinies. "I gained his secret and we were both lost for ever." This evocative narrative follows the tumultuous life of Matilda, delving into themes of isolation...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Lady Susan unfolds with the line, "Of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a Man of his age! - just old enough to be formal, ungovernable and to have the Gout - too old to be agreeable, and too...

Roald Dahl's canon of family stories and poetry comes with collectable new covers featuring Quentin Blake's iconic illustrations and archive material provided by the Roald Dahl Museum. There is some kind of magic in you somewhere. This beautiful edition of Matilda, part of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, features official archive material from the Roald Dahl Museum and is perfect...

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. Recently widowed, the unscrupulous and beautiful Lady Susan Vernon is determined to scheme her way through high society in the hope of a profitable new match – all while trying to marry off her unfortunate...

The Trial is Kafka's gripping work of psychological horror, featuring a new introduction and notes by Carolin Duttlinger. This terrifying psychological journey follows Joseph K., an ordinary man who unexpectedly finds himself accused of a crime he did not commit. The nature of this crime is never revealed to him. After his arrest, he is released but must report to...

This recently rediscovered novel from the author of The Second Sex is the compulsive story of two close friends growing up and falling apart. The lost novel from the author of The Second Sex When Andree joins her school, Sylvie is immediately fascinated. Andree is small for her age but walks with the confidence of an adult. The girls become...

Pale Fire is a novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full, and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor.

New to Penguin Clothbound Classics, Gaston Leroux's classic tale of Gothic horror and tragic romance. Rumours that a ghost stalks the dark passages and cellars of the Paris Opera House, wreaking havoc, have long been rife among staff and performers. This Phantom also haunts the imagination of the beautiful and talented singer Christine Daae, appearing to her as the 'Angel...

First ever deluxe, slipcased edition of the peerless A–Z guide to the names, places and events in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, fully illustrated in colour throughout by acclaimed Tolkien artist, Ted Nasmith, and featuring an exclusive colour foldout poster. J.R.R. Tolkien’s works of epic adventure and fantasy, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion have delighted...

The old fairy stories live again, subtly altered. By the prize-winning author of Wise Children, Nights at the Circus, American Ghosts and Old World Wonders and Expletives Deleted.

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker 'Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window' A chilling masterpiece of the horror genre, Dracula also illuminated dark corners of Victorian sexuality. When Jonathan Harker visits...

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald's last completed novel, is edited by Arnold Goldman with an introduction and notes by Richard Godden in Penguin Modern Classics. Between the First World War and the Wall Street Crash, the French Riviera was the stylish place for wealthy Americans to visit. Among the most fashionable are the Divers, Dick and Nicole, who...

A definitive edition of the iconic American author's most enduring novel, with an introduction and study notes. Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie have nothing in the world except the clothes on their back—and a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually, they find work on a ranch in...

Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, in a stunning new cover look for his great works. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a penetrating examination of power and control. 'Who controls the past controls the future—who controls the present controls the past.' Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the...

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 story of the orphan Oliver Twist, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked...

Ambler's electrifying Istanbul-set thriller from 1962, and the basis for the classic film Topkapi. Arthur Abdel Simpson is a failed journalist and soon-to-be failed thief, embittered by memories of his unhappy childhood in England and eking out a living in Athens. When he spots a newly arrived tourist at the airport, he offers his services as a private driver and...

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 mediaeval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April'. Four very different women take up the offer, escaping dreary London for...

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library "May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you - haunt me, then" Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of...

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. Great Expectations Pip doesn't expect much from life... His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on...

Launching a major new paperback series: Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness A twisted, upside-down creation myth, Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale lays bare the dark side of science, and the horror within us all. It...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic tale - beloved by children and adults alike - now in a beautiful clothbound edition. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his plane vanished over the Mediterranean Sea during a reconnaissance mission. Nearly eighty years later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power....

Persuasion, Jane Austen's final and arguably most sophisticated novel, is available in a beautiful new clothbound edition. Part of Penguin's exquisite 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. At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few...

A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold, who is determined to avenge a death. In Brighton Rock, Graham Greene crafts a gripping tale of crime and consequence, exploring the depths of human nature and...

Twenty new titles in the much-loved and hugely successful Penguin English Library series. 'I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.' Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth—four "little women" enduring hardships and enjoying adventures in Civil War New England. The charming story of the March sisters, Little Women has been adored by generations. Readers have rooted...

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. Charlotte Brontë's first published novel, Jane Eyre, was immediately recognised as a work of genius when it appeared in 1847. Orphaned into the household...

Beautiful Star is the novel Yukio Mishima considered to be one of his best works— a tale of family, nuclear war, love, and UFOs. The Osugi family have come to a realization. Each of them hails from a different planet: Father from Mars, Mother from Jupiter, Son from Mercury, and Daughter from Venus. Already seen as oddballs in their small...

During the 1940s, a plague descends on the Algerian town of Oran. Like the German occupation of France in the Second World War, this plague too brings its terror while also inspiring a courageous resistance. But the plague is more than a parable. It is also a tale of natural calamity: a slaughter as absurd as the habits it supersedes....

A brand new imprint from Penguin Classics Streetwise George and his big, childlike friend Lennie are drifters, searching for work in the fields and valleys of California. They have nothing except the clothes on their back and a hope that one day they'll find a place of their own and live the American dream. But dreams come at a price....

The best prose writer in English - Gore Vidal As Cabaret returns to the West End, revisit the KitKat Club in the book that introduced Sally Bowles to the world. Set in the 1930s, Goodbye to Berlin is the novella that inspired Cabaret, evoking the glamour and sleaze, excess and repression of Berlin society. Isherwood shows the lives of people...

A stunning new clothbound edition of Mary Shelley's infamous work of horror fiction. Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear....

A Room of One's Own grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. Ranging over Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë and why neither of them could have written War and Peace, over the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (and imaginary) sister, over the effects of poverty and chastity on...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot is an immaculate portrait of innocence tainted by the brutal reality of human greed. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Russian by David McDuff, with an introduction by William Mills Todd III. Returning to St Petersburg from a Swiss sanatorium, the gentle and naïve epileptic Prince Myshkin—the titular 'idiot'—pays a visit to his distant...

Robert Louis Stevenson's nineteenth-century novel Treasure Island set the tone for countless other pirate stories. Perhaps the most iconic pirate story of all time, Treasure Island was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1881. The book follows young Jim Hawkins, who finds himself in possession of a treasure map and embarks on a journey to unearth the pirate booty. His...

Follow the yellow brick road to the land of Oz with Dorothy and her friends! We all know the movie and storyline well. But have you ever read the original novel? Influenced by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, L. Frank Baum created this classic story and fantasy using the dream of young Dorothy on her journey home to...

Herman Melville's classic seafaring adventure has been a favourite of readers for generations. “Call me Ishmael” is the iconic opening line of Herman Melville’s classic American novel Moby-Dick. Ishmael is a seaman aboard the whaling vessel Pequod, under the vengeful Captain Ahab. Maniacally seeking retribution from the great white sperm whale called Moby-Dick—the whale responsible for the captain’s missing leg—Ahab...

This collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tales makes a stylish addition to any home library. Fairy tales are timeless treasures passed from one generation to the next, and few are as beloved as those of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. From the princess so sensitive she is discomforted by a single pea beneath a tower of mattresses to...

The ultimate dystopian masterpiece. A dystopian masterpiece - the powerful and prophetic novel that defined the twentieth century. The year is 1984. War and revolution have created an unrecognisable world. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, is ruled by the Party, led by Big Brother. Mass surveillance is total and The Thought Police ensure no individual thinking is allowed....

Darkness Will Bind Them… watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 on Prime Video. Begin your journey into Middle-earth. A New Legend Begins on Prime Video, in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The third part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure The Lord of the Rings. The Dark Lord has risen, and...

One of literature's most renowned stories of decadence and betrayal is now available in an affordable softcover edition, featuring striking hand-painted cover art from Laci Fowler and distinctive interior design elements, making it ideal for classic fiction lovers, readers in high-school or college literature courses, and fans of annual reading challenges and "Required Reading" lists. Beloved by fans across the...

Darkness Will Bind Them… watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 on Prime Video. J.R.R. Tolkien's writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, collected for the first time in one volume. Guided by the Dark Lord Sauron, the Elves of Eregion forge the Rings of Power. Yet in secret, he has begun building the Barad-dûr...

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is now available in an affordable softcover edition, featuring striking hand-painted cover art from Laci Fowler and distinctive interior design elements, making it ideal for classic fiction lovers, readers in high-school or college literature courses, and fans of annual reading challenges and "Required Reading" lists. The Harper Muse Classics--Painted Softcover Edition of Little Women is...

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is now available in an affordable softcover edition, featuring striking hand-painted cover art from Laci Fowler and distinctive interior design elements. It is ideal for classic fiction lovers, readers in high-school or college literature courses, and fans of annual reading challenges and "Required Reading" lists. Considered one of the greatest romance novels of all time, Jane...

Frankenstein, the frightening classic tale, is now available in an affordable softcover edition. It features striking hand-painted cover art from Laci Fowler and distinctive interior design elements, making it ideal for classic fiction lovers, readers in high-school or college literature courses, and fans of annual reading challenges and "Required Reading" lists. Beloved by horror fans across the globe, Frankenstein explores...

Adrift in a dinghy, Edward Prendick, the single survivor from the good ship Lady Vain, is rescued by a vessel carrying a profoundly unusual cargo—a menagerie of savage animals. Tended to recovery by their keeper, Montgomery, who gives him dark medicine that tastes of blood, Prendick soon finds himself stranded upon an uncharted island in the Pacific with his rescuer...

Set at the height of the tulipomania that gripped Holland in the 17th century, this is the story of Cornelius van Baerle, a humble grower whose sole desire is to grow the perfect specimen of the tulip negra. When his godfather is murdered, Cornelius finds himself caught up in the deadly politics of the time, imprisoned and facing a death...

The new paperback series—Penguin English Library "I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine ... I long for only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth,...

The collectible, limited edition box set of all 50 brilliant books in the Penguin Modern series. This box set of the 50 books in the new Penguin Modern series celebrates the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics list and its iconic authors. Including avant-garde essays, radical polemics, newly translated poetry, and great fiction, here are brilliant and diverse voices...

A love story that transcends time and place. Xishi's beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue, where the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of Fanli, the famous young military advisor, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a...

The mysterious death of a young woman on an Australian farm reveals a heartrending story of doomed wartime romance. The mysterious death of a young woman on an Australian farm reveals a bittersweet story of doomed wartime romance amidst a family crisis. Alan Duncan returns to his family home in Australia after the war and several years of study in...