Classic General Fiction

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Austen's sensational final novel with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper, and finished with a silk ribbon. Eight years ago, Anne Elliot bowed to pressure from her family and made the decision not to marry the man she loved, Captain Wentworth. Now circumstances have conspired to bring him back into her social...

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 small incidents of life become moments of inner revelation in the luminous writing of Clarice Lispector. A woman contemplating a vase of roses after a nervous breakdown; a tangled mother-daughter relationship; a man's abandonment of...

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women’s weird fiction. Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe's capitals, part swan...or all fake? Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on...

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Austen's unsung masterpiece with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper, and finished with a silk ribbon. Mansfield Park tells the story of Fanny Price, whose rich relatives offer her a place in their home so that she can be properly brought up. However, Fanny's childhood is a lonely one as she is...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Maigret's Pickpocket finds Inspector Maigret savouring a beautiful spring morning in Paris when he has his wallet stolen by a pickpocket. The wallet is returned the next day, but on the condition that Maigret visit the thief's apartment. What Maigret discovers there sees him...

These accomplished, gothic-infused stories impress in terms of their range and unexpected twists - this is an exceptional debut collection that includes the title novella, The Gorgon Flower. A young woman is haunted by the disappearance of her grandmother, a brilliant mathematician whose research uncovered the basis for parallel universes. A botanist travels across the seas in search of an...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret finds himself back on Paris's Rue des Acacias just ten days after cracking another case there. This time it is the murder of a gangster he has known for over twenty years—one he always suspected was behind a string of jewellery robberies...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret is known for his infallible instinct, for getting at the truth no matter how complex the case. However, when someone starts killing women on the streets of Montmartre, he finds himself confounded. In the sweltering Paris summer heat, with the city in...

Rajkumar is only another boy, helping on a market stall in the dusty square outside the royal palace, when the British force the Burmese King, Queen, and all the Court into exile! He is rescued by a farsighted Chinese merchant, and with him, builds up a logging business in upper Burma. Haunted by his vision of the Royal Family, he...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret and his wife take a much-needed rest cure in the spa town of Vichy, where they quickly become used to the leisurely pace of life. But when a woman whom they regularly pass by on their daily strolls is murdered, Maigret can't...

A history of the Malay Peninsula and the islands of the Archipelago. The Genealogy of Kings (Malay- Sulalat al-Salatin or Sejarah Melayu) is a literary work that gives a romanticised history of the origin, evolution, and demise of the great Malay maritime empire, the Malacca Sultanate. The work, which was composed sometime between the 15th and 16th centuries, is considered...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. For the first time in his career, Inspector Maigret receives a written summons to the Prefect's office, where he is shocked to discover himself accused of a crime. With his career and reputation on the line, Maigret must fight to prove his innocence. Has...

"He had never got within measurable distance of what he called life, at all...deep down in him, he knew, was an enormous residue of vitality...It was like a buried treasure, jealously kept for the event of his one day catching up with life: not the bare scramble for a living that here went by that name, but Life with a...

A handpicked selection of novels featuring Simenon's legendary literary detective, Inspector Maigret, with striking new covers. Inspector Maigret is supposed to be working to stop the gangs of robbers terrorising Paris, but then a body is found, dumped in the Bois de Boulogne. It turns out to be a quiet, likeable burglar he has known for years, and for whom...

A riveting, funny coming-of-age story - the first volume in Pirkko Saisio's award-winning Helsinki trilogy. Grandpa says everyone should leave me alone. If I want to be a boy, then I'm a boy - simple as that. Writing in the wake of her father's death, the narrator of Pirkko Saisio's autofictional novel transports us to the 1950s Finland of her...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him. Cats have long been considered creatures of mystery and magic. Worshipped as deities in some cultures, feared as harbingers of bad fortune in others, it's little...

Never before translated short stories by the legendary genius Ágota Kristóf. I Don't Care – it's not even pretty. The song is sad, and old, so old. I Don't Care presents the best short fiction by the Hungarian master Ágota Kristóf, selected by the author herself and available in English for the first time. Written immediately before her acclaimed Notebook...

In swirling, surreal prose, the iconic artist Salvador Dalí portrays the intrigues and love affairs of a group of eccentric aristocrats who, in their luxury and extravagance, symbolise decadent Europe in the 1930s. In the shadow of encroaching war, their tangled lives provide a thrilling vehicle for Dalí's uniquely spirited imagination and artistic vision.

Such Is Life details the splendidly farcical and tragic reminiscences of philosopher and rogue Tom Collins, and is widely recognised as a defining work of Australian literature, taking its title from what were supposedly the outlaw Ned Kelly's dying words. As Tom drives his team across the plains of the Riverina and Northern Victoria, he gets wildly entangled in the...

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Dickens's great masterpiece with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper and finished with a silk ribbon. Great Expectations chronicles the life of Pip, an ordinary country boy whose life is destined to be unexceptional until a chain of mysterious events leads him away from his humble origins and up the social ladder....

The literary masterpieces of the three Brontë sisters in one volume: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This handsome leather-bound edition includes the most acclaimed novels of each of the Brontë sisters: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Originally published under male pseudonyms in the 1840s, these three novels...

A very funny confessional novel set in one of the only Australian independent record stores still functioning, if barely. Included in The Age, The Books That Made Their Mark in 2022. 'I laughed out loud 5 times within the first 2 pages of Her Fidelity.' - KIM SALMON 'Katharine Pollock is the voice that we have been waiting for.' -...

Graham Greene's best short stories, selected and introduced by the novelist and super fan, Yiyun Li. Graham Greene, known for his iconic novels, also wrote exceptional short stories. Here, some of the best have been arranged into pairs - to be read as a duel or duet - by novelist and Greene aficionado, Yiyun Li. Twenty-two of Greene's very best...

A rediscovered gothic classic with a groundbreaking, gender-nonconforming protagonist at its heart. ‘I do not sin,’ he smiled. ‘I am Sin’ In a quiet medieval city, alone in his shadowy chambers, Dirk Renswoude worships the devil. Then the wind brings the young scholar Thierry to his door. Could this beautiful man share his dark obsession? Under a hushed midnight sky,...

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school owner and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and his family...

The story of a young modern Siamese girl and her quest for true love. Prisna Volume 1 and Volume 2 take place in 1938 in Phra Nakhon, Thailand, during a time when men and women were not equals. Marriage for women meant security, not love. Prisna is the youngest daughter among four girls and was the only one raised in...

The finest comic, Gothic, and satiric works of the nineteenth-century writer are included in an anthology that features a superb collection of poetry, critical essays, and short fiction. This includes such classics as "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Raven," "The Purloined Letter," "Annabel Lee," and more. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe showcases the timeless creativity and profound...

The story of a young modern Siamese girl and her quest for true love. Prisna Vol 1 and Volume 2 take place in 1938 in Phra Nakhon, Thailand, during a time when men and women were not equals. Marriage for women meant security, not love. Prisna is the youngest daughter among four girls and was the only one raised in...

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Carroll's magical masterpiece with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper, and finished with a silk ribbon. Bored on a hot afternoon, Alice, a bright and inquisitive child, follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole and finds herself in Wonderland, a very odd place indeed. This unique story mixes satire and puzzles, comedy...

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 Oliver Twist. After Oliver Twist asks the nasty Mr Bumble for more food, he has to flee the workhouse for the streets of London. Here he meets the...

Every winter, in the days leading up to Christmas, Benedikt walks into the snowy mountains of Iceland to rescue sheep lost in the blizzards. With his dog and his ram by his side, traversing wild snowstorms and crystalline nights, fuelled by endless cups of hot coffee, Benedikt dedicates himself to helping other living beings in need. It is midwinter in...

Jane Austen's Fashion Bible is a joyous celebration of the visual world created by the beloved Regency author. A stunning gift edition from Macmillan Collector's Library, Jane Austen's Fashion Bible features extracts from Jane Austen's novels and juvenilia, and focuses on the iconic styles and social settings of the era. Each excerpt is accompanied by a beautiful corresponding colour fashion...

A charming new paperback edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s major pieces of short fiction, and his only finished work dating from after the publication of The Lord of the Rings. What began as a preface to The Golden Key by George MacDonald eventually grew into this charming short story, so named by Tolkien to suggest an early work by...

From the award-winning translators Pevear and Volokhonsky, the complete prose of the most acclaimed writer of the Romantic era, one of the world's greatest storytellers. The archetypal Romantic, killed in a duel in 1837 at the age of 37, Alexander Pushkin was effectively the founder of modern Russian literature. Though famous as a poet, he was equally at home in...

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Dickens's wonderfully spooky tale with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper, and finished with a silk ribbon. A Christmas Carol tells the story of Mr Scrooge, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, miserable old man. 'Bah! Humbug!' he declares, as nobody stops him in the street to say a cheery hello, and...

Claudine at School is a captivating tale set in a small rural village in France, where the spirited and rebellious Claudine attends the local girls' school. Full of adventure and mischief, Claudine knows how to fill her days with excitement. This book is part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics bound in real cloth with...

‘A deeply touching, enjoyable novel, beautifully written and fascinatingly mysterious and intricate in its designs’ New York Times In a city that could be Paris, London or Vienna, a loose-knit group of travellers, artists, and dreamers gather – drawn together by a cryptic passage from a book. Among them are the exiled writer Juan, the elusive Hélène, and the troubled...

People have been telling fairy tales to their children for hundreds of years. And for almost as long, people have been rewriting those fairy tales to help their children imagine a world where they are the heroes. Karrie and Jon were reading their child these stories when they encountered a dilemma, something previous versions of these stories were missing. They...

Maurice Guest, Henry Handel Richardson's debut novel published in London in 1908, is set amidst the vibrant music scene of turn-of-the-century Leipzig, a cosmopolitan centre for the arts attracting students from across the globe. Among them is Maurice Guest, a young Englishman who becomes hopelessly enamoured with an Australian woman, Louise Dufrayer. This story chronicles the intensity of his overwhelming...

Black Shack Alley is a semiautobiographical Caribbean novel that explores shifting race relations in early twentieth-century colonial Martinique. It features a foreword by the Martinican author Patrick Chamoiseau. This Penguin Classic follows in the tradition of Richard Wright's Black Boy, as Joseph Zobel's 1950 novel chronicles the coming-of-age of Jose, a young boy dealing with issues of power and identity...

Charming, intelligent and forthright, the remarkable Madame Midas makes her fortune on the goldfields of Ballarat—and becomes the target of the villainous ex-convict Gaston Vandeloup, a charismatic Frenchman who soon makes himself indispensable to her mining operations. A companion piece to The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Fergus Hume's second novel is both a tightly plotted murder mystery and an...

Katharine Smyth was a student at Oxford when she first read Virginia Woolf's modernist masterpiece To the Lighthouse in the comfort of an English sitting room, and in the companionable silence she shared with her father. After his death—a calamity that claimed her favourite person—she returned to that beloved novel as a way of wrestling with his memory and understanding...

Luha ng Buwaya is a novel that explores how the interlocking elements of a corrupt political system can be challenged by a people with eyes wide open. The story is set in the town of Sampilong, which is dominated by the conjugal dictatorship of Donya Leona and Don Severo Grande. They control the wealth and power in the town, manipulating...

A stunning and unexpected portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery, creator of one of literature’s most prized heroines, whose personal demons were at odds with her most enduring legacy—the irrepressible Anne of Green Gables. “Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.” — L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1908...

The heartwarming classic is now available in an affordable softcover edition featuring a striking cover 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 Little Women softcover edition: Presents Louisa May Alcott's beloved coming-of-age novel of the four March...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow. Living in Ancient Greece in the 5th Century BC, Aesop was said to be a slave and storyteller. His much-loved, enduring fables are revered the world over and remain popular as moral tales for children. With infamous...

Previously unpublished stories by the bestselling author of Alone in Berlin. In September 1925, Hans Fallada handed himself in to the police. Not yet a bestselling author, Fallada had repeatedly embezzled funds to finance his alcohol and morphine addictions. Desperate to escape his demons, he sought a prison cell. Now court documents from Fallada's imprisonment have recently been rediscovered, and...

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. Widely considered to be one of the greatest ever writers of the form, Anton Chekhov's short stories offer unforgettable character, crystalline expression, and a beautiful, quiet uncertainty. Collected here are five of his very best...

'I remembered how they began, a parody for the newspapers. No one wrote about them now.' The Sussex coast. Sunsets paint the windswept ocean; seagulls haunt the marshland; hunting rifles crack across hillsides. But this is England through-a-glass-darkly. They are coming closer. They begin with a dead dog, shadowy footsteps, confiscated books. Then, the National Gallery is purged; motorway checkpoints...

Shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award, Jasper Cliff is an outback gothic thriller set in a small town where people have a habit of disappearing. When Toby Bowman vanishes, his little brother Lachlan retraces a road trip to the last place Toby phoned from — a remote northern town called Jasper Cliff. There, Lachlan finds himself marooned at the dying...

An inventive, thought-provoking and absurd dystopian novel set in a world rampant with overpopulation by the author of A Clockwork Orange – now a Penguin Essential. The Wanting Seed tells the story of Tristram Foxe and his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, who live in their skyscraper world where official family limitation glorifies homosexuality. Eventually, their world is transformed into a chaos of...

Jane Austen’s Little Book of Wisdom offers more than 300 bite-size quotes of inspiration and wisdom from one of the greatest female writers in the English language. Jane Austen is one of the most celebrated female writers in history, best known for her novels about love, life, friendship, and faith, all set against the backdrop of English Georgian society. Here,...

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back . . . You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked – those pale chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes! An English scientist regales...

'A tantalising mystery... a mesmerising work of literature' - Antony Beevor 'Truly troubling, a weird meditation on death, war and sex' - Paris Review A superb early postmodern classic by one of Nabokov's fellow émigré writers, rediscovered after more than half a century A man comes across a short story which recounts in minute detail his killing of a soldier,...

The complete Cthulhu Mythos by master horror writer H. P. Lovecraft in one volume. The Cthulhu Mythos is a collection of 23 loosely connected short stories by H. P. Lovecraft, one of the earliest masters of dark fantasy and horror. From “Dagon” to “The Call of Cthulhu” to “The Haunter of the Dark,” each story connects to the ancient cosmic...

The Sound Of One Hand Clapping is described as a 'heartbreaking story, beautifully told' by the Literary Review, and it delivers from its wonderfully atmospheric opening to its touching conclusion. Written by the winner of the Man Booker Prize, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping is one of the most-loved and biggest-selling literary novels in Australian history. In the winter...

Happy Valley, Patrick White's magnificent debut novel, was first published in 1939. Long out of print, it is now part of the Text Classics series. Based on White's own experiences in the early 1930s as a jackaroo at Bolaro, near Adaminaby in south-eastern New South Wales, Happy Valley paints a portrait of a community in a desolate landscape. It is...

‘A kind of miracle … Not only made me laugh (again and again) but brought tears to my eyes’ Jonathan Franzen ‘One of the most brilliant satirical novels about life in East Berlin’ New York Times Thomas Brussig’s classic German satire, translated into English for the first time and introduced by Jonathan Franzen, is a comedic, moving account of life...

Great Japanese Stories offers a captivating selection of short stories presented in their original Japanese with accompanying English translations. This new dual-language edition, featuring ten stories selected from The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, celebrates some of the finest twentieth-century literature from Japan. The stories appear in their original Japanese alongside expert English translations, providing unique cultural insights and...

‘A kind of miracle … Not only made me laugh (again and again) but brought tears to my eyes’ Jonathan Franzen ‘One of the most brilliant satirical novels about life in East Berlin’ New York Times Thomas Brussig’s classic German satire, translated into English for the first time and introduced by Jonathan Franzen, is a comedic, moving account of life...

In this darkly ironic novel, a dead man walks back through four generations of family estrangements to recover his lost identity. The journey will be long and difficult, one thousand miles. Try not to be too obvious. Stick to the backroads. You'll know you've arrived when you get there. Stephen Bolin leaves a bizarre note by his deathbed, asking his...

Germany, November 1938: Otto Silbermann receives a knock on his door and realises he must flee. A respected German-Jewish businessman, he has managed to evade the escalating brutality of the Nazi regime. But now, as he and his wife plan to leave, all avenues are shut down and he is forced to abandon his home amid the untrammelled violence of...

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is G. K. Chesterton's wild and whimsical debut novel, set in a future embattled London. London, 1984. Democracy has given up the ghost. England's ruler is randomly selected, and this year it's Auberon Quin, a clerk with an odd sense of humour. Quin mandates that each borough of London become an independent neo-medievalist state, complete...

A new collection of Rudyard Kipling's short stories, selected and edited by Jan Montefiore. Rudyard Kipling is one of the most magical storytellers in the English language. This new selection brings together the best of his short writings, following the development of his work over fifty years. They take us from the harsh, cruel, vividly realised world of the 'Indian'...

Winner, Miles Franklin Literary Award Winner, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction - NSW Premier's Literary Awards Shortlisted, Stella Award Shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards - Fiction Shortlisted, Kibble Literary Prize 'I so much admire Michelle de Kretser's formidable technique - her characters feel alive, and she can create a sweeping narrative which encompasses years, and yet still retain the sharp,...

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories adds the best-known works of Washington Irving to the Chartwell Classics series. Washington Irving's short stories have captured the imaginations of generations since they were originally published in the early nineteenth century. His stories are sometimes chilling and sometimes reflections of society, but they are consistently filled with adventure and a joy...

One of America's best-loved short stories, plus other tales, in a handsome, collectible edition. Washington Irving's short stories have captured the imaginations of generations since the early nineteenth century. Now book lovers can enjoy The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, "Rip Van Winkle," "A Sunday in London," "John Bull," and "Christmas" in this stunning new edition of The Legend of Sleepy...

Relive the glorious excess of the roaring 1920s with this beautifully designed, jacketed hardcover edition of The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald's best-known novel is set in hedonistic Jazz Age Long Island and tells the story of millionaire Jay Gatsby and his pursuit of his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. A novel that touches on the topics of materialism, class, desire,...

Beautifully illustrated by Alice Tye, this is a cornerstone of modernist fiction and an incisive critique of wealth, class and the inescapable heartache of lost love. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings, and the champagne, and the stars. Glamour. Opulence. Excess. This is the world Jay Gatsby has created for himself,...

The expected humour, warmth and sparkle is here, in every line of this new Everyman Library edition of The Girl on the Boat. When Sam Marlowe falls in love with his cousin's sparky ex-fiancée, he finds himself up against stiff opposition from her millionaire father, her father's best friend, and the best friend's son for whom she is destined, all...

New in Penguin Japanese Classics - a gripping novel about a love affair gone wrong. Introducing Penguin Japanese Classics - a collection of some of Japan's most celebrated and ground-breaking 20th-century writers, with covers inspired by Japanese art and design. Taking us from a sun-drenched affair in a seaside town to an underground 'ark' full of shadows and eccentrics, with...

One man's obsession with the mysterious life of a silent film star takes him on a journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. After losing his wife and young sons in a plane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in grief. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a lost film by...

Twenty new titles in the much-loved and hugely successful Penguin English Library series. 'The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude' When The Awakening was first published in 1899, charges of sordidness and immorality seemed to consign it into obscurity and irreparably damage its...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 'We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.' Huck Finn escapes from his alcoholic father by...

When Charles Swann first lays eyes on Odette de Crecy, her beauty leaves him indifferent. Their paths continue to cross in the drawing rooms and theatres of Parisian high society, and the seeds of desire in Swann begin to flourish. What follows is a journey through self-delusion, jealousy and delirious fantasy, which will take Swann far from the sedate comfort...

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live, the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackouts at night and a single random bombsite. But the two boys start to suspect all is not what it seems when one day Keith announces a disconcerting discovery: the Germans have infiltrated his own family. And when the secret...

Quicksand by Nella Larsen is a powerful first novel that evocatively portrays the racial and gender restrictions that can mark a life. Born to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South,...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Elizabeth Bennet, full of vivacity and wit, lives a quiet country existence with her four sisters....