Penguin Classics

An enlightening anthology of George Orwell's journalism and non-fiction writing. Famous for his novels and essays, Orwell remains one of our very best journalists and commentators. Confronting social, political and moral dilemmas head-on, he was fearless in his writing — a champion of free speech, a defender against social injustice and a sharp-eyed chronicler of the age. But his work...

A startling, densely poetic portrait of 1970s Ghana as it emerges from colonial rule. Search Sweet Country follows the lives of an eclectic, interconnected group of Ghanaians living in and around the sprawling, chaotic city of Accra in the mid-1970s. Bringing the city to life in dizzying, lyrical prose, Laing weaves a story filled with bizarre and often melancholy characters:...

A fruity, foxy masterpiece, defender of our wilting faith in mankind - Sunday Times Horace Rumpole, the rascally, Wordsworth-quoting Old Bailey hack, should be enjoying his retirement. Soaking unhappily in the Florida sun with his wife, Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed), it is safely assumed by all that Rumpole's wig has been hung up for good. But when a...

A portrait of one of the greatest artists of the nineteenth century, from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth. Rossetti, Evelyn Waugh's first book, is an intimate account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tragic and mysterious life—the story behind some of the greatest poetry and painting of the nineteenth century. Shot through with Waugh's charm and dry wit, and...

A private meeting, chance encounters and a mysterious tour of Lisbon, in this brilliant homage to Tabucchi's country, culture and people. In the city of Lisbon, Requiem's narrator has an appointment to meet someone on a quay by the Tagus at twelve. Misunderstanding twelve to mean noon as opposed to midnight, he is left to wait. As the day unfolds...

New to PMC Ravelstein features Abe Ravelstein, a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern university and a man who revels in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously—and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick suggests he put forth a book expressing his convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or...

A collection that includes three of Camus's most personal and lyrical books- The Right Side and the Wrong Side, Nuptials, and Summer. This volume contains some of Camus' most intimate writing, as he reflects on his identity and childhood in Algeria and celebrates the beauty of the Mediterranean. The Wrong Side and the Right Side, Camus' first book and most...

The much-loved masterpiece from one of the key figures of twentieth-century Italian literature. In the sweltering summer of 1938, with Lisbon in the grip of Portugal's dictatorship of António Salazar, a journalist is coming to terms with the rise of fascism around him and its insidious impact on his work. Consumed by the passing of his wife and the child...

'There is a depth and clarity to his writing that captivates the reader' - Sunday Times When Joel Knox's mother dies, he is sent into the exotic unknown of the Deep South to live with a father he has never seen. But once he gets there, everyone is curiously evasive when Joel asks to see his father. Truman Capote's first...

Introduction by Amit Chaudhuri; translated by J.A. Underwood Walter Benjamin - philosopher, essayist, literary and cultural theorist - was one of the most original writers and thinkers of the twentieth century. This new selection brings together Benjamin's major works, including One-Way Street, his dreamlike, aphoristic observations of urban life in Weimar Germany; Unpacking My Library, a delightful meditation on book-collecting;...

A mesmerizing novel about the magical and gritty world of Bucharest in the 1980s by a celebrated Eastern European writer. 'Gripping, impassioned, unexpected' - Los Angeles Times A dreamlike novel of memory and magic, Nostalgia turns the dark world of Communist Bucharest into a place of strange enchantments. Here, a man plays increasingly death-defying games of Russian Roulette, a child...

An omnibus of all four of the greatest science-fiction novels of H. G. Wells. In the space of less than four years, H. G. Wells (1866-1946) published four of the most influential, original, and hair-raising works of science-fiction. In a life of tireless experiment, travelling, and intellectual engagement, Wells was both a leading public figure and one of the great...

The second novel in the Great Plains trilogy, The Song of the Lark is a passionate portrait of the artist as a young woman. Thea Kronberg, a young girl from a small town in Colorado, has a great gift—her beautiful singing voice. Her talent takes her to the great opera houses of Europe, and through ambition and hard work, she...

A new translation of a twisting detective novel from the celebrated author of the Maigret series. The Strangers in the House follows Hector Loursat, a lawyer in the small town of Moulins, who has lived as a drunken recluse since his wife left him eighteen years ago. Unmoored from society and estranged from his daughter, he shuts himself away, numbed...

Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 3 is the concluding part of Javier Marías's acclaimed and evocative 'novel in parts'. Jacques Deza is back in London and once again working for the secret intelligence agency run by Bertram Tupra. Deza finds himself forced to watch Tupra's collection of incriminating videotapes of important public figures. The recordings document unconventional private lives—and horrific acts....

The Cold War plays out in the shadow of the Second World War as old loyalties collide. Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with a hero of the French resistance. Time to re-open the master file on Yesterday's Spy...

New to Penguin Modern Classics Why Read the Classics? is an elegant defence of the value of great literature by one of the finest authors of the last century. Beginning with an essay on the attributes that define a classic (number one - classics are those books that people always say they are 'rereading', not 'reading'), this is an absorbing...

Why Are We Artists? is a new anthology encompassing 100 years of manifestos by artists, filmmakers, and architects from across the globe. "Art is not a luxury. Art is a basic social need to which everyone has a right." This extraordinary collection features 100 artists' manifestos from around the world, spanning the past century. It brings together political activists, anti-colonialists,...

The True Heart is a love story set in Victorian England by one of the most original writers of the twentieth century. Leaving her orphanage at sixteen, Sukey Bond finds employment as a servant in the remote New Easter Farm, deep within the Essex Marshes. There she falls in love with simple, gentle Eric, the son of the rector's wife....

Another collection of stories about the irrepressible barrister Horace Rumpole comes to Penguin Modern Classics. The Trials of Rumpole sees Horace Rumpole, the irrepressible barrister fuelled by cigars, Tennyson, steak-and-kidney pud and the cooking claret from Pommeroy's wine bar, returning for further misadventures. Amid an unfortunate and temporary downturn in London crime, the Old Bailey hack sits in Chambers (he...

One of Kerouac's most enduring and touching works. The Subterraneans haunt the bars and clubs of San Francisco, surviving on a diet of booze and benzedrine, Proust and Verlaine. Living amongst them is Leo, an aspiring writer, and Mardou, half-Indian, half-Negro, beautiful and neurotic. Their bittersweet and ill-starred love affair sees Kerouac at his most evocative. Many regard this as...

The tale of a woman transformed by a Black healing community in 1970s America, publishing for the first time in Penguin Modern Classics. A book full of marvels - New Yorker The American Deep South, in the 1970s. Velma Henry, once a formidable political activist, has grown weary and disillusioned with the fight for civil rights. She wants to end...

The British Secret Service turns their attentions to a linguistic prodigy in the Congo in this espionage thriller, new to Penguin Modern Classics. At a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and Congolese warlords, an interpreter finds his conscience re-awakening. Bruno Salvador has worked on clandestine missions before. A highly skilled interpreter, he is no stranger to the Official Secrets Act....

Enthralling and thought-provoking, The Little Drummer Girl is le Carré's only spy novel set in the Middle East, and is now published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young actress, is lured into 'the theatre of the real' by an Israeli intelligence officer. Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into...

'The greatest find in American crime fiction since Raymond Chandler' – Sunday Times Detectives Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones have lost two criminals. Pinky ran off – but it shouldn't be hard to track down a giant albino in Harlem. Jake the drug dealer, though, isn't coming back – he died after Grave Digger punched him in the stomach....

A new translation of this haunting tale about the lengths to which people will go to escape from guilt, part of the Maigret series. A first ink drawing showed a hanged man swinging from a gallows on which perched an enormous crow. And hanging was the leitmotif of at least twenty other etchings and pen or pencil sketches. On the...

One of 'the best artistic jokes of the century', this is both madcap cookbook and Futurist manifesto. Part manifesto, part artistic joke, Filippo Marinetti's The Futurist Cookbook is a provocative work about art disguised as an easy-to-read cookbook. Here are recipes for ice cream on the moon; candied atmospheric electricities; nocturnal love feasts; sculpted meats. Marinetti also sets out his...

One of the most influential books of the 20th century comes into Modern Classics. When Betty Friedan produced The Feminine Mystique in 1963, she could not have realised how the discovery and debate of her contemporaries' general malaise would shake up society. Victims of a false belief system, these women were following strict social convention by loyally conforming to the...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, a searing novel from Tove Ditlevsen, author of the wildly acclaimed Copenhagen Trilogy. Copenhagen, 1968. Lise, a children's book writer and married mother of three, is becoming increasingly haunted by disembodied faces and taunting voices. Convinced that her housekeeper and husband are plotting against her, she descends into a terrifying world of sickness, pills and...

Dorothy Parker, more than any of her contemporaries, captured the spirit of her age in her writing. The decadent 1920s and 1930s in New York were a time of great experiment and daring for women. For the rich, life seemed a continual party, but the excesses took their emotional toll. With a biting wit and perceptive insight, Dorothy Parker examines...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, a timeless tale of divided generations and enduring friendship. Following a baseball game that nearly became a religious war, two Jewish boys become friends. Danny comes from the strict Hasidic sect that keeps him bound in centuries of orthodoxy. Reuven is brought up by a father patently aware of the twentieth century. Everything tries to...

Sweet Thursday reads as a post-war continuation of Cannery Row. Set on the Californian coast, amongst the junk heaps and flop houses of Monterey, the book brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears. From Fauna, who runs the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter, the rich tapestry of...

A tale of survival from one of the most beloved Nigerian writers, now in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. When Adah's dream of moving to England becomes a reality, she soon discovers that life for a young Nigerian woman living in London in the 1960s is far from what she had imagined. The cold weather and cramped, crumbling...

Arnold Bennett's superb London novel—both a story about one grim household and a panorama of the life of a great city. Henry Earlforward, a shabby Clerkenwell bookseller, has retired from life to devote himself (and his wife Violet) to a consuming passion for money. Miserliness becomes a fatal illness, and Bennett provides a terrifying description of its ravages. However, the...

These three great plays by one of the founding fathers of the theatre of the absurd are alive and kicking with tragedy and humour, bleakness and farce. In Rhinoceros, we are shown the innate brutality of people as everyone, except for Berenger, turns into clumsy, unthinking rhinoceroses. The Chairs depicts the futile struggle of two old people to convey the...

A spellbinding story of a community defending their land, by one of New Zealand's most established contemporary writers. Destroy the land and sea, we destroy ourselves On the remote coast of New Zealand, at the curve that binds land and sea, a small Māori community live, work, fish, play, and tell stories of their ancestors. But something is changing. The...

Le Carré's post-Cold War masterpiece, filled with suspense, betrayal, desire and drama. The Cold War is over and retired secret servant Tim Cranmer has been put out to pasture, spending his days making wine on his Somerset estate. But then he discovers that his former double agent Larry—dreamer, dissolute, philanderer and disloyal friend—has vanished, along with Tim's mistress. As their...

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book, the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string, or a single match in a world...

Nadja is a Surrealist romance, and has come to be known as a book which defined that movement's attitude towards life. With its blend of intimate confession and sense of the marvellous, Nadja weaves a mysterious and compelling tapestry of daily life as seen through a magical perspective. Combining autobiographical fact with memory and imagination, Breton spins one of the...

Marc Chagall's colourful, hilarious, dream-like autobiography. Chagall was born in Witebsk in White Russia, the son of a herring merchant who lived opposite a laundress and a chimney sweep. After the Revolution, while waiting for emigration papers, he wrote his autobiography at the age of 34. My Life reads like one of Chagall's paintings—emotional, fragmentary, humorous, colourful, and dream-like, soaked...

New to PMC Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a registrar of madness, a refined and civilised being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings...

One of Sylvia Townsend Warner's best-loved novels—a droll and deeply affecting story of love and disillusionment on a remote tropical island. After three years on the remote tropical island of Fanua, Timothy Fortune, a missionary from London, has made little headway. The islanders show very little interest in Christianity and he has only a single convert—a boy, Lueli. As Mr...

An uproarious exploration of Caribbean immigrant experience from one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Moses thinks he's got it made. Originally a poor Caribbean immigrant, he is now the proud landlord of a ramshackle house in Shepherd's Bush, London. He has visions of being master of his own domain, writing his memoirs while his trusty sidekick and...

A Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age — The New York Times "On one side of the ducats was stamped the radiant profile of Archithorius, on the other - an image of his six hundred arms." Mortal Engines is a selection of the best of Stanislaw Lem's extraordinary miniature space epics, chosen by his heroic translator Michael Kandel, who...

New to PMC Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, a self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his...

First time in Modern Classics Claudia Hampton, a beautiful, famous writer, lies dying in hospital. But, as the nurses tend to her with quiet condescension, she is plotting her greatest work—a history of the world ... and in the process, my own. Gradually she re-creates the rich mosaic of her life and times, conjuring up those she has known. There...

One of the great novels of Paris, from the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. I am nothing. Nothing but a pale shape, silhouetted that evening against the cafe terrace, waiting for the rain to stop. Guy Roland, a private detective in Paris, is trying to solve the mystery of his own past. His memories erased by amnesia,...

The second novel in the Game, Set and Match trilogy is a gripping study in the art of spy enrolment. World-weary agent Bernard Samson is losing control of his personal and professional life. Sent to Mexico to aid the defection of a KGB agent to the West, he has a chance to prove his worth. Instead, he is torn between...

A PMC reissue of this collection of Kafka's greatest short fiction, translated by Michael Hofmann. A reissue of the Penguin Modern Classics edition, this collection of new translations brings together the small proportion of Kafka's works that he himself thought worthy of publication. It includes Metamorphosis, his most famous work, an exploration of horrific transformation and alienation; Meditation, a collection...

Maigret Travels delves into the intriguing circumstances surrounding the attempted suicide of a countess and the mysterious death of a multi-millionaire. Both incidents involve seemingly unrelated individuals, yet they occur in the same hotel. When multi-millionaire David Ward is found dead just hours after the countess's suicide attempt, Maigret suspects a connection between the two cases. The investigation intensifies when...

Maigret Takes a Room sees Maigret take on a complex undercover investigation in the heart of Paris. What he thought he had discovered, in place of the joyful candour that she usually displayed, was an irony which was neither less cheerful nor less childish, but which troubled him... He wondered now if his exultation wasn't down to the fact that...

Maigret's Secret explores Maigret's internal struggle with an old case whose conclusion continues to haunt him. At a dinner party, Maigret recounts the case of Adrien Josset, who was found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine. Despite all clues pointing to Josset's guilt under the controlling influence of the magistrate, Maigret remains unconvinced following his one...

Maigret's Revolver follows Maigret as he travels to London on the trail of a young man on the run. The most exasperating of all was the head clerk at reception, dressed in an elegant morning coat and stiff collar, which did not wilt with a drop of perspiration. He treated Maigret in a cordial manner, possibly feeling sorry for him....

Maigret's Patience follows Inspector Maigret as he delves into the murder of a criminal he had known for twenty years. Maigret finds himself back on the Rue des Acacias just ten days after cracking another case there. This time, it is the murder of a criminal Maigret has known for over twenty years, someone he always suspected was behind a...

A well-to-do Paris surgeon and his down-at-heel neighbour become the focus of Maigret's investigation. Maigret had questioned thousands, tens of thousands of people in the course of his career, some occupying important positions, others who were more famous for their wealth, and others still who were considered the most intelligent of international criminals. Yet he attached an importance to this...

An old woman's cries for help are left unanswered in this gripping story. A kind but seemingly paranoid old lady turns to Inspector Maigret for help. Against the judgement of his subordinates, he decides to pay a visit to her Parisian apartment to investigate, but is he already too late? Maigret's Madwoman is a tale of mystery and suspense that...

With Paris under siege following a series of murders, Maigret must hatch a cunning plan to lure the murderer out. High up in Montmartre, there was a festive atmosphere, people were crowding round the little tables where rosé wine was being served... Yet a hundred metres further on, the little alleyways were deserted, and the killer might find it easy...

When a toy salesman confides in Maigret, he quickly becomes caught up in a poisonous feud between husband and wife. An unusually quiet day for Maigret at the Quai des Orfèvres is disturbed by a visit from a mild-mannered toy salesman, Xavier Manton. Maigret is puzzled by Manton's admission that he suspects his wife of plotting to poison him, and...

A visit from an old school-friend leads Maigret to a murderous affair. When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the man's roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim and finds a complex web of relationships that leads him...

Maigret's Anger is a gripping tale where Maigret loses his composure when a suspect plots to tarnish his reputation. During a quiet spell in June, Maigret is called to investigate the disappearance of a reputable businessman. When a body is discovered near the famous Père Lachaise cemetery, Maigret struggles to find any clues to the perpetrator. He loses his temper...

Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters sees Maigret getting tangled up with some notorious American gangsters in this new translation. Maigret was less angry, in fact, than he seemed. Pozzo was a tough customer, but he didn't mind that. Nor did he mind dealing with characters who had sent the American police packing—genuine hard men who played for keeps. Maigret hadn't...

An impromptu visit to an old school friend in the Vendee draws Maigret into a disturbing local investigation. The mood of the town was still jittery. It was all very well for people to go about their day-to-day activities as usual, but there was a certain anxiety in people's eyes, and they seemed to be walking faster, as if they...

While on holiday Maigret gets involved in a local murder case. Maigret and his wife take a much-needed holiday to Vichy, where they quickly become accustomed to the slower pace of life. When a woman, whom they regularly pass by on their daily strolls, is murdered, Maigret can't help but offer his assistance to the local Inspector, a former colleague...

Maigret in Court sees Maigret called to testify in court, where he reveals his doubts about the guilt of the accused. Maigret receives an anonymous phone call concerning the brutal murder of a woman and a young child. The tip-off points to the woman's nephew, a mild-mannered man by the name of Gaston Meurant. Maigret, however, remains unconvinced of the...

A series of letters set Maigret up for a peculiar case. Maigret Hesitates features Inspector Maigret as he receives a series of letters warning of a murder that is going to take place. The letters do not reveal who will die, when it will happen, or who will do it. Maigret must trace the letters back to their source before...

Maigret Goes to School follows the renowned detective as he heads to a small seaside town where the residents are closing ranks to hide the truth. When a school teacher from near La Rochelle seeks Maigret's help to defend his innocence, Maigret accompanies him back to a small coastal town. There, he confronts the insular community in order to uncover...

During a much-needed holiday, Maigret pulls a prank on colleague Janvier. When Maigret's holiday plans go awry, he and his wife spend their vacation in Paris, on the condition that he has nothing to do with work. However, a case involving the death of a doctor's wife intrigues Maigret and he assiduously follows its development in the papers. He cannot...

When Maigret becomes the accused, he must rely on his investigative skills to prove his innocence. For the first time in his career, Inspector Maigret receives a written summons to the Prefect's office, where he learns that he has been accused of assaulting a young woman. With his career and reputation on the line, Maigret must fight to prove his...

Maigret and the Tramp by Georges Simenon follows Inspector Maigret as he investigates an attack on a Parisian tramp. When a tramp is recovered from the Seine after being badly beaten, Maigret must delve into the man's personal circumstances to figure out just who wanted to kill him.

An old acquaintance of Maigret's reappears on the streets of Paris, and the inspector finds himself caught up in her fate once more. Maigret's attitude came as a surprise to those who were working alongside him in Rue de la Ferme. Ever since the morning, there had been something unusual in the way that the inspector had been directing operations....

Maigret and the Saturday Caller introduces us to a tense encounter where Inspector Maigret finds himself face-to-face with a visitor who openly admits his intentions to commit murder. However, when this visitor goes missing, Maigret is left to worry that he himself may have become the victim. The story unfolds one evening when Maigret is followed home by a man...

Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses follows Maigret as he struggles to break through a victim's uncooperative family to uncover the truth behind a murder in book fifty-three of the series. Maigret is called to the home of the Lachaume family, where the eldest brother has been found shot dead. Upon his arrival, the family close ranks and claim to have...

Maigret and the Old People explores the intriguing investigation of a murder involving an esteemed official. Maigret is called to the home of Armand de Saint-Hilaire, a highly respected official who has been found shot dead in his study by his housekeeper. After interviewing everyone concerned, Maigret is at a loss regarding the identity of the perpetrator until he comes...

A new translation in the Penguin Maigret series – the inspector uncovers some poisonous family politics. The moon must have risen above the mist, which was now faintly incandescent, and, when Arlette stopped, he saw the pale shape of her face, with the wide line of her mouth... Then, still standing there in front of him, she said in a...

When a professional gambler is shot dead, all except Maigret suspect his mistress is to blame. Maigret is called to the home of professional gambler, Felix Nahour, who has been found shot dead by his chambermaid. Maigret is shocked to recognise a photo of the man's wife, who becomes the main suspect. All signs point to her guilt, but Maigret...

A gripping novel about the corrupt and avaricious world of politics, newly translated as part of the Maigret series. Was Maigret wrong? From one point of view, certainly, because he had nothing to gain but everything to lose in confronting as powerful and wily a man as Mascoulin. The latter, on his feet, was proffering his hand. In a flash,...

Maigret and the Man on the Bench draws Inspector Maigret into the poignant story of a man trapped in the monotony of everyday life. Were these yellow shoes part of the reason Maigret was so interested in this man? He would never admit it, but for years he too had longed to wear olive-green shoes. They were fashionable at the...

A homeless loner haunted by his past is found murdered in this murky tale. When a socially isolated vagrant is found dead in the condemned building where he had been sleeping in Les Halles, Paris, Maigret must delve into the victim's mysterious past to discover who could have killed him.

Maigret and the Lazy Burglar features Maigret's relentless pursuit of justice as he tracks down the murderer of a burglar he had known for thirty years. Set against a high-profile hunt for the latest criminal gang to hit Paris, Maigret is determined to uncover the truth behind the death of a quiet crook for whom he cannot help feeling affection...

Maigret and the Killer involves Inspector Maigret on a compelling investigation following the stabbing of a young man. When a tape recorder is discovered on the murder victim, Maigret sees it as a potentially crucial clue, which could lead him to the killer.