Penguin Classics

A detective novelist searches for an elusive rival writer, in this classic work of Japanese crime fiction. A reclusive writer of detective stories, Oe Shundei, has gone missing, leaving behind a suspicious trail of blackmailing letters to a former lover. Another detective novelist, his rival, is the only one who can find him. A sequence of macabre and appalling events...

One of Henry Miller's most scandalous books, Tropic of Capricorn is now in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. A story of sexual and spiritual awakening, Tropic of Capricorn shocked readers as much as Henry Miller's first novel, Tropic of Cancer. A mixture of fiction and autobiography, it is the story of Henry V. Miller, who works for the...

First published in the 1920s, The Prophet is an inspirational, allegorical guide to living. The book is perhaps the most famous work of religious fiction of the Twentieth Century and has sold millions of copies in more than twenty languages. Gibran's protagonist, called simply the Prophet, delivers spiritual yet practical homilies on a wide variety of topics central to daily...

An iconic bestseller, The Motorcycle Diaries is Che Guevara's account of his youthful adventures travelling around South America on his motorcycle. "All we could see was the dust on the road ahead and ourselves on the bike, devouring kilometres in our flight northward" In late 1951, Guevara and Alberto Granado set off on the 500cc Norton they nicknamed La Poderosa...

Originally published at the zenith of Nazi Germany's power, Steinbeck's fable The Moon is Down explores the effects of invasion on both the conquered and the conquerors. Occupied by enemy troops, a small, peaceable town comes face-to-face with evil imposed from the outside and betrayal from within the close-knit community. As he delves into the motivations and emotions of the...

Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692—'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history'—and the McCarthyism which gripped America in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia, and malice, culminating in a violent climax, is a...

A classic Cold War thriller featuring computer hacking, nuclear submarines, and violence on the Arctic ice. Computer games run in a classified war studies centre in London. Nuclear submarines prowl beneath Arctic ice. And war games go into real time. Patrick Armstrong—possibly the same reluctant hero of The IPCRESS File—is sent to investigate. Patrick Armstrong is a tough, dedicated agent...

At long last, William S. Burroughs's cult classic and undoubted masterpiece enters Penguin Modern Classics. A cultural landmark and the most shocking novel in the English language, Naked Lunch is an exhilarating ride into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. An unnerving tale of an addict unmoored in New York, Tangier, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone,...

A satirical and philosophical set of space adventure stories from one of the best-loved science fiction writers of the twentieth century. The Star Diaries, Stanislaw Lem's set of short stories written over a period of twenty years, all feature the adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy. These tales recount him spinning in time-warps, spying on robots, encountering bizarre civilisations and...

The Besieged City, Clarice Lispector's revelatory third novel, is now available in English for the first time. Written in flight from Lispector's 'shipwreck of introspection', it is a book unlike any other in the Lispector canon, a novel focused on the simple act of seeing the external world. Its heroine, Lucrecia, is utterly mute and unreflective, possibly devoid of any...

Jorge Luis Borges was a literary spellbinder whose tales of magic, mystery, and murder are shot through with deep philosophical paradoxes. This collection brings together many of his stories, including the celebrated Library of Babel.

Hope by Len Deighton immerses Bernard Samson in the complicated dissolution of the USSR in the second novel of the Faith, Hope, Charity trilogy. Bernard Samson makes his return to Berlin in this instalment of the classic spy trilogy, Faith, Hope, and Charity. In this narrative, Bernard is striving to readjust his life amidst uncertainties regarding his wife Fiona and...

The revolutionary Che Guevara's guide to guerrilla war. First published in 1961, following the successful Cuban Revolution, this is Che Guevara's handbook for guerrilla war. Che considered that the Cuban Revolution taught would-be insurrectionists three fundamental lessons: (1) Popular forces can win a war against the army. (2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution...

Finnegans Wake follows a man's thoughts and dreams during a single night. It is also a book that participates in the re-reading of Irish history that was part of the revival of the early 20th century. The author, James Joyce, also wrote Ulysses, Dubliners, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The first novel in the celebrated Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy finds Bernard Samson in rural Germany, trying to deliver a Russian defector to London Central. Bernard Samson returns to Berlin in the first novel in the classic spy trilogy, Faith, Hope and Charity. Bernard has known that he is not getting the full picture from London Central ever since...

An influential exploration of sex and its surrounding taboos. A philosopher, essayist, novelist, pornographer, and fervent Catholic who came to regard the brothels of Paris as his true 'churches', Georges Bataille ranks among the boldest and most disturbing of twentieth-century thinkers. In this influential study, he links the underlying sexual basis of religion to death, offering a dazzling array of...

A heartbreaking nonfiction classic from a renowned child psychologist. In 1964, renowned psychotherapist Virginia M. Axline visited a New York school. There she encountered a little boy apart from teachers and children. Dibs sat alone, or gently traced the edge of the room, defying approach and every attempt at interaction. Every day was like this, and every day his teachers...

This dark satire follows the egotistical Hermann Hermann, a murderer who thinks himself an artist. Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. With shattering immediacy, Nabokov...

A drama of decay in Southern America, this depiction of patriarchy, power and repression is one of Williams' landmark works. Big Daddy Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the occasion: Gooper, his wife and children, and Brick, an ageing football hero who has...

A critically acclaimed tale of abuse and betrayal in America's deep South. Carolina in the 1950s, and Bone—christened Ruth Anna Boatwright—lives a happy life, in and out of her aunt's houses, playing with her cousins on the porch, sipping ice tea, loving her little sister Reece and her beautiful young mother. But Glen Waddell has been watching them all, wanting...

A Spy In The House Of Love explores the life of Sabina, a beautiful, bored, and bourgeois woman who leads a double life driven by her relentless desire for brief encounters with near-strangers. Propelled into infidelity by a desperate longing for sexual fulfilment, she weaves a sensual web of deceit across New York. However, when the secrecy of her affairs...

The beautiful and moving follow-up to the acclaimed Cider with Rosie. 'The stooping figure of my mother, waist-deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep's wool, was the last I saw of my country home as I left it to discover the world' Abandoning the Cotswolds village that raised him, the young Laurie Lee walks to...

Three seasonal stories set in Paris at Christmas, from the celebrated creator of Inspector Maigret. It is Christmas in Paris, but beneath the sparkling lights and glittering decorations lie sinister deeds and dark secrets. In the short story that lends its title to the volume, A Maigret Christmas, the Inspector receives two unexpected visitors on Christmas Day, who lead him...

Runciman's great Crusades trilogy reissued in Penguin Modern Classics. "The whole tale is one of faith and folly, courage and greed, hope and delusion." The Christian and Muslim empires of the Middle East had fought each other for centuries, two ancient, powerful civilisations, in some ways very familiar to one another. In 1095, something extraordinary happened. The Pope issued an...

Taking its title from T.S. Eliot's modernist poem The Waste Land, Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust is a chronicle of Britain's decadence and social disintegration between the First and Second World Wars. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Robert Murray Davis. In his elegant, malicious prose, Evelyn Waugh satirizes British society as...

Tender and bittersweet, these stories by Truman Capote form a captivating tribute to the Christmas season. Selected from across Capote's writing life, the stories range from nostalgic portraits of childhood to more unsettling works that reveal the darkness beneath the festive glitter. In the Deep South of Capote's youth, a young boy, Buddy, and his beloved maiden 'aunt' Sook forage...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Tyger, Tyger by William Blake explores profound and thought-provoking themes through its powerful imagery and lyrical style. This collection of poetry delves into the complexities of human experience and the questions of creation and existence. ‘How can the bird that is...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. The pleasure is twice as sweet When you cheat a cheat. The World is Full of Foolish Men by Jean de la Fontaine captures the essence of these timeless words, enticing readers into a world of wit and wisdom.

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946 'It's coming - the postponeless Creature'

GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015The irresistibly collectible box set of all 80 Little Black Classics In celebration of Penguin's 80th birthday, this box set of the 80 books in the Little Black Classics series showcases the many wonderful and varied writers in Penguin Black Classics. From India to Greece, Denmark to Iran, and not forgetting Britain, this assortment of...

Captain Ahab is an eerily compelling madman who focuses his distilled hatred and suffering (and that of generations before him) into the pursuit of a creature as vast, dangerous, and unknowable as the sea itself. More than just a novel of adventure, this is a haunting social commentary populated with some of the most enduring characters in literature. Written with...

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.

First time published individually in Modern Classics, alongside Claudius the God. Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In I, Claudius, he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors—from the...

Heart of Darkness is Joseph Conrad's haunting Modernist masterpiece, now featured in the beautifully designed Penguin Clothbound Classics series. Heart of Darkness has been considered for much of the twentieth century as a literary classic and a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. It reflects the savage repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians, representing one of...

A phenomenal bestselling author meets the most magical stories ever told, now in a beautiful clothbound classics edition. In this stunningly designed book of classic fairy tales, award-winning author Philip Pullman has chosen his fifty favourite stories from the Brothers Grimm and presents them in a 'clear as water' retelling, in his unique and brilliant voice. These new versions show...

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 'I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me ... Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day - mock me horribly!' A...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. When young prince Hamlet is confronted by his father's ghost on the battlements of Castle Elsinore, he is burdened with a terrible task—slay King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, who the ghost alleges murdered him. Wrestling with...

A riveting selection of short stories in Spanish alongside their English translations. This new dual-language edition of ten stories selected from The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories celebrates some of the very best twentieth-century literature from Spain. Each story appears in Spanish alongside an expert English translation, providing unique cultural insight and literary inspiration for language learners. Ranging from...

Things Fall Apart is a brand new imprint from Penguin Classics. Okonowo is the greatest warrior alive. His fame has spread like a bushfire in West Africa, and he is one of the most powerful men of his clan. But he also has a fiery temper. Determined not to be like his father, he refuses to show weakness to anyone—even...

A masterly work of art, which rearranges language and plays in the gaps between reality and fiction. In Agua Viva, Clarice Lispector aims to 'capture the present'. Her direct, confessional, and unfiltered meditations on everything from life and time to perfume and sleep are strange and hypnotic in their emotional power. This remarkable work has been a huge influence on...

A rediscovered diabolical slice of great American noir. The Night of the Hunter is one of the great chase novels, centred on the ferocious, unforgettable figure of Preacher, a psychopath who relentlessly pursues two children who may or may not know the secret of where the money from a bank raid is hidden. Set in a brilliantly rendered Depression-era American...

Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who...

Clarice Lispector's audacious and haunting last novel, new to Penguin Modern Classics. Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist, Macabea loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo S.M.,...

Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith 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. Holly Golightly is a glittering socialite mover and shaker—generally upwards, sometimes sideways, and, every now and then, down. She's up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She's a shoplifter, a delight, a drifter, a tease. In...

A beautiful clothbound edition featuring some of the famous detective's most famous cases. 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. This collection includes many of the famous cases - and great strokes of brilliance -...

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. Sense and Sensibility follows the story of the Dashwood sisters, Marianne and Elinor, as they navigate the complexities of love and society. Marianne, who...

Arthur Miller's extraordinary masterpiece, Death of a Salesman changed the course of modern theatre, and has lost none of its power as an examination of American life. In the spring of 1948, Arthur Miller retreated to a log cabin in Connecticut with the first two lines of a new play already fixed in his mind. He emerged six weeks later...

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....

When Bill Masen awakes blindfolded in hospital and carefully removes his bandages, he realises he is one of the few who can see; almost everyone else has been blinded by a meteor shower. Now, with civilisation in chaos, the triffids—huge, venomous plants able to 'walk', feeding on human flesh—can have their day. This stark vision of a desolate world infested...

In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenar recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes a long valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that...

A gripping, vivid novel which brings to life Europe in the Middle Ages, in all its beauty and horror. One of Hermann Hesse's greatest novels, Narcissus and Goldmund is an extraordinary recreation of the Middle Ages, contrasting the careers of two friends. One of them shuns life in a monastery and goes on the road, entangled in the extremes of...

Boy is the story of Roald Dahl's very own boyhood, including tales of sweet-shops and chocolate, mean old ladies, and a Great Mouse Plot. These tales serve as the inspiration for some of his most marvellous storybooks in the years to come. Full of exciting and strange things, the stories in Boy are a mix of the funny and the...

After reading A Christmas Carol, the notoriously reclusive Thomas Carlyle was "seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality" and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens' other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas...

The classic existentialist novel, in a wonderful new translation by Sandra Smith, now in paperback. Meursault leads an unremarkable bachelor life in Algiers until he commits a random act of violence. His lack of emotion and failure to show remorse only increase his guilt in the eyes of the law, and challenge the fundamental values of society—a set of rules...

The Waves, Woolf's innovative modernist novel, is now available in a new Black Classics edition. Tracing the lives of a group of friends, this novel follows their development from childhood to middle age. While social events, individual achievements, and disappointments form its narrative, the novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that expresses the inner life of its...

In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture, and murder—for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes, and the State undertakes to reform him—but how and at what cost? A Clockwork Orange presents a dystopian world teetering on the brink of moral and societal collapse, challenging the distinction between free...

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck offers a profound exploration of the human spirit and the complexities of friendship and dreams. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, this timeless classic follows two displaced ranch workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who drift through California in pursuit of stable work and the elusive promise of a better life....

The Rise And Fall of Athens by Plutarch traces the fortunes of Athens through nine lives - from Theseus, its founder, to Lysander, its Spartan conqueror - in this seminal work. What makes a leader? How does their character affect the fate of their people? Plutarch illustrates the rise and fall of Athens through nine lives, from the legendary days...

A new translation of Simone Weil's best-known work—a political, philosophical, and spiritual treatise on what human life could be. An icon of twentieth-century French philosophy, Simone Weil was described by Andre Gide as 'the patron saint of all outsiders' and by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our time'. In this, one of her last and best-known works,...

The Koran, now presented in a masterful and fully revised translation, is universally regarded by Muslims as the infallible Word of God. This sacred text was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel nearly fourteen hundred years ago. Its 114 chapters, or surahs, offer a profound narrative central to Muslim belief, encompassing a vast array of themes and...

The Constant Gardener by John le Carré is a masterfully crafted tale of love, loss, and the quest for justice, set against a backdrop of political intrigue and corporate corruption. This gripping narrative begins with the brutal murder of Tessa Quayle, a passionate and determined humanitarian, on the remote shores of Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya. The enigmatic circumstances surrounding...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is an ancient Chinese military treatise that has transcended time to become a universal guide for those seeking wisdom in strategy, leadership, and decision-making. Written over two millennia ago, this seminal work offers profound insights into warfare tactics, psychological warfare, use of spies, and the significance of adaptability and resourcefulness. The book is...

I Am Not Your Negro is an audacious and poignant exploration of race relations in the United States, deftly weaving together the inimitable prose of James Baldwin with the inventive vision of filmmaker Raoul Peck. This work seamlessly builds on what was to be Baldwin's final, unrealized literary project, shedding light on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm...

In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of prominent Athenian intellectuals, including philosophers, playwrights, and aristocrats, come together to exchange views on the nature of eros, or desire. The setting of this engaging dialogue is the home of the tragedian Agathon, where the guests take turns delivering speeches that delve into various aspects of love, culminating in...

The Nature of Things by Lucretius is a profound exploration of the natural world and our place in it. This epic poem, composed in the 1st-century BC, offers a comprehensive examination of the universe, nature, and the human soul through a combination of scientific inquiry, philosophical discourse, and lyrical poetry. Lucretius embarks on a poetic journey to explain the workings...

The Freedom to Be Free by Hannah Arendt is a compelling compilation of three thought-provoking essays. The book delves deep into the essence of freedom and its intrinsic connection to politics. Arendt, one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century, presents a stirring argument that true freedom can only be achieved within the realm of political life,...

In Republic, Plato constructs a visionary dialogue that delves deep into the nature of justice, the just man, and the just society. Set in ancient Athens, the narrative follows Socrates as he engages in profound conversations with a diverse group of characters, including Plato's own brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus. Through a series of intense debates and philosophical inquiries, Socrates seeks...

Reflections on the Guillotine, a profound essay by philosopher and writer Albert Camus, delves into the heart of the moral and ethical implications of the death penalty. The narrative confronts the brutal reality of execution in a deeply personal and philosophical exploration, revealing the psychological torment faced by both the condemned and those who administer capital punishment. Through detailed arguments...

On Violence is Arendt's influential essay examining the relationship between violence, power, war, and politics, now available in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Written in 1970, with the Holocaust and Hiroshima still fresh in recent memory, the war in Vietnam raging, and the streets of Europe and America seething with student protest, Hannah Arendt's now classic work offers...

In God is Dead. God Remains Dead. And We Have Killed Him., renowned philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche explores profound and controversial themes central to the existential movement. The work is a searing critique of religion, morality, and the profound shift in human consciousness that ensues with the death of God. Nietzsche posits a world where traditional beliefs are no longer tenable,...

Delve into the profound and thought-provoking world of Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer, one of the most pivotal figures in nineteenth-century philosophy. Schopenhauer explores a variety of themes in this collection, providing profound insights into religion, ethics, politics, the nature of women, and much more. Rather than being driven by reason, Schopenhauer posits that human actions are compelled by...

Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault delves deeply into the history and development of modern penal systems. It explores the transformations in Western societies' approach to punishment, shifting from a grotesque and public spectacle of torture to a more civilised, seemingly humane practice of incarceration. Foucault meticulously traces the evolution of social control mechanisms, presenting a compelling argument that modern...

In le Carré's first post-Cold War novel, an ex-soldier helps British Intelligence penetrate the secret world of ruthless arms dealers. At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities—about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings—backfires terribly,...

In the final adventure of the Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas, D'Artagnan remains in the service of the corrupt King Louis XIV after the Three Musketeers have gone their separate ways. Amidst the grandeur and intrigue of the French court, a mysterious prisoner in an iron mask languishes in the Bastille, where he has been...

The final, previously unpublished volume of one of the twentieth century's seminal works. Foucault's The History of Sexuality changed the way we think about power, selfhood, and sexuality. In this fourth and final volume, he turns his attention to early Christianity, exploring how ancient ideas of pleasure were modified into the Christian notion of the 'flesh' - a transformation that...

The third volume in Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality series, now reissued in the prestigious Penguin Modern Classics, continues the philosopher's revolutionary exploration of how power, knowledge, and pleasure intersect within Western societies. Foucault delves into the Golden Age of Rome, contrasting it with classical Greek traditions, to uncover a significant transformation in the conception and regulation of sexual...

The Histories by Herodotus is an extraordinary work of classical literature that offers a compelling account of the ancient world. This landmark of historical writing, often regarded as the first great narrative history in Western literature, primarily centres on how a small confederation of Greek city-states united against the mighty Persian Empire. Set during the 5th century BC, the narrative...

From the visionary mind of one of New Journalism's pioneering figures, Norman Mailer, The Fight provides an unfiltered, riveting account of the 1974 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship held in Kinshasa, Zaire. This historic bout brought together two of the most formidable boxers on the planet - Muhammad Ali and George Foreman - who clashed not just with their fists, but...

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac is a seminal work of beat literature published in 1958, the year following his breakthrough novel On the Road. In this deeply introspective and philosophical narrative, Kerouac chronicles the adventures of Ray Smith, a thinly veiled representation of himself, and his friend Japhy Ryder, based on the poet and essayist Gary Snyder. The story...