Penguin Classics

Made up of Greta Thunberg's most powerful speeches, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is a clarion call for action against the climate crisis. Drawing from Thunberg’s direct and impassioned addresses delivered at critical global stages, this book is a testament to her role as one of the most impactful environmental activists of our time. Thunberg’s speeches...

Essays in Idleness by Kamo no Chomei and Yoshida Kenko offers timeless reflections on Buddhism, nature, and the value of leisure. These two classical Japanese texts, penned by Buddhist monks from medieval Japan, provide a profound glimpse into two contrasting yet deeply philosophical views of life. In the short memoir Hōjōki, Chomei eloquently describes his retreat from the chaos of...

Childhood, Youth, Dependency, by acclaimed Danish author Tove Ditlevsen, is a poignant and gripping trilogy, now brought together in a single volume as part of the Penguin Modern Classics series. This evocative work, originally hailed as a masterpiece upon its English publication, delves into the intricate layers of Ditlevsen's life, chronicling her journey from a turbulent childhood to the complexities...

Jane Austen's classic novel with cover artwork from the major new feature film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones. The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much! Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the...

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There, he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible...

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a masterful psychological drama set against the gritty backdrop of 19th-century St. Petersburg. The story follows Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished and disillusioned ex-student, who roams the streets, tortured by thoughts of greatness and contempt for societal norms. Consumed by monetary woes and driven by a deluded sense of justice, he plans and executes...

From the peasant revolts to the Great European Witch Hunt—the crushing of occult traditions and women's reproductive freedom in the transition to capitalism. A cult classic since its publication in the early years of this century, Caliban and the Witch is Silvia Federici's history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late...

Storm of Steel chronicles the harrowing experiences of Ernst Jünger, a German officer during the First World War. From the moment he enters the trenches on the Western Front, Jünger immerses readers in the brutal, relentless combat that defined an era. His narrative is a visceral journey through the realities of war: the brief moments of camaraderie, the relentless artillery...

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library ‘She did not know then that it was Love who had come to her briefly as in a dream before awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings - that it was Love to whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the blameless rigour of irresistible...

A magnificent new translation of the Odyssey by best-selling author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn With his Odyssey, best-selling author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn has created a momentous new work, hailed by classicists and poets alike - a translation to stand with those of E. V. Rieu and Robert Fagles. Setting aside the streamlining, modernizing approach of many recent translations, Mendelsohn...

Middlemarch, George Eliot's most ambitious novel, is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. It features a richly drawn cast of characters whose stories interweave to create a nuanced and moving drama. Among its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfilment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the...

Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich is a profound and haunting exploration of the catastrophic nuclear disaster that took place on 26 April 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine. On that fateful day, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred, releasing vast quantities of radioactive materials and contaminating up to three-quarters of Europe. Drawing upon meticulous research and poignant interviews, Alexievich pieces...

The definitive collection of Shirley Jackson's short stories, including The Lottery - one of the most terrifying and iconic stories of the twentieth century. An excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together...

On Heroes and Tombs is Sabato's masterpiece of obsessive love and murder set in 1950s Buenos Aires, now available in Penguin Modern Classics. This dark, philosophical novel is centred around a violent crime committed by Alejandra, the daughter of a prominent Argentinian family. Alejandra's act entangles the lives of three men: her father, Fernanda Vidal, who believes he is hunted...

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

A landmark American drama that inspired a classic film and a Broadway revival—featuring an introduction by David Mamet A blistering character study and an examination of the American melting pot and the judicial system that keeps it in check, Twelve Angry Men holds at its core a deeply patriotic faith in the U.S. legal system. The play centres on Juror...

Illustrated throughout, The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents specially curated comic book anthologies of the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel's transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy. A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel...

James Jones' classic of combat literature is a brutal and devastating portrait of the senselessness of war. The soldiers of C-for-Charlie Company are not cast from the heroic mould. The unit's captain is too intelligent and sensitive for the job, his first sergeant is psychotic, and the enlisted men begin the campaign gripped by cowardice. But they will all discover...

For the first time in English, a glittering novella about stardom and disillusionment. All eyes are upon Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract his attention. They would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells...

David Pascoe has selected from the pieces Dickens wrote after he founded Household Words in 1850, until his death in 1870. Throughout his writing career Charles Dickens was a hugely prolific journalist. This volume of his later work is selected from pieces that he wrote after he founded the journal Household Words in 1850 up until his death in 1870....

Now in paperback, a wonderful anthology of wedding poems, filled with surprising, curious, unorthodox and charming poems about love and the public commitment to love. For the many thousands of readers who each year go through the complex mix of thrill and trauma that is the planning of a marriage ceremony, Laura Barber's anthology is the answer to a prayer....

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. A king and his lords form an austere academy, swearing to have no contact with women for three years. But when the princess of neighbouring France arrives with her female attendants, their pledge is quickly placed under strain. Soon all are smitten and...

A selection of D. H. Lawrence's writings on art, morality and obscenity, edited & selected by Geoff Dyer. For D. H. Lawrence, the novel was the pinnacle, 'the one bright book of life', yet his non-fiction shows him at his most freewheeling and playful. This is a selection of his brilliantly varied essays, on subjects including art, morality, obscenity, songbirds,...

A new anthology, bringing together four masterpieces of classical comedy in one volume. From the fifth to the second century BC, innovative comedy drama flourished in Greece and Rome. This collection brings together the greatest works of Classical comedy, with two early Greek plays—Aristophanes' bold, imaginative Birds, and Menander's The Girl from Samos, which explores popular contemporary themes of mistaken...

Penguin Modern Hardbacks – a new series of iconic works from the Modern Classics list with bold, mid-century-inspired cover designs. Carson McCullers' prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate...

Penguin Modern Hardbacks — a new series of iconic works from the Modern Classics list with bold, mid-century-inspired cover designs. 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...

Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here, Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery...

Édouard Glissant's most celebrated, scintillating philosophical work sets out a new poetic vision for the world. 'We cry our cry of poetry. Our boats are open, and we sail them for everyone.' In Poetics of Relation, his most celebrated philosophical work, Édouard Glissant turns the Caribbean reality of his life into a complex, energetic vision of a world in transformation....

Season of Migration to the North is an "Arabian Nights" in reverse, enclosing a moral about international misconceptions and delusions. This is the story of a student who returns to his village after his obsession with the West had led him to London and the beds of women with similar obsessions about the mysterious East.

An essential volume for bibliophiles and collectors – a complete list of all available Penguin Classics, in a clothbound edition. From Achebe and Austen to Zola and Zweig, and from the Epic of Gilgamesh to twenty-first century dystopias and autofiction, here is the complete list of every Penguin Classic in print. The list is arranged alphabetically by author and also...

When the last fire goes out, time too will be finished Taken from his Collection of Sand, these marvelous essays are not great ideas in themselves but commentaries on great ideas and the physical remains they have left behind them- astonishing objects and human-made places which have encapsulated different senses of wonder and desire. The essays range from fire-temples to...

"I am large, I contain multitudes" A Penguin Classic When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character.Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of...

Interpreting Dreams by Sigmund Freud is his most famous work and one of the most renowned books in modern European history, now published as a Penguin Modern Classic. Through a detailed examination of the universal phenomenon of dreaming, Freud uncovered a radical new approach to exploring the unconscious mind. He recognised that dreams represent a conflict and compromise between conscious...

One of the greatest works of twentieth-century European literature, in the definitive English translation. It is summertime in the Swiss Alps. Hans Castorp, an ordinary young man, has arrived at an exclusive sanitorium for a brief visit to his convalescent cousin. Once there, time will lose its familiar contours, as Hans himself falls ill and loses himself in a landscape...

The definitive translation of Mann's magnum opus Thomas Mann described Joseph and His Brothers as his 'pyramid'—his greatest literary achievement, although the Nazi regime in his homeland did their best to tear it down on its first publication. A vivid and dazzlingly ambitious epic, it retells the biblical story of Joseph, whose dreams and visions set him apart from his...

'Arguably the great German novel' — New York Times 'This man is mad. Of that there can no longer be any doubt, and it is pitiable that no one representing psychiatric science is part of our circle.' In Germany, May 1943, a middle-aged scholar retires to his study to reflect on the life and untimely death of his friend, a...

The definitive English translation of Mann's first masterpiece—a grand epic of family life. 'I bear within me the seed, the rudiments, the possibility of life's capacities and endeavours. Where might I be, if I were not here?' Buddenbrooks is one of the original, and greatest, of family chronicles—the story of four generations of a wealthy and bourgeois German family as...

Although 'continually and bitterly ashamed' that the Arabs had risen in revolt against the Turks as a result of fraudulent British promises of self-rule, Lawrence led them in a triumphant campaign which revolutionised the art of war. Seven Pillars of Wisdom recreates epic events with extraordinary vividness. In the words of E. M. Forster, 'Round this tent-pole of a military...

An iconic study of why women turn to right-wing politics—exploring questions of abortion, homosexuality, work and family, and more. Feminism is hated because women are hated. Why do some women support Right-wing movements, even though they curtail their freedoms? Andrea Dworkin's timeless, visionary analysis goes to the heart of this contradiction, exploring the Right's positions on abortion, sexuality, racism, and...

Summer loving, summer reading! When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened – while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy. United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great...

A revelatory and richly varied collection of Poland's greatest short stories. Witty, surprising, and sparkling, this anthology is an essential exploration of Polish literature. Its thirty-nine superb stories run the length of the literal and imaginative creation of Poland, from 1918 (when Poland regained its independence after 123 years of colonisation by the neighbouring empires) to the present. The stories...

A new translation of this haunting collection of short stories that evoke 1930s Ferrara, with an introduction by Ali Smith. Isolated lives and a lost world are evoked in these haunting stories set in the Jewish-Italian community of 1930s Ferrara. A young man's unrequited love; a strange disappearance; a faded hotel; a lonely funfair; the smell of mown hay at...

The darkly passionate short stories of Thomas Hardy are compelling explorations of love, social class, superstition, and legend. This collection contains many of his finest and most representative works. Included are The Withered Arm, an eerie depiction of arcane witchcraft in nineteenth-century England; Barbara of the House of Grebe, in which a beautiful man's tragic disfigurement by fire is savagely...

A landmark anthology, staking a new claim for Bengali literature in English. The prose short story arrived in Bengal in the wake of British colonisers, and Bengali writers quickly made the form their own. By the twentieth century, a profusion of literary magazines and journals meant they were being avidly read by millions. Writers responded to this hunger for words...

The thirteenth issue of The Happy Reader, the bookish bi-annual published by Penguin Classics in collaboration with Fantastic Man. For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and entertained. The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half is a long-form interview with a notable book fanatic...

Set in a small town in New Zealand, the story is told through the eyes of a gauche thirteen-year-old boy called Jimmy Sullivan. It is the haunting tale of a young boy growing up in a Catholic household, seeing things he shouldn't and struggling to cope. The book appears to be domestic in scope and provincial in vision, but by...

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. With his signature flair and razor-sharp wit, Saki is an undisputed master of the short story. His tales are by turns hilarious, festive, supernatural, and macabre, but all offer fabulous, bite-sized satires of a decadent...

A problem of space first of all, then a problem of order One of the most singular and extravagant imaginations of the twentieth century, the novelist and essayist Georges Perec was a true original who delighted in wordplay, puzzles, taxonomies and seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. In these virtuoso writings about books and language, he discusses different ways of...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. It was what we call in the trade a potato... Tales of low-lifes and grifters trying to make ends meet in pre-War Germany.

Ostensibly written by an English knight, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India, and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army and to have travelled in the lands beyond—countries populated by dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons, and Pygmies. Although Marco Polo's slightly earlier narrative ultimately proved more...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. The Survivor presents a selection of poetry from the author of If This is a Man and The Periodic Table. "Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place."

An extraordinary tale of betrayal from the celebrated author of the Maigret series. On the shore of the Black Sea, on the edge of the Soviet Union, a little city has a new Turkish consul. Adil Bey—alone in an alien land—has taken the job after the mysterious death of his predecessor. Receiving only suspicion and hostility, he soon becomes reliant...

Fifty new books at €1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. My heart brims with billows and minnows of shadows and silver Beautiful, brutal, strange and lovely — this is Lorca reborn, in a selection of previously unpublished pieces and masterful new translations.

After Martin Chuzzlewit was published in 1844, Dickens deliberately took a break from novels to travel in Italy for almost a year. Bored by many traditional tourist sites and repelled by the greed and empty rituals of the Catholic Church, Dickens is far more attracted by urban desolation, the colourful life of the streets, and visible signs of the nation's...

Maigret is confronted with the full hostility of the petite bourgeoisie in book twenty-six of the series. All that was still unclear, for sure. Ernest Malik had been right when he had looked at Maigret with a smile that was a mixture of sarcasm and contempt. This wasn't a case for him. He was out of his depth. This world...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. She had lived by delays; she had meant to stop drinking; she had put off the time, and now she had smashed her car. At once harsh and tender, expansive and acutely funny, this is the...

"This world is made of clouds and of the shadows of clouds. It is made of mental landscapes, porous as air, where men and women are as trees walking, and as reeds shaken by the wind." First published in 1929, Wolf Solent was the first in John Cowper Powys' great sequence of visionary works of fiction. Set in Hardy's Wessex,...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Death the Barber The alphabet of the trees is fading in the song of the leaves Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionised American verse, and made him one...

A Quiet Place, described as a thrillingly dark novel from 'Japan's Agatha Christie' by The Sunday Times, unravels a mysterious and unsettling tale. While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the distressing news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Despite Eiko's known heart condition, which made her death somewhat expectable, the circumstances leave...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, Focus is Arthur Miller's chilling debut novel. A reticent personnel manager living with his mother, Mr. Newman shares the prejudices of his times and of his neighbours. Neither a Hispanic woman abused outside his window nor the persecution of the Jewish store owner from whom he buys his paper are any of his business. This...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War Poland.

A strange love triangle unravels in this masterly study of storytelling, deception, and desire. They met when they were teenagers. Quiet, poor, perhaps even a little dull, Miguel fell for languid Alicia during their long walks back from school. Then Lucas arrived and changed everything, entrancing Alicia with his confident bohemian charm. Miguel could not compete. But he stuck around...

First time in Penguin Classics for this masterpiece of Victorian Gothic One of the most significant and intriguing Gothic novels of the Victorian period, Uncle Silas is enjoyed today as a modern psychological thriller. In Uncle Silas (1864), Le Fanu brought up to date Mrs Radcliffe's earlier tales of virtue imprisoned and menaced by unscrupulous schemers. The narrator, Maud Ruthyn,...

Chaucer's tale of fragile love against the backdrop of war Set against the epic backdrop of the battle of Troy, Troilus and Criseyde is an evocative story of love and loss. When Troilus, the son of Priam, falls in love with the beautiful Criseyde, he is able to win her heart with the help of his cunning uncle Pandarus, and...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. After squandering his wealth with prodigal generosity, a rich Athenian gentleman finds himself deep in debt. Unshaken by the prospect of bankruptcy, he is certain that the friends he has helped so often will come to his aid. But when they learn his...

Legends from the Ancient North brings together some of the magical texts that most influenced Tolkien. 'They summoned their friends, readied their horses, and prepared their helmets, shields, swords, coats of mail.' J.R.R. Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating, and teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves, and magic. He was...

A new edition of Hogg's haunting tale of a devilish doppelgänger, edited and introduced by Hogg's celebrated biographer Karl Miller. Brought up by a strict Calvinist pastor, Robert Wringham believes he is one of the elect, predestined for salvation while all others—including his real father and brother—are cursed. Convinced he is indestructible and above the law, Robert commits terrible crimes...

The British Secret Service turns its attention to a linguistic prodigy in the Congo in this espionage thriller, now available in a giftable hardback series. 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...

A new translation of the French classic—the first in a hundred years—by David Coward. The Napoleonic Wars are over. Octave, a young Parisian, loves his mistress Elise—until he witnesses her being unfaithful. His despair leads to decadence, and he becomes the perfect libertine. However, the death of his father takes Octave to the countryside where he falls in love with...

A complex, psychological novel about familial loyalty, now publishing in gift hardback. A corporate lawyer from the House of Single & Single is shot dead in cold blood on a Turkish hillside. A children's entertainer in Devon is hauled to his local bank late at night to explain a monumental influx of cash. A Russian freighter is arrested in the...

Parade's End, Ford's great masterpiece set in the First World War, is now available in Penguin Black Classics with an introduction by Julian Barnes. Consisting of four novels - Some Do Not..., No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up, and The Last Post - Parade's End is the story of Christopher Tietjens and his progress from the secure world...

A man, dispirited by ageing, endeavours to steal a younger man's face; a doctor yearns for a virus that might eliminate his discomfort by turning everyone else into doubles of himself; a Colonel lays out the precepts of the life of DE (Do Easy); conspirators posthumously succeed in blowing up a train full of nerve gas; a mandrill known as...

Eminent Victorians marked an epoch in the art of biography; it also helped to crack the old myths of high Victorianism and to usher in a new spirit by which chauvinism, hypocrisy and the stiff upper lip were debunked. In it, Strachey exposes the self-seeking ambitions of Cardinal Manning and the manipulative, neurotic Florence Nightingale. In his essays on Dr...

Volume two of Javier Marías's acclaimed and evocative novel in parts. The first volume of Javier Marías's novel in parts saw Jacques Deza questioning the morality of his position in an undercover network under the enigmatic Bertram Tupra. When Deza is forced to witness an act of unexpected brutality, he is shaken to his core. Witnessing this event triggers memories...

Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh, now available in a wonderful hardback edition, is a masterful depiction of World War II. Waugh's own unhappy experience of being a soldier is superbly re-enacted in this story of Guy Crouchback, a Catholic and a gentleman, commissioned into the Royal Corps of Halberdiers during the war years 1939-45. The narrative is marked by...

An extraordinary story of love and exile, from one of the great masters of the Latin American novel. Santiago is trapped. Taken political prisoner in Montevideo after a brutal military coup, he can do nothing but write letters to his family, and try to stay sane. Far away, his nine-year-old daughter Beatrice wonders at the marvels of 1970s Buenos Aires,...

Framley Parsonage is Trollope's story of political advancement, debt, and family pride. Mark Robarts is a clergyman with ambitions beyond his small country parish of Framley. In a naive attempt to mix in influential circles, he agrees to guarantee a bill for a large sum of money for the disreputable local Member of Parliament, while being helped in his career...

As we publish all of le Carré's work for the first time, a special look for the books featuring his iconic character, George Smiley. A department of ageing British spies will break any rule for the glory of launching a secret agent into communist East Germany, in the fourth novel featuring George Smiley. The Looking Glass War dives into the...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series—beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. Lyrical Ballads (1798) is a landmark collection of poems that marks the beginning of the English Romantic Movement in literature. Co-written by friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the collection broke away from traditional poetic form. Of the twenty-three poems, Wordsworth penned works such as 'Lines...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. Henry IV Part One follows Prince Hal, the son of King Henry IV, as he spends his time in idle pleasure with dissolute friends, among them the roguish Sir John Falstaff. However, when the kingdom is threatened by rebellious forces, Prince Hal must...