Penguin Classics

Our Mutual Friend is Dickens' last completed novel, portraying a dark, macabre London. Our Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance—Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps—and its legatees: young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the River Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London,...

Orlando, deciding not to grow old, pursues his quest for passion, adventure, fulfilment and protracted youth. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to the modern world. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian Princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on...

A playful mock 'biography' of a chameleonic historical figure, written for Virginia Woolf's intimate friend Vita Sackville-West. Orlando has always been an outsider... His longing for passion, adventure and fulfilment takes him out of his own time. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to the modern world. Will he find happiness with...

Launching a major new paperback series: Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 'A parish child - the orphan of a workhouse - the humble, half-starved drudge - to be cuffed and buffeted through the world, despised by all, and pitied by none' Dark, mysterious and mordantly funny, Oliver Twist features some of...

Monsieur Goriot is one of a disparate group of lodgers at Madame Vauquer's dingy Parisian boarding house. At first, his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are mysteriously reduced, he becomes shunned by those around him. Soon, his only remaining visitors are his two beautifully dressed daughters. Goriot's fate is intertwined with two other fellow boarders—the young social climber,...

George Eliot's masterful classic, in a gorgeous new 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. Middlemarch, George Eliot's most ambitious novel, is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a...

A tale of inheritance and destiny, this is the story Dickens considered his best. The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin sets out from the Wiltshire home of his supposed champion, the scheming architect...

Madame Bovary tells the story of Emma Bovary, a beautiful and bored woman trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, voracious spending, and eventually, in adultery. However, even her affairs bring her disappointment,...

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? ...Or is he all of these? Lolita invites readers to delve into these troubling questions, masterfully weaving...

Part of a series of new editions of DH Lawrence's most famous novels, stories and poems. Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to her husband's gamekeeper...

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. Set in a frozen world that is gradually being devastated by ever-encroaching ice, Anna Kavan's masterwork follows one man's pursuit of a mysterious silver-haired girl to the ends of the earth; to the end of everything.

Marlow, a ferry-boat captain on foreign assignment in the Congo, searches for the legendary and feared Mr. Kurtz, unprepared for what he will find. On his journey, he encounters the darkness of the wilderness; the darkness of colonisation, and ultimately, the darkness within every man. Heart of Darkness is a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism.

Hard Times, Dickens's satirical and enduring classic, is now available in a gorgeous new clothbound edition. This edition is 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. Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas...

Hard Times is set in the industrial town of Coketown, where life revolves around hard facts and rigid philosophies. The town is dominated by Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, a school headmaster and embodiment of Utilitarian principles, who feeds both his pupils and family with facts while banning fancy and wonder from young minds. As a consequence of this education, his obedient...

Peter Carson's new translation of Turgenev's vivid and honest tale of generational conflict. When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father by...

Far from the Madding Crowd is Hardy's first Wessex novel, presented in a gorgeous new 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. Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take...

A sparkling new translation of Pushkin's masterpiece. Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's verse novel follows the fates of three men and three women. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it contains a large cast of characters and offers the reader...

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors, Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie, provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love. Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities — the theory that certain...

A beautiful clothbound edition of Miguel de Cervantes' mock-epic masterwork, Don Quixote. 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. Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading romances of chivalry that he determines to become...

Dombey and Son is both a firm and a family, and the ambiguous connection between public and private life lies at the heart of Dickens' novel. Paul Dombey is a man who runs his domestic affairs as he runs his business: calculatingly, callously, coldly, and commercially. Through his dysfunctional relationships with his son, his two wives, and his neglected daughter...

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these souls as collateral to re-invent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient...

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens is a great coming-of-age novel, now available in a beautiful new clothbound edition. This is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experiences from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life....

Part of a series of new editions of Henry James's most famous novels and short stories. Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts, or is she simply ignorant...

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. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino presents twelve enchanting and fantastical stories about the evolution of the universe. This collection, penned by the giant of Italian literature, features characters—whether human, dinosaur, or mollusc—who disport themselves among galaxies, experience the...

Waugh's great novel of the lost golden age before the Second World War, new to the Penguin English Library. The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the years before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted...

One of Japan's most treasured novels, new to Penguin Classics. Botchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher after the death of his parents. Cynical, rebellious, and immature, Botchan finds himself facing several tests, from the pupils — prone to playing tricks on their new, naive teacher; the...

Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie française and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives—the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses, and wily financiers—and...

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel, fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters, and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets....

Set in one of the new Paris department stores, this poem of modern activity charts the mutual beginnings of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society. At the centre of the novel is Octave Mouret, who rises through charm, drive, and effort to become the director of this mighty shopping emporium. Mouret is a man who is aware of the power...

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. A Tale of Two Cities is 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...

In 1665, the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he...

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh is a celebrated tale of decadence and social disintegration, now available in a wonderful new hardback edition. After seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last finds herself bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair...

The hero of this curious novel is des Esseintes, a neurasthenic aristocrat who has turned his back on the vulgarity of modern life and retreated to an isolated country villa. Here, accompanied only by a couple of silent servants, he pursues his obsessions with exotic flowers, rare gems, and complex perfumes and embarks on a series of increasingly strange aesthetic...

Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival in the local squire's son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur's seductive charm, and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede,...

Famously associated with the term 'magical realism', Gabriel Garcia Marquez is probably South America's most famous literary export. An acknowledged masterpiece, this is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles....

'Envy remained hidden in her heart, like a plague germ which may come to life and devastate a city.' Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris—her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot, and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that...

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 Cossacks follows Dmitry Andreich Olenin, who, in the hope of escaping the hollowness of his privilege, joins the army and heads to the Caucasus. There among the foothills, he will meet the Cossacks—a people he considers...

Six newly translated stories from the bestselling Austrian author. 'One of the masters of the short story' Guardian These six stories of obsession, secrets, delusions and desires from one of the greatest European writers show individuals caught up in forces beyond their control — whether an art dealer agreeing to a heartbreaking deception, a soldier destroyed by war, a servant...

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. Today, George Orwell is perhaps most famous for his iconic novels — Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm — but in his own time, it was his remarkable nonfiction writing which drew most attention. Kind-hearted, intelligent,...

All of Orwell's brilliant writing on England and Englishness collected in a single volume. Much of George Orwell's best writing, brought together in this comprehensive collection, is concerned with England, a country that he found both endearing and frustrating. In the brilliantly perceptive The English People, he lists the national characteristics as 'suspicion of foreigners, sentimentality about animals, hypocrisy, exaggerated...

An expansive collection of George Orwell's writing on the down and out. The vivid, impassioned writings collected together in this powerful volume chronicle Orwell's first-hand experiences of life among the underclass of the 'two nations' of rich and poor. Down and Out in Paris and London is the young Orwell's memoir of his time as a struggling, often penniless writer,...

George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future, annotated for students and with a new introduction by D. J. Taylor. Ever since its publication in 1948, George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian regime where Big Brother controls its citizens like 'a boot stamping on a human face' has become a touchstone for human freedom, and one of the most...

The ten stories collected in this volume demonstrate Tolstoy's artistic prowess displayed over five decades, experimenting with prose styles and drawing on his own experiences with humour, realism, and compassion. Inspired by his experiences in the army, The Two Hussars contrasts a dashing father and his mean-spirited son. Illustrating Tolstoy's belief that art must serve a moral purpose, What Men...

The collected poems of Lewis Carroll, newly edited by Gillian Beer and published in a beautiful clothbound edition. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...' wrote Lewis Carroll in his wonderfully playful poem of nonsense verse, Jabberwocky. This new edition collects together the marvellous range of Carroll's poetry, including nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques,...

How Much Land Does a Man Need? & Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy is a collection of short works that range from Tolstoy's earliest tales to the brilliant title story. Rich in insights and passion, these stories embody the themes that define all of Tolstoy's explorations: love, war, courage, and civilization.

A superb new translation by Judson Rosengrant of Tolstoy's semi-autobiographical trilogy. Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed. Readers find the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner...

The new paperback series - Penguin English Library "Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). "Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!" 'I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole ... without the least idea what was to happen...

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was a happy man and in good health—yet life...

A stunning new Clothbound Classics edition of Jane Austen's tantalising final work—set to be a major Andrew Davies ITV adaptation this autumn. 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. Written in the last months of...

One of the greatest translations of all time: Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three stunning clothbound volumes designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time,...

A sparkling literary satire and an Austen favourite, in a beautiful new 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. During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive Catherine Morland experiences the joys of...

Love and Freindship by Jane Austen offers readers a glimpse into the author’s brilliant, hilarious, and often outrageous early stories, sketches, and pieces of nonsense, newly compiled for Penguin Classics. Jane Austen's earliest writings date back to when she was just eleven years old, already showcasing the hallmarks of her mature work. However, these works are also products of the...

The first complete new translation for 25 years of the acknowledged masterpiece of Japanese literature. Lady Murasaki's great 11th century novel is a beautifully crafted story of love, betrayal, and death at the Imperial Court. At the core of this epic is Prince Genji, the son of an emperor, whose passionate character, love affairs, and shifting political fortunes offer an...

Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, this powerful novel tells how the heroine and her lover, Laurent, kill her husband, Camille, but are subsequently haunted by visions of the dead man and prevented from enjoying the fruits of their crime. Published in 1867, this is Zola's most important work...

Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems of such beauty, imagination and generosity of spirit, that he had—unwittingly—fulfilled his wish that he should 'be among the English poets after my death'. This wide-ranging selection of Keats's poetry...

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne is the author's most famous adventure, now available in a beautiful clothbound edition. One night at the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg makes a bold wager with his companions, claiming that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking away from the well-established routine of his daily life, he...

A selection of Seneca's most powerful and macabre plays. Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends. Thyestes depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented...

Written in 1857, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands is the autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame rivalled Florence Nightingale's during the Crimean War. Seacole's offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war met with racism and refusal. Undaunted, Seacole set out independently to the Crimea, where she acted as doctor and 'mother' to wounded soldiers...

An astonishing memoir of the Holocaust through the eyes of a child, and an exquisite meditation on memory and trauma. The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld chronicles his experiences as the beloved only child of middle-class Jewish parents living in what is now Ukraine at the outbreak of World War Two. Their peaceful life is upended when soldiers...

The Letters of the Younger Pliny provide a series of fascinating views on imperial Rome. A prominent lawyer and administrator, Pliny (c. AD 61-113) was also a prolific letter-writer, who numbered among his correspondents such eminent figures as Tacitus, Suetonius, and the Emperor Trajan, as well as a wide circle of friends and family. His lively and very personal letters...

The story of Heloise and Abelard remains one of the world's most celebrated and tragic love affairs. Peter Abelard was a 12th-century French philosopher and celebrated logician. He taught in Paris, where Heloise was his pupil. Through their letters, we follow the path of their romance, from its reckless and ecstatic beginnings, through the suffering, the public scandal and enforced...

The Diary recorded by Lady Murasaki (c. 973 – c. 1020), author of The Tale of Genji, is an intimate picture of her life as tutor and companion to the young Empress Shoshi. Told in a series of vignettes, it offers revealing glimpses of the Japanese imperial palace: the auspicious birth of a prince, rivalries between the Emperor's consorts, with...

Rousseau's autobiography provides a unique insight into the mind and life of one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment. Widely regarded as the first modern autobiography, The Confessions is an astonishing work of acute psychological insight. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) argued passionately against the inequality he believed to be intrinsic to civilised society. In his Confessions, he relives the first...

Lives of the Artists made Vasari one of the most influential art historians of all time, fusing literary and artistic ability. In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect. Through character sketches and anecdotes, he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in...

A major writer and a leading figure in the public life of Rome, Seneca (c. 4 BC - AD 65) ranks among the most eloquent and influential masters of Latin prose. This selection explores his thoughts on philosophy and the trials of life. In the Consolation to Helvia, he strives to offer solace to his mother following his exile in...

Asser's Life of King Alfred, written in 893, is a revealing account of one of the greatest of medieval kings. This work is composed by a monk of St David's in Wales, who later became Bishop of Sherborne in King Alfred's service. Asser worked closely with the king in his efforts to revive religion and learning across the kingdom. This...

With this landmark treatise on political economy, Adam Smith paved the way for modern capitalism, arguing that a truly free market was the engine of a fair and productive society. Books I-III of The Wealth of Nations examine the "division of labour" as the key to economic growth, by ensuring the interdependence of individuals within society. They also cover the...

The essential writings of the 20th century's most influential economist, collected in one volume. John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist, and one of the most influential thinkers, of the twentieth century. He overturned the orthodoxy that markets were optimally self-regulating, and instead argued for state intervention to ensure full employment and economic stability. The Essential Keynes is the...

The provocative historical work on social economy, demography and population control. An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings is Malthus' seminal examination of human population and its dependency on food production and the environment, which was highly controversial upon its publication in 1798. He predicted what is now known as the Malthusian catastrophe, where humans would ignore...

A short, powerful memoir from one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. In this deeply personal book, Baldwin reflects on the experiences that shaped him as a writer and activist — from his childhood in Harlem to the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Exploring the visceral reality of life in the American South...

An inventive translation of a great historical epic, recounting the turbulent life and times of Chinggis Khan. 'By the Power of Eternal Heaven; By the Protection of the Majestic Imperial Fortune.' Born a poor nomad in an unforgiving world, Chinggis (or Genghis) Khan transformed the thirteenth century, ultimately ruling an empire that would stretch from Korea to Crimea and Syria...

The definitive translation of our history's founding legal document - translated with a new commentary by David Carpenter. Magna Carta is probably the most famous declaration in western legal history. Wrested by rebellious barons from a very reluctant King John, it set out a series of rights and duties which have been appealed to, ignored, suppressed and argued about ever...

Sallust (86-c. 35 BC) is the earliest Roman historian of whom complete works survive. A senator of the Roman Republic, he was a younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey, and Julius Caesar. His Catiline's War tells of the conspiracy in 63 BC led by L. Sergius Catilina, who plotted to assassinate numerous senators and take control of the government but was...

The fascinating story of how NASA sent humans to explore outer space, told through a treasure trove of historical documents—publishing in celebration of NASA's 60th anniversary and with a foreword by Bill Nye. "An extremely useful and thought-provoking documentary journey through the maze of space history. There is no wiser or more experienced navigator through the twists and turns and...

A new edition of Darwin's remarkable account of the connection between emotion and facial expression which grew out of The Descent of Man. Published in 1872, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was a book at the very heart of Darwin's research interests, serving as a central pillar of his 'human' series. This book engaged some of...

In 20 short books, Penguin Classics brings you the new canon of great environmental works. Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As humans have driven the living planet to the brink of collapse, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend it. Their words have endured, becoming the classics that define the environmental...

The essential writings of ancient Egypt, from songs to stories, newly translated. 'Man perishes; his corpse turns to dust; all his relatives pass away. But writings make him remembered.' The fascination Ancient Egypt holds in our minds has many sources, but at the heart of it lie hieroglyphics. This extraordinary writing system was for many years seen as the ultimate...

What is history and how should it be written? This important new anthology contains all the seminal texts that relate to the writing of history in the ancient world. The study of history was invented in the ancient world. Treading uncharted waters, writers such as Plutarch and Lucian grappled with big questions such as how history should be written, how...

This edition contains a revision of the existing translation, revision of chronology and genealogy, and a new introduction of 4-6000 words, new notes, and a new selection of further reading. A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the Emperor's reign....

In writing his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire, the Greek statesman Polybius set out to help his fellow-countrymen understand how their world came to be dominated by Rome. Opening with the Punic War in 264 BC, he records the critical stages of Roman expansion - its campaigns throughout the Mediterranean, the temporary setbacks inflicted by Hannibal,...