Penguin Classics

The Later Roman Empire is a historical account of the end of the Roman Empire, penned by Ammianus Marcellinus, the last great Roman historian. His writings hold a prestigious place alongside those of Livy and Tacitus. This chronicle spans a period of twenty-five years during Marcellinus' lifetime, covering the reigns of Constantius, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian I, and Valens. It provides...

John Carter's modern translation conveys the compelling style of the original. His extensive introduction provides an in-depth assessment of Appian as a historian and places the work in context. Taken from Appian's Roman History, the five books collected here form the sole surviving continuous historical narrative of the era between 133-35 BC — a time of anarchy and instability for...

A fascinating description of the beginning of the modern world. For nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world—a world in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame radically transformed science, the arts, and politics. In this landmark work, he depicts the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice and Rome...

Books VI-X of Livy's monumental History of Rome Books VI-X of Livy's monumental work trace Rome's fortunes from its near collapse after defeat by the Gauls in 386 BC to its emergence, in a matter of decades, as the premier power in Italy, having conquered the city-state of Samnium in 293 BC. In this fascinating history, events are described not...

One of the great books in Western history and the very first work of non-fiction, in Tom Holland's compelling new translation. The Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the 5th century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing. Joined here are the sheer drama of Herodotus'...

A collection of brilliant short stories from one of America's greatest ever science fiction writers. Often considered to be Robert Sheckley's best short story collection, Untouched By Human Hands displays all of the author's signature surreal humour and eye for the unreal. Featuring human space exploration from the perspective of appalled aliens, darkly comic dystopias, and wry fables of technological...

When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802,701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment, and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture now weak and childishly afraid of the...

A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance, he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated...

When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy: an unpublished 'dream book'. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105. The Shape...

A mind-expanding space opera from one of Germany's most acclaimed science-fiction writers. In the dusty wastes of a far-flung planet, strange artisans toil. Like their fathers before them, they tie intricate knots out of the hair of their wives and daughters, slowly forming carpets. Delicate and unique, each carpet requires an entire lifetime of work—and all will be sold to...

When penniless businessman Mr. Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr. Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey...

When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital, there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realises that he is the only person who can see — everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor shower. A stunning new clothbound edition of one of the most famous science-fiction novels of the...

A much-loved classic from a giant of European science fiction. Stanislaw Lem is perhaps the most original and influential European science fiction writer of the twentieth century. His ornate, phantasmagorical writing probes the furthest reaches of the universe while remaining deeply and particularly human. The Cyberiad, one of Lem's most beloved works, follows the exploits of Trurl and Klapaucius—two ingenious...

The definitive collection of stories from one of the most influential science fiction writers ever, and a pioneer of Black speculative fiction. Samuel R. Delany is widely considered to be one of the greatest science fiction writers of the twentieth century, and a pioneer of Black and Queer genre fiction. Driftglass, the definitive collection of Delany's science fiction stories, displays...

An outrageous adventure across the stars from the master of witty science fiction. Announced in a thunderclap out of another day's tedium, hapless New Yorker Tom Carmody learns that he is the winner of the Intergalactic Sweepstake. Accepting with a shrug, he is whipped across the universe to collect his prize. The catch? There's no way home. Enlisting the help...

Published alongside other works on the 150th anniversary of Joseph Conrad's death, Heart of Darkness has long been regarded as a literary classic and a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. The novella reflects the savage repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians, representing one of the largest acts of genocide committed up to that time. Conrad's...

This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction, and poetry demonstrates an intense interest in aesthetic issues and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The Fall of the House of Usher describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In The Tell...

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. Arguably America's most influential short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe's tales of suspense never fail to spook and amaze. Gathered in this selection are his very best horror stories, including the gothic tour de force...

Launching a major new paperback series - Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 'I'm unfavourable to killin' a man as long as you can git around it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?' The original Great American Novel, an incomparable adventure story and a...

Alternate history meets Cold War thriller in a vintage Len Deighton escapade. XPD begins on 11 June, 1940 - where is Winston Churchill? A private aircraft takes off from a small town in central France, while Adolf Hitler, the would-be conqueror of Europe, prepares for a clandestine meeting near the Belgian border. For more than forty years, the events of...

A sweeping portrait of one Berlin family, spanning generations and two world wars. Peter and Paul, the two sons of German businessman Harald Winter, are bonded together by a childhood trauma. But as they grow up, the brothers also grow apart. When the shadow of the Third Reich falls, they become divided by war and their differing ideals—only to meet...

A devastating semi-autobiographical novel and the first volume of Kerouac's memoir cycle. Gerard Duluoz was born in 1917, 'a sickly little kid with a rheumatic heart'. Based on Jack Kerouac's memories of the beloved older brother who died when he was a boy, Visions of Gerard is unique among his novels for its dreamlike evocation of the sensations of childhood...

New to Penguin Modern Classics for Sontag's exploration of the most important artists of our time. Under the Sign of Saturn, Susan Sontag's third essay collection, brings together her most important critical writing from 1972 to 1980. In these provocative and hugely influential works, she explores some of the most controversial artists and thinkers of our time. This collection includes...

A classic novel exploring loneliness and the nature of connection, from the bestselling author of Bad Behaviour. Dorothy Never—fat—lives alone in New York, spending her days alone ever since the downfall of her guru, the Ayn Rand-like Anna Granite. Justine Shade—thin—finds herself only able to connect with people who will hurt her and is writing an article about Anna Granite,...

An action-packed Cold War thriller set in the deserts of North Africa. A Soviet space scientist defects to win academic freedom, but western intelligence has other plans for him and sends an unnamed spy—perhaps the same reluctant hero of The IPCRESS File—to look after him. But what follows is a blood-streaked trail across three continents... Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy reveals...

Places Russell Hoban where he has got to be - among the greatest, timeless novelists — The Times Born to swim thousands of miles in the ocean, the giant sea turtles are now trapped in a tank of golden-green water at London Zoo. But not for much longer. Two lonely people, a bookseller and a children's illustrator, have begun thinking...

New to Penguin Modern Classics, a captivating exploration of the work of one of Italy's most influential - and least understood - painters. Throughout his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, Proust repeatedly refers to colours as Tiepolo Pink or Tiepolo Red. Who exactly was the artist that he so memorably transformed into colour? The eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo...

Gertrude Stein, as a college student at Radcliffe and a medical student at Johns Hopkins Medical School, was a privileged woman. Yet, she was surrounded by women who were trapped by poverty, class, and race into lives that offered little choice. Her portraits of Anna and Lena are examples of realistic depictions of immigrant women who had no occupational choice...

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the life of Amory Blaine, a young man rebelling against his staid, Midwestern upbringing with an ambition to acquire the patina of Eastern sophistication. In his quest for sexual and intellectual enlightenment, Amory progresses through a series of relationships, ultimately finding himself cast out into the real world.

An extraordinary collection of Nabokov's little-known published material from across his life - from student essays to his last interviews. The last major collection of Nabokov's published material, Think, Write, Speak brings together a treasure trove of previously uncollected texts from across the author's extraordinary career. Each phase of his wandering life is included, from a precocious essay written while...

A shimmering collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, translated into English for the first time. A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of love, marriage and family life in mid-century...

The latest title from the bestselling author John le Carré to come into Penguin Modern Classics. The Tailor of Panama follows Harry Pendel, the charismatic proprietor of Pendel and Braithwaite Limitada of Panama, through whose doors everyone who is anyone in Central America passes. Andrew Osnard, mysterious and fleshly, is a spy. His secret mission is two-pronged: to keep a...

A new translation of Simenon's visceral, critically acclaimed classic. And always the dirty snow, the heaps of snow that look rotten, with black patches and embedded garbage. The white powder that occasionally peels off from the crust of the sky in little clumps, like plaster from a ceiling, is unable to cover the filth. Most people struggle to get by...

The visionary history of the universe and human progress In this masterly synthesis, Arthur Koestler cuts through the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. He shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how, in particular, the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view...

A richly compelling tale of folklore and witchcraft from this modern master, new to Penguin Modern Classics. Jacob, a Jewish slave held in a mountain village after escaping a massacre by Cossacks, will be killed if he tries to escape. The one saving grace is his love for his master's daughter, Wanda. They begin a secret affair, trying to avoid...

It is September 1938 and during a heatwave, Europe tensely awaits the outcome of the Munich conference, where they will learn if there is to be a war. In Paris, people are waiting too, among them Mathieu, Jacques, and Philippe, each wrestling with their own love affairs, doubts, and angsts—and none of them ready to fight. The second volume in...

Dark, dreamlike love stories with a twist from the author of There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby. In these dark, dreamlike love stories with a twist, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya tells of strange encounters in claustrophobic communal apartments, ill-fated holiday romances, office trysts, schoolgirl crushes, tentative courtships, rampant infidelity, tender devotion and terrifying madness. By turns...

Jody Tiflin has the urge for rebellion, but he also wants to be loved. In The Red Pony, Jody begins to learn about adulthood—its pain, its responsibilities, and its problems—through his acceptance of his father's gifts. First, he is given a red pony, and later he is promised the colt of a bay mare. Yet both of these gifts bring...

One of the towering figures of the black literary tradition. - Henry Louis Gates, Jr The night's over for Ulysses Galen. It started going bad for the big Greek when a knife was drawn, then there was an axe, then he was being chased and shot at. Now Galen is lying dead in the middle of a Harlem street. But...

This volume brings together Freud's main contributions to the psychology of love. His illuminating discussions of the ways in which sexuality is always psychosexuality—that there is no sexuality without fantasy, conscious or unconscious—have changed the ways we think about erotic life. In these papers, Freud develops his now famous theories about the sexuality of childhood and the transgressive nature of...

A guidebook to the wilderness of mind and an indispensable resource from the founding father of psychedelia, for the first time in Modern Classics. The Psychedelic Experience, created by the prophetic shaman-professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert, is a foundational text that serves as a model and a guide for all subsequent mind-expanding inquiries. In this wholly unique...

One of the great works of twentieth-century sociology, new to Penguin Modern Classics. Acclaimed on first publication and today considered one of the defining works of sociology, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is Erving Goffman's extraordinary analysis of the structure of our social interactions. Blurring the line between workaday life and theatrical performance, Goffman argues that our behaviour...

Sci-fi meets the Old West in this obscene and hilarious novel from Naked Lunch author and Beat icon William S. Burroughs. This surreal fable, set in America's Old West, features a cast of notorious characters: The Crying Gun, who breaks into tears at the sight of his opponent; The Priest, who goes into gunfights giving his adversaries the last rites;...

An extraordinarily ambitious, surprising, and enjoyable book, this is the second of two volumes celebrating the British short story. This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects, and tones. The most famous authors are here, as well as many others, including some magnificent stories that have never been republished since...

A celebration of one of the most curious and playful literary groups of the twentieth century. Brought together for the first time, here are 100 pieces of The Penguin Book of Oulipo writing, celebrating the literary group who revelled in maths problems, puzzles, trickery, wordplay and conundrums. Featuring writers including Georges Perec, Raymond Queneau and Italo Calvino, it includes poems,...

A stunning new series look for one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Penguin Modern Classics. The Pearl is Steinbeck's flawless parable about wealth and the evil it can bring. When Kino, an Indian pearl-diver, finds the Pearl of the world he believes that his life will be magically transformed. He will marry Juana in church and...

The final masterwork that was nearly destroyed, from one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. Dr Philip Wild, a man of brilliance, wit, fortune and tremendous bulk, is used to suffering humiliations at the hands of his wife, the younger, slender, and rudely promiscuous Flora. But in a novel, a 'maddening masterpiece' documenting her infidelities, written by one...

One of the finest American novels ever written, Norman Mailer's classic account of the Philippines campaign of WW2. Based on Mailer's own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, The Naked and the Dead is a graphically truthful and shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in...

Le Carre's singular story of a cautious man plunged into recklessness, published in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Aldo Cassidy is the naive and sentimental lover. A successful, judicious man, he is wrenched away from the ordered certainties of his life by a sudden encounter with Shamus, a wild, carousing artist, and Helen, his nakedly alluring wife. Cassidy,...

Magical realism meets Greek myth in this wonderfully offbeat novel. An inexplicable message flashing onto the screen of his Apple II computer at 3 a.m. heralds the beginning of a startling quest for frustrated author Herman Orff. Taking up the offer of a cure for writer's block leads him to 'those places in your head that you can't get to...

The poignant story of an outsider falsely accused of murder from the celebrated author of the Maigret series. She was beautiful, full of vitality, and he was sixteen years older, a dusty, lonely bookseller whose only passion in life was collecting stamps. Jonas is used to his young wife disappearing. Everyone in the town knows that she goes off with...

Hoban's first book for adults mixes playful fantasy with an insightful meditation on fathers and sons. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz begins with the note, "I have gone to look for a lion." In a world where lions have become extinct, the map-maker Jachin-Boaz nevertheless abandons his wife and son to find one, leaving just this message. However, his...

A searing coming-of-age tale by one of the greatest Spanish writers of the 20th century, set on the island of Mallorca during the Spanish Civil War. "This is an old and wicked island. An island of Phoenicians and merchants, of bloodsuckers and frauds." Ana María Matute's 1959 novel, Primera memoria (translated as The Island), is a stifling story of rebellious...

Len Deighton's best-selling first spy novel, which revolutionised the genre, is now published in Penguin Classics for the first time. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far...

Len Deighton's best-selling first spy novel, now adapted into a major new ITV series. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister. With its sardonic, cool,...

“To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.” - André Gide Michel had been a blindfolded scholar until, newly married, he contracted tuberculosis. His will to recover brings self-discovery and the growing desire to rebel against his background of culture, decency, and morality. But the freedom from constraints...

In The House of Bernarda Alba, a tyrannical matriarch rules over her house and five daughters, cruelly crushing their hopes and needs. The other plays here also portray female characters whose desires are tragically and violently frustrated—a woman's longing for a child in Yerma, and a bride's yearning for her lover in Blood Wedding. All appeal for freedom and sexual...

A new hardback edition of Fitzgerald's brilliant and most famous novel. The Great Gatsby is the tale of Jay Gatsby, a man who seemingly has everything, yet one thing remains forever beyond his grasp. His glittering parties are the talk of the town, attended by everyone who is anyone. Day and night, his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young...

Penguin Modern Classics presents Tennessee Williams' first successful play which has continued to win audiences over ever since. Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier, more gracious life in Blue Mountain, when she was pursued by 'gentleman callers'. Her son Tom, a poet with a job in a warehouse, longs for adventure and escape...

A brilliant exploration of power and dysfunction in Victorian England Pillar of society and stern upholder of Victorian values, god-fearing Norfolk merchant John Barnard presides over a large and largely unhappy family. This is their story - his brandy-swilling wife, their hapless offspring and their changing fortunes - over the decades. Sylvia Townsend Warner's last novel, The Flint Anchor gloriously...

The First Man offers an incredibly moving account of Camus' poverty-stricken childhood in Algeria, the love of his silent mother, and the remarkable figure of an old schoolteacher who saved him from ignorance. Camus was working on a manuscript version of the book when he was killed in a car accident with his publisher Michel Gallimard. The First Man was...

The Complete Stories is a comprehensive collection of short fiction by Truman Capote, one of the masters of twentieth-century American literature. This definitive volume showcases Capote's talent for skilfully crafted narratives and rich characterisation, capturing a wide range of human emotions and experiences. Each story reflects his keen insight into the human condition and his ability to transform the mundane...

One of the most remarkable artists of our age. — Mario Vargas Llosa The Book of Sand was the last of Borges' major collections to be published. The stories are, in his words, 'variations on favourite themes... combining a plain and at times almost colloquial style with a fantastic plot'. It includes such marvellous tales as 'The Congress', 'Undr' and...

The last diary of Che Guevara, with entries going up until two days before his death—the final, blazing record of a true revolutionary. In 1967, Che Guevara left Cuba to lead the Bolivian Liberation Army. In the jungles of Bolivia, they attempted to initiate a revolution like that in Cuba, in which Che had played such a central role. The...

Raymond Chandler created the fast-talking, trouble-seeking Californian private eye Philip Marlowe for his first great novel, The Big Sleep, in 1939. Marlowe's entanglement with the Sternwood family—and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures—is the background to a story reflecting all the tarnished glitter of the great American Dream. The detective's iconic image burns just as brightly in Farewell My...

Brilliant ... a panorama of a remarkable talent ... McCullers's finest stories — The New York Times A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers's best stories, including her beloved novella The Ballad of the Sad Café. A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers...

Mailer's classic account of the 1967 anti-Vietnam War rally in Washington D.C., and one of the best 'nonfiction novels' ever written. October 21, 1967, Washington, D.C. 20,000 to 200,000 protesters are marching to end the war in Vietnam, while helicopters hover overhead and federal marshals and soldiers with fixed bayonets await them on the Pentagon steps. Among the marchers is...

The most glamorous, witty and revealing writings charting the last eleven years of Warhol's life. Andy Warhol kept these diaries faithfully from November 1976 right up to his final week, in February 1987. Written at the height of his fame and success, Warhol records the fun of an Academy Awards party, nights out at Studio 54, trips between London, Paris...

The Adventures of Augie March follows the life of Augie, a poor boy growing up in Chicago during the Great Depression. Described as a 'born recruit', he becomes entangled in a series of wild occupations, only to reject each one as too confining for his ambitions. His independence faces its greatest challenge when he meets the glamorous Thea, a huntress...

A powerfully tender portrait of a single mother in 1970s Tokyo. Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality — Margaret Drabble Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its twelve chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is...

Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner is an extraordinary re-imagining of historical fiction. The novel explores the tale of a Victorian woman's love for her husband's mistress. The story follows a young English aristocrat who, cut adrift by tragedy, is led by her husband's former mistress deep into the fervour, chaos, and bloodshed of the French revolution. Summer Will...

Styles of Radical Will is Susan Sontag's second collection of groundbreaking essays, now available in Penguin Modern Classics. This collection features some of the most significant pieces of criticism from the twentieth century. Among them are the classics "The Aesthetics of Silence," offering a brilliant account of language, thought, and consciousness, and "Trip to Hanoi," penned during the Vietnam War....

The incredible eyewitness account of wartime resistance, now in paperback. Insistently asks the question—What would you do? Would you fight, or acquiesce, or collaborate? ... Karski was deeply patriotic and ludicrously brave ... an astonishing testament of survival - Ben Macintyre, author of Operation Mincemeat It is 1939. Jan Karski, a brilliant young Polish student, enjoys a life of parties...

A new translation of this counterculture classic by David Horrocks. At first sight, Harry Haller seems like a respectable, educated man. In reality, he is the Steppenwolf—wild, strange, alienated from society, and repulsed by the modern age. But as he is drawn into a series of dreamlike and sometimes savage encounters—accompanied by, among others, Mozart, Goethe, and the bewitching Hermione—the...

A tale of wasted love, and beauty, by Japan's literary master. Shimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the west coast of Japan, to meet with a geisha he believes he loves. Beautiful and innocent, Komako is tightly bound by the rules of a rural geisha, and lives a...

A new translation of Calvino's influential last work Italo Calvino was due to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard in 1985-86, but they were left unfinished at his death. The surviving drafts explore the concepts of Lightness, Quickness, Multiplicity, Exactitude, and Visibility (Constancy was to be the sixth) in serious yet playful essays that reveal Calvino's debt to...

A complex, psychological novel about familial loyalty, new to Penguin Modern Classics. 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...

This collection brings together Orwell's longer, major essays and a selection of shorter pieces that include Shooting an Elephant, "My Country Right or Left", "Decline of an English Murder" and "A Hanging". Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to a defence of English cooking, displaying a mastery of English plain prose style and...

With a new introduction by Christopher de Bellaigue Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannical monarch who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, capable...

Bellow is one of the giants of the twentieth-century novel. Read Seize the Day and see why San Francisco Examiner Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos. He is separated from his wife and children, at...