and... and... and...

'The Argonauts were terrified at the sight. But Jason planting his feet apart stood to receive them, as a reef in the sea confronts the tossing billows in a gale.'The tragic, epic love affair that all

'You must be Odysseus, man of twists and turns...'The tales of Odysseus's struggle with a man-eating Cyclops and Circe, the beautiful enchantress who turns men into swine.Introducing Little Black Clas

'Ye Ice-Falls! Ye that from the mountain's browAdown enormous ravines slope amain -...'A selection of Coleridge's poems, including 'This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison' and 'Frost at Midnight'Introducing L

'Then she began to run, and she ran over the sharp stones and through the thorns, and the wild animals bounded past her ...'Four weird, dark and enchanting fairy-tales from the Brothers Grimm.Introduc

'Drawn on by his eagerness for the open sky, he left his guide and soared upwards...'Ovid tells the tales of Theseus and the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, the Calydonian Boar-Hunt, and many other fam

'So the club rose, the blood came down, and his bitterness and his anguish and his guilt were compounded' Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race, the

'Those husbands that I had,Three of them were good and two were bad.The three that I call 'good' were rich and old...' One of the most bawdy, entertaining and popular stories from The Canterbury Tales

'People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed - a knife - a purse - and a dark lane...'In this provocative and blackly fun

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 story of an elder

From a master of Southern gothic,these moving stories potray love, sorrow and our search for happiness and understanding.

'She decided she would teach him to speak and he was very soon able to say, 'Pretty boy!', 'Your servant, sir!' and 'Hail Mary!''

'Their fruits be diverse and plentiful, as nutmegs, ginger, long pepper, lemons, cucumbers, cocos, sago, with divers other sorts...'Scholar, spy, diplomat and supreme propagandist for Elizabethan sea

Gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battle

'She has many rare and charming qualities, but Sobriety is not one of them.'A selection of Austen's dark and hilarious early writings - featuring murder, drunkenness, perjury, theft, poisoning, women

'I have lived in important places, timesWhen great events were decided . . .'By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece 'The Great Hunger', some of the key poems by th

'O let them be left, wildness and wet'As Kingfishers Catch Fire is a selection of Gerard Manley Hopkins' incomparably brilliant poetry, ranging from the ecstasy of 'The Windhover' and 'Pied Beauty' to

From the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls The first novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed 'Life Class' trilogy - an unforgettable story of art and war, f

Good b.o means good "box office." You can smell it from a mile away' The legendary sixties New York pop artist Andy Warhol's hilarious and insightful vignettes and aphorisms on the topics of love, fam

'Mind you, it was a pukka, respectable opium-house, and not one of those stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas that you can find all over the City.'Kipling first became famous for his pungent, harsh and

'And again, as always, he had the feeling he was holding something that never was quite his - his. Something too delicate, too precious, that would fly away once he let go.'Three sharp and powerful sh

'Did she know and if she knew would she speak?'

'They wanted me to give a concert; I wanted them to beg me. And so they did. I gave a concert.'

'... a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food...'Swift's devastating short satire on how to solve a famineIntroducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black

A selection of Maupassant's brilliant, glittering stories set in the Parisian beau monde and Normandy countryside. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black

'But I, while vineyards ring with the cicadas' scream,Retrace your steps, alone, beneath the burning sun.'Virgil's lyrical, wistful and often witty pastoral poems.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80

'Nothing more lonely -' A selection of Basho's most magical haiku Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity

'Hoodwink'd in faery fancy...'This volume contains a selection of Keats's greatest verse - including his gothic story in verse, 'The Eve of St Agnes', and the mysterious 'Lamia' - exploring themes of

故事背景設定於1930年代的義大利炎夏，講述16歲少女 Ginia 渴望冒險，在結識風格獨特的模特兒 Amelia 後，踏入迷人的波希米亞藝術家世界。Ginia 在這群新朋友的引領下，深深愛上了神祕的青年畫家 Guido，展開一段充滿熱情與幻想，卻註定如夏日般短暫的酸甜初戀。這是一部描繪成長、失落與初戀記憶的義大利文學經典著作。''An astonishing portrait of an innocent on the verge of discovering the cruelties of love... there are whispers here of the future work of Elena Ferrante'' Elizabeth Strout, from the introduction''Life was a perpetual holiday in those days...''It''s the height of summer in 1930s Italy and sixteen-year-old Ginia is desperate for adventure. So begins a fateful friendship with Amelia, a stylish and sophisticated artist''s model who envelops her in a dazzling new world of bohemian artists and intoxicating freedom. Under the spell of her new friends, Ginia soon falls in love with Guido, an enigmatic young painter. It''s the start of a desperate love affair, charged with false hope and overwhelming passion - destined to last no longer than the course of a summer.The Beautiful Summer is a gorgeous coming-of-age tale of lost innoc

Everything was dead, everything unreal; the dark mob was made up of stiff lay-figures' One of America's greatest writers explores mob violence, voyeurism and betrayal in these unforgettable tales of C

With one's face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of Firedrops'A selection from Pepys' startlingly vivid and candid diary, including his famous account of the Great FireIntroducing Litt

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is bestselling author Marina Lewycka's hilarious and award winning debut novel, now available as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'Two years after my mo

'...a good bit of spice to give the critlings a flavour, and plenty of treacle to make the mince-meat look rich'Radical Victorian reformer Henry Mayhew walked the streets of London interviewing ordina

'No, no, I've got your word for it, I've got to die ... you promised me ... you told me ...' Turgenev's accounts of hunting in rural Russia, and the extraordinary characters he meets there. Introducin

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, and Vincent Cassel: a rollicking, bawdy, fantastical cycle of 50 fairy tales told by 10 storytellers over 5 daysBefo

'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n...'In this selection from Milton's great epic poem Paradise Lost, the fallen angels plot their revenge on Heaven after being banished to Hell - and Satan

Now Brando looked at people with assurance, and with what can only be called a pitying expression, as though he dwelt in spheres of enlightenment where they, to his regret, did not. This mesmerizing p

'The devil gave the woman a nudge: 'Look at that belt full of money peeping out from under the butcher's shirt!''Written for a local German journal and published in 1811, these fabulous, funny, jewel-

'Do you see your son, standing over there, in the antechamber? Well, I am going to shoot him.'The story of the great and mad Cambyses, King of Persia, told by part-historian, part-mythmaker Herodotus

'But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as if by a miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the tremendous sunshine.'Four personal, sun-drenched sketches of Lawrence's ex

'In two I'll slice the hair-seat / of Helga's kiss-gulper' In this epic tale from the Viking Age that ranges across Scandinavia and Viking Britain, two poets compete for the love of Helga the Fair - w