One of the most important essays on religious tolerance and freedom of thought, a French bestseller in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks In 1762 Jean Calas, a merchant from Toulouse, was execute
'A work of rare brilliance' The TimesCharmer, fabulist and tailor to Panama's rich and powerful, Harry Pendel loves to tell stories. But when the British spy Andrew Osnard - a man of large appetites,
Considered a classic at the time of its publication in 1910, A Shepherd's Life is a rare account of the lives of those who lived on and worked the land in nineteenth-century rural Britain. A masterful
A beautiful boxed set of four Hardcover Classics by the Bronte sisters, including Wuthering Heights, Villette, Jane Eyre, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall?To celebrate the bicentennial of Charlotte Bro
Written in inimitable, magical prose, these sixty-five stories span Nabokov's extraordinary life and career. Arranged chronologically to illuminate his development as a writer, the collection displays
'All the world was mad around her and she herself, agonized, took on the complexion of a mad woman; of a woman very wicked.' In 'the saddest story I have ever heard', a naïve American abroad unfolds a
"'How are you?' said Mathieu. 'I thought you were dead.'" Following a Parisian philosophy teacher through the cafés and bars of Montparnasse over two days in the sweltering summer of 1938, Sartre's se
'The hideous, then unfamiliar shriek of the air-raid sirens sang out over London.' Upper-class rogues, bohemians, dowagers, socialites, bureaucrats and delinquent evacuees prepare for England to chang
'Berlin-west, a morning in May.' An aspiring young Berlin actress turns the tables on her lustful middle-aged admirer, in Nabokov's deadpan, deliciously cruel story of hopeless infatuation and horribl
A rich, wondrous anthology of the Western magical tradition, from the Old Testament to Doctor Faustus and Paradise Lost, now in a Penguin Classics black spine edition ? “. . . as when iron is drawn to
A gorgeous clothbound edition of Jean Rhys's great masterpiece of desire and madness in the Caribbean, published for the novel's fiftieth anniversary. Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of
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 reflecti
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 reflecti
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 reflecti
Steinbeck's tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society, dependant on one another for both physical and emotional survival Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance
Drifters in search of work, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie, have nothing in the world except each other and a dream - a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually
A stunning clothbound edition of John Kennedy Toole's savagely funny, satirical masterpiece, designed by the acclaimed Coralie-Bickford Smith. A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat
Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning epic, The Grapes of Wrath,remains his undisputed masterpiece. Set against the background of Dust Bowl
Set in the rich farmland of Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessl
When Kino, a Mexican pearl-diver finds 'the Pearl of the World' he believes that his impoverished life will be magically transformed. He will marry Juana in the church and their son, Coyotito, will go
Both a fast-paced story of social unrest and strike, and the tale of one young man's struggle for identity, IN DUBIOUS BATTLE is a novel about the apocalyptic violence that breaks out when the masses
Hilarious, exuberant, subtle, tender, brutal, spectacular, and above all unexpected: these two extraordinary volumes contain the limitless possibilities of the British short story. Volume Two takes t
German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller’s famous text on art, politics, and society“The artist is certainly the child of his age, but all the worse for him if he is at the same time its pupil,
A new translation of Sade’s most notorious, shocking, and influential novel ? This distressing but hugely important text, which the Marquis de Sade himself called “the most impure tale that has ever b
Written in Berlin in 1934, Invitation to a Beheading contains all the surprise, excitement and magical intensity of a work created in two brief weeks of sustained inspiration. It takes us into the fan
Revolutionary essays on design, aesthetics and materialism - from one of the great masters of modern architecture Adolf Loos, the great Viennese pioneer of modern architecture, was a hater of the fak
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the leading English Romantics and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. His major works include the long visionary poems “Prometh
From the peerless author of The Lottery and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is a treasure trove of deliciously dark and funny stories, essays, lectures, letters and drawings. Let Me Tell Yo
'Out of the hideously scarred soil of Flanders rose black, splintered trunks of trees' In one of the greatest war memoirs ever written, an ordinary German soldier recalls the horror and bloodlust of c
The classic book that inspired Kes, the famous film, now published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Barry Hines's A Kestrel for a Knave was published in 1968, and was made into one of the ke
The classic World War One novel, available as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Alec and Jerry shouldn't have been friends: Alec's life was one of privilege, while Jerry's was one of toil. But t
Nobel prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells a tale of an unrequited love that outlasts all rivals in his masterpiece Love in the Time of Cholera, publis
A celebration of the drama and intensity of the mother-child relationship, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. It is the Swinging Sixties, and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienc
'40,000 francs, which lay before him in a heap of gold and banknotes.' Written in twenty-six days to pay off Dostoyevsky's own roulette debts, The Gambler is a graphic psychological study of addiction
'Now, ill-lit, almost in darkness, the windows of the houses shuttered, the water dank, the scene appeared altogether different, neglected, poor, and the long narrow boots moored to the slippery steps
The hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper
One of fiction's greatest chancers -- Denry Machin and his unceasing, ingenious efforts to become a great man.Set in the raw, Victorian world of the 'Five Towns', The Card tells the extremely funny an
A new, definitive translation of the quintessential Korean classic: the Robin Hood story of a magical boy who joins a group of robber bandits and becomes a kingThe Story of Hong Gildong is arguably th
The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran—now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language editionDick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from t
Scandinavia's best-loved children's classic - the enchanting story of a naughty little boy who learns to love nature 'Never before had Nils travelled around at such good speed, and he had always li
