Defeated and embittered by a country which treats him as a non-being, the 'invisible man' retreats into an underground cell, where the author smokes, drinks, listens to jazz and recounts his search fo
Hard-boiled detective fiction at its best: Raymond Chandler's best loved novel, The Big Sleep, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't c
A haunting novel about art and its power to heal, J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'That night, for the first time during many months, I slept l
Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, 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
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 their little boy, Coyotito, will be able to
Recounts author's experiences from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. This book draws openly and revealingly on author's own life.
Norman Mailer's, "The Fight" focuses on the 1975 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Kinshasa, Zaire. Muhammad Ali met George Foreman in the ring. Foreman's genius employed silence, serenity and
These five rich, witty and magical stories from the author of Out of Africa include one of her most well known tales, 'Babette's Feast', which was made into the classic film. It tells the story of a F
Daniel Defoe's great masterpiece, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality
Reveals some aspects of the existential notion of 'the absurd' by portraying an emperor so mighty and so desperate in author's search for freedom that he inevitably destroys gods, men and himself.
Is it possible to die a happy death? This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel, published posthumously and greeted as a major literary event. It tells the story of a young Algeri
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Th
The 'first man' is Jacques Cormery, whose poverty-stricken childhood in Algiers is made bearable by his love for his silent and illiterate mother, and by the teacher who transforms his view of the wor
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, ta
'I'll never understand the fucking Army.' Prew won't conform. He could have been the best boxer and the best bugler in his division, but he chooses the life of a straight soldier in Hawaii under the f
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimen
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to grim fortress of the Chateau d'If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on Isle of Monte Cristo and becom
Mr. Ma and his son Ma Wei run an antiques shop nestled in a quiet street by St Paul's Cathedral in London, where, far from their native Peking, they struggle to navigate the bustling pavements and myr
Competition is stiff for the position of sub-librarian in Aberdarcy Library. For John Lewis, the situation is complicated by the attentions of daunting and desirable village socialite, Elizabeth Gruff
Includes a collection spans many genres, offering ingenious alternative histories, mystery and horror, satirical reflections and a devilishly funny attacks. In this book, the stories reveal the scope
The Penguin English Library Edition of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 'No sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to fi
The Penguin English Library Edition of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my delivera
The Penguin English Library Edition of Treasure Island and The Ebb-Tide by Robert Louis Stevenson '"One more step, Mr Hands," said I, "and I'll blow your brains out"' In Treasure I
The Penguin English Library Edition of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell "Eh, miss, but that be a rare young lady! She do have such pretty coaxing ways ..." Seventeen-year-old Molly G
The Penguin English Library Edition of Silas Marner by George Eliot "God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you've no right to her!" Wrongly
The Penguin English Library Edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 'All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of m
In time for the 150th anniversary of Les Miserables and a star-studded film adaptation, a stunning new edition of Victor Hugo's masterpiece Victor Hugo's timeless story of injustice, heroism, and lov
“For sheer drama, few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northup’s tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement.” —Ira Berlin, from the Introduction Perhaps the best written of all the slave
The collected poems of Lewis Carroll, newly edited and published in a beautiful clothbound edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the w
The Penguin English Library Edition of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne 'I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it for my
When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Hungarian Jew and a medical doctor, Dr Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate:
The Penguin English Library Edition of Villette by Charlotte Brontë 'That evening more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate was of stone, and Hope a false idol - blind, bloo
The Penguin English Library Edition of Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence '"She was a brazen hussy." "She wasn't. - And she was pretty, wasn't she?" "I didn't look ... And tell
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Five Orange Pips and Other Cases by Arthur Conan Doyle 'He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson ... He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, b
The Penguin English Library Edition of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen "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 s
This is the "Penguin English Library Edition" of A"lice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll. '"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so surprised, that
The Penguin English Library Edition of Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James "I'm a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not?" This edition contains two
Carolina in the 1950s, and Bone - christened Ruth Anna Boatwright - lives a happy life, in and out of her aunt's houses, loving her little sister Reece and her beautiful young mother. But Glen Waddell
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected
The Penguin English Library Edition of Emma by Jane Austen 'I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall' Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Wood
