Universally acclaimed when it was first published in 1955, the novel captured the mood of a generation. It was a sensational best-seller that was made into an award-winning film with Gregory Peck, it
L.P. Hartley's moving exploration of a young boy's loss of innocence The Go-Between is edited with an introduction and notes by Douglas Brooks-Davies in Penguin Modern Classics. 'The past is a foreign
Victor, a ghostwriter, is just about to have an affair with Marta, a married woman, when - in the bedroom, half-undressed - she drops dead in his arms. He panics and slips away. But Marta's family are
A preacher called Deke O'Malley's been selling false hope: the promise of a glorious new life in Africa for just $1,000 a family. But when thieves with machine guns steal the proceeds - and send one m
'They no longer hold themselves up with all their might, but sink a little and at that moment appear totally human' Of the very first rank of prose stylists, Robert Musil captures a scene's every tell
Bobby - young, black and happily in love with Hispanic girlfriend Maria - lives in a cramped Bronx apartment with his mother, his younger siblings and walls full of rats. But when Bobby and Maria are
Tells the story of the misadventures of Hayri Irdals, an unforgettable antihero who, along with an eccentric cast of characters (a television mystic, a pharmacist who dabbles in alchemy, a dignitary f
A collection of seven tales, whose settings range from Tuscany and Elsinore, to a dhow on its way from Lamu to Zanzibar. It is shot through with themes of love and desire - from the maiden lady who no
In 1940 Steinbeck sailed in a sardine boat with his great friend the marine biologist, Ed Ricketts, to collect marine invertebrates from the beaches of the Gulf of California. The expedition was descr
This major new collection brings together the best of George Orwell's powerful political essays and journalism with his timeless satire on totalitarianism, Animal Farm. They show the vast range of his
Set in a superficially romantic, between-wars Paris, QUARTET is a poignant tale of a lonely woman. Set against a background of winter-wet streets, Pernod in smoky cafes and cheap hotel rooms with mauv
Andy Warhol kept these diaries faithfully from November 1976 right up to his final week, in February 1987. With appearances from and references to everyone who was anyone, from Jim Morrison, Martina N
In this unique collection of short stories composed between 1910-62, Evelyn Waugh's early juvenilia are brought together with later pieces, some of which became the inspirations for his novels. 'Mr Lo
Clinging to the Wreckage is the first part of John Mortimer's acclaimed autobiography. Here he recounts his solitary childhood in the English countryside, with affectionate portraits of his remote par
Some crooks have tried to snatch the plump son of a business tycoon, and have accidentally made off with his playmate instead. But they're not changing their plan: a payment is to be delivered to them
A golden Cadillac big enough to cross the ocean has been seen sailing along the streets of Harlem. A hit-and-run victim's been hit so hard she got embedded in the wall of a convent. A shootout with th
Simon Camish is an embittered, timid barrister, too busy with his own problems to take note of Rose Vassiliou across a dinner party table. But only a few years before, Rose had frequently been in the
Mrs Bridge, an unremarkable and conservative housewife in Kansas City, has three children and a kindly lawyer husband. She spends her time with shopping, going to bridge parties and bringing up her ch
The Penguin English Library Edition of Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy 'As you got older, ... you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glar
To be poor and destitute in 1920s Paris and London was to experience life at its lowest ebb. George Orwell, penniless and with nowhere to go, found himself experiencing just this as he wandered the st
Set on a Southern army base in the 1930s, this novel tells the story of Captain Penderton, a bisexual whose life is upset by the arrival of Major Langdon, a charming womanizer who has an affair with P
Virginia Woolf's last novel, in equal parts a triumphant celebration and witty mockery of 'Englishness', Between the Acts is edited by Stella McNichol, with an introduction and notes by Gillian Beer i
Perhaps the funniest travel book ever written, Remote People begins with a vivid account of the coronation of Emperor Ras Tafari - Haile Selassie I, King of Kings - an event covered by Evelyn Waugh in
Dean Corde is a man of position and authority at a Chicago university. He accompanies his wife to Bucharest where her mother lies dying in a state hospital. As he tries to help her grapple with an unf
Sally is big and pampered. She's married to Richard. But she loves Jerry. Jerry loves Sally, but he's also still in love with his wife Ruth. Who's been sleeping with Richard ...As a hot, feverish summ
A collection of works of a poet who as chief figure among the Beats, fomented a social and political revolution, yet his groundbreaking verse also changed the course of American poetry with its freewh
First published in 1949, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has lost none of the impact with which it first hit readers. Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London, chief city of Airstr
A moving tragedy of political intrigue and family strife, William Shakespeare's King Lear is edited by George Hunter, with an introduction by Kiernan Ryan in Penguin Shakespeare. 'How sharper than a s
Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural
Discover Dante's original Inferno in this modern and acclaimed Penguin translation. Describing Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate f
Peter Martin, a college track star determined to idle away what he knows will be one of his last innocent summers in his tranquil New England home town. But with the war escalating in Europe and his t
Presents an autobiographical account of the author's growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, told through his fictional alter ego Jack Duluoz, he mingles real people and events with fantastical figures t
Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges’s most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight he takes us inside the minds of an unrepenta
Her grand attempt to tell what she felt was the story of Jane Eyre's 'madwoman in the attic', Bertha Rochester, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is edited with an introduction and notes by Angela Smith i
It is said that the Hell's Angels could paralyse whole towns with fear. This book explores the questions such as: How much of that reputation was myth and how much was brutal reality?
Continuing the saga begun in I, Claudius, Robert Graves's Claudius the God is a compelling fictional autobiography of the Roman emperor, published with an introduction by Barry Unsworth in Penguin Mod
Nedra and Viri are a married couple whose favoured life is centred around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunni
With encyclopedic knowledge, this title writes about such diverse subjects as the imaginative pleasures of maps, bizarre exhibitions and the earliest forms of written language. It provides a glimpse i
