Born in Hungary, the author was only two years old when his father was assassinated by the Nazis, and later also lost his uncle to the communists. Having studied under George Lukacs at the University
This is a celebration of England's most glorious churches, from Norman masterpieces and Medieval treasures to Baroque splendour and Victorian high gothic. Simon Jenkins has travelled England from Corn
The countryside is filled with beauty and wonder in these imaginative, idiosyncratic writings, but also cruelty and hardship. They describe the texture of an owl's feather, the colours of autumn and t
Francis Kilvert's diary shows a compassionate and thoughtful delight in the people and beautiful surroundings of the English countryside. With good cheer he records his loves (among them poetry and th
In these evocative and elegiac writings L. T. C. Rolt meditates on landscape, history, poetry, steam railways, vintage cars and the endless summer days of his childhood. He also recalls his many happy
To Fast Eddie Felsen, a young pool hustler, there was only one thing that mattered: to make the big time and the big money in the world of pool by beating the best in the country. Hustling suckers in
The Penguin English Library Edition of Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding 'Kissing, Joseph, is but a prologue to a Play. Can I believe a young fellow of your Age and Complexion will be content with Kiss
2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest and most important novelists, Charles Dickens. To celebrate we're publishing eight of his best and most well-loved novels i
Professor Timofey Pnin, late of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously perched at the heart of an American campus. Battling with American life and language, Pnin must face great hazards in this new world
Part of a series, this final novel deals with the childhood advice given to the Russian born author by his aunt, who then emigrates to England, to Paris, to Germany and then to the US.
Featuring sixty-five stories of magic and melancholy, the author displays a range of inventiveness, with sleight of hand fairy tales, intellectual games, and glimpses into lives of ambiguity and loss.
A fussily self-conscious Russian tutor shoots himself after a humiliating beating by his mistress' husband. There follows a satirical detective story and a wonderfully layered exploration of identity,
Lev Ganin is a young officer sharing a boarding house in Berlin with a host of Russian emigres. Alone in his room, he dreams of his first love, Mary. Awash with memories of youth and idyllic scenes of
Dramatizes an Oedipal love triangle, a tragi-comedy of husband, wife and lover, through Dreyer the rich businessman, his ripe-lipped and mercenary wife Martha, and their bespectacled nephew Franz.
Luzhin is a coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of international Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion
Detectives Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones have lost two criminals. Pinky ran off - but it shouldn't be hard to track down a giant albino in Harlem. Jake the dwarf drug dealer, though, isn't coming b
Whether describing the most beautiful poem ever composed or an invention gone horribly wrong, this title features eight stories that open up a rich, fantastical world of wonder, adventure and cruel tw
'Staring out at the river his agony was like a great lidless eye' In this stark, compelling and greatly autobiographical novella, Malcolm Lowry tells the story of Bill Plantagenet, a piano player and
Intends to attack what the author saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in the United States at the time of Beat movement, and takes on issues of sex, drugs and race, simultaneou
'...I stare at the coffee I poured myself, and I think: caffeine is a poison that stimulates the heart. There are plenty of instances of people killing themselves with coffee, hundreds and thousands o
Features five stories about danger on the high seas, an ungracious teacher of etiquette and an encyclopaedia of an unknown planet. This book includes "The Widow Ching-Pirate", "Monk Eastman", "Purveyo
Features three unbearably tense tales from sun-drenched and brutal climes that tell of vengeance, abandonment, violence and cruelty enjoyed and suffered, in a surreal realm of horror. This book includ
She was waiting, but she didn't know for what. She was aware only of her solitude, and of the penetrating cold, and of a greater weight in the region of her heart. The author's writing confronts the g
Perceptive, sensitive and eloquent, this book is filled with brooding atmosphere and gorgeous description that tell of genteel eccentrics, evocative childhood memories and a malevolent nocturnal meeti
There has been a murder in the Kenyan town of Ilmorog. Four suspects are placed in detention: headmaster Munira, teacher and political activist Karega, spirited barmaid Wanja and storekeeper Abdulla.
If headmasters were honest a prospectus would be a book which sa how many kanes he hav, contane a warning about the skool dog and the amount of prunes and rice served during the term. Nigel Molesworth
All skools make some sort at teaching the pupils things and the headmaster pin up a huge timetable of lessons ect. which make the heart sink when you look at it. Nigel Molesworth is back, this time ta
With one mad yell the mob, armed with stumps and bits torn from desks, surge away down the pasage, trampling the masters under foot. A buket of water fall on GRIMES and the term end in a series of wiz
Captain van Toch discovers a colony of newts in Sumatra which can not only be taught to trade and use tools, but also to speak. As the rest of the world learns of the creatures and their wonderful cap
Describing the silliness and 'feminine fatuity' of many popular books by lady novelists, George Eliot perfectly skewers the formulaic yet bestselling works that dominated her time, with their loveably
Andy Warhol carried a camera with him everywhere he went and, taken from ten years of extraordinary shots, his America aspires to the strange beauty and staggering contradictions of the country itself
Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, howev
Upper-class scoundrel Basil Seal, mad, bad and dangerous to know, creates havoc wherever he goes, much to the despair of the three women in his life - his sister, mother and mistress. And when Neville
Part of the fabulous new hardback library of 24 Evelyn Waugh books, publishing in chronological order. Following the death of a friend, poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering in
'Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography'. Waugh begins his story with heredity, writing of the energetic, literary and sometimes eccent
