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'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

A new verse translation by award-winning poet Alicia Stallings of one of the foundational works of ancient Greece The ancient Greeks revered Hesiod, believing he had beaten Homer in a singing con

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, o

The Penguin English Library Edition of Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens 'The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light' Dombey and Son is both a

'It was a dark night, with only occasional scattered lights glittering like stars on the plain' The aviator and author of The Little Prince describes vast, otherworldly landscapes, crash landings and

A wonderful new collection of Henry James’s short stories about Americans in Europe ? Daisy Miller is one of Henry James’s great heroines: a young, independent American traveling in Europe, whose flou

'We must learn to love, learn to be kind, and this from our earliest youth ... Likewise, hatred must be learned and nurtured, if one wishes to become a proficient hater'This volume contains a selectio

Leopardi, poet and philosopher, explores in humorous but savage dialogue the power of fashion and its strange irrationality. He also imagines conversations between Hercules and Atlas, Nature and an Ic

'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

The delightful, gossipy diaries of James Lees-Milne describe his encounters with the owners of country houses - from eccentric lords and oil millionaires to raffish socialists - as he travelled over E

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, o

A chilling new collection of Henry James's short stories exploring the uncanny In "The Turn of the Screw," one of the most famous ghost stories of all time, a governess becomes obsessed with the bel

'Happiness beyond all words! A life of peace and love, entire and whole!' A collection of cantos from Paradiso, the most original and experimental part of the Divina Commedia. One of 46 new books in t

The Penguin English Library Edition of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by james Hogg 'He was constantly harassed with the idea, that the next time he lifted his eyes, he woul

'He said that Shamil had ordered Hadji Murat to be taken dead or alive....' In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army and travelled to the Caucasus as a soldier. The four year

Whether calling for an end to the capitalist system, addressing the crowds after the Russian Revolution, or attacking Stalin during his years of exile, Trotsky’s speeches give an extraordinary insight

'I have nothing to declare,' Wilde once told an American customs official, 'except my genius.' A socialite, a wit, a man who flaunted convention and was unafraid to shock, Oscar Wilde was a great writ

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

'Do I wish to keep up with the times? No. My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can'The great American poet, novelist and environmental activist argues for a life lived slowly. Penguin Moder

'It's you who are the dogs...' What makes us happy? For over 800 years the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome argued that the answer lay in a simple, self-sufficient life. One of 46 new boo

Margaret's safe existence is turned upside down when she has to move to the grim northern town of Milton. Not only does she have her eyes opened by the poverty and hardship she encounters there, but s

A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College, Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics, ranging in its themes from Jane Austen and Carlotte Bronte to the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (imaginary) sister and the effects of poverty and sexual constraint on female creativity. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture.Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928

'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.'Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbi

'And when I shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars.' This collection of Shakespeare's soliloquies, including both old favourites and lesser-known pieces, shows him at his dazzling best. O

Poet, aesthete and hedonist, Baudelaire was also one of the most groundbreaking art critics of his time. Here he explores beauty, fashion, dandyism, the purpose of art and the role of the artist, and

For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and entertained. The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half is a lon

For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and entertained.The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half is a long-fo

'But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one's own?'A Room of One's Own grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928 and became a landmark work of feminist thought.Covering everything from why a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write, to authors such as Jane Austen, Aphra Behn and the Brontë sisters, and the tragic story of Shakespeare's fictional sister Judith, it remains a passionate assertion for female creativity and independence in a world dominated by men.'Fierce, energetic, humorous' Hermione Lee

Describing the surreal hallucinations, insomnia and nightmarish visions he experienced while consuming daily large amounts of laudanum, Thomas De Quincey's legendary account of the pleasures and pains

''Me have that golden gown!'' A blameless girl and her monstrous relatives clash over love and money in Balzac's matchless portrayal of greed in a French provincial town.

'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.'Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes - one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated.

'Her fragrant body and burning red lips' A married couple reveal their darkest sexual fantasies to each other, in this erotic psychodrama of infidelity, transgression and decadence in early twentieth-

The canonical American masterpiece of sin, guilt, and revenge, in an authoritative new edition from Penguin Classics with a foreword by Tom PerrottaAt once retrospective and radically new, The Scarlet

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, o

The letters of the eminent naturalist Gilbert White are full of precise, unaffected and delightful observations of the wildlife of his beloved village of Selborne, describing the habits, colours and s

'Nowhere could she discover the dens of iniquity about which she had dreamed...' Set in the Paris of society women, prostitutes and small-minded bourgeousie, and the isolated villages of rural Normand

'Oh, good God,' he kept saying with great relish. 'Good God...''Gooseberries' is accompanied here by 'The Kiss' and 'The Two Volodyas' - three exquisite depictions of love and loss in nineteenth-centu

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate . . .' Shakespeare's 154 sonnets contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, dealing with eter

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

'He too began to chase the great pierrot through the corridors of the château...' A novel of desperate yearning and vanished adolescence, the story of Meaulnes and his restless search for a lost, ench