Penguin Black Classics

A vivid and richly anecdotal portrait of Spartan society. On Sparta by Plutarch provides vivid and engaging portraits of the Spartans and their customs, offering a major source of our knowledge about the rise and fall of this remarkable Greek city-state between the sixth and third centuries BC. Through his Lives of Sparta's leaders and his recording of memorable Spartan...

A new edition of these two French accounts written by soldiers who took part in the Crusades. The Conquest of Constantinople by Geoffrey of Villehardouin and The Life of Saint Louis by John of Joinville are eye-witness accounts of going to war in the service of God. In the first years of the thirteenth century, Villehardouin served as an envoy...

A new translation of this classic text The Ancien Regime and the Revolution is a comparison of revolutionary France and the despotic rule it toppled. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) is an objective observer of both periods—providing a merciless critique of the ancien regime, with its venality, oppression and inequality, yet acknowledging the reforms introduced under Louis XVI, and claiming that...

A History of My Times is a fascinating historical account of Greece at a point of crisis. Xenophon's history recounts nearly fifty turbulent years of warfare in Greece between 411 and 362 BC. Continuing the story of the Peloponnesian War at the point where Thucydides finished his magisterial history, this is a captivating chronicle of the conflicts that ultimately led...

This definitive three-volume Penguin Classics edition provides a complete and unmodernised text, presenting the History as it appeared to its early readers. Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilisations over...

A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance, he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated...

When penniless businessman Mr. Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr. Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey...

The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag, only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilisation is under threat, as...

At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. A vivacious woman and a high-spirited man both claim that they are determined never to marry. But when their friends trick them into believing that each harbours secret feelings for the other, they begin to question whether their witty banter and sharp-tongued repartee...

The Rise And Fall of Athens by Plutarch traces the fortunes of Athens through nine lives - from Theseus, its founder, to Lysander, its Spartan conqueror - in this seminal work. What makes a leader? How does their character affect the fate of their people? Plutarch illustrates the rise and fall of Athens through nine lives, from the legendary days...

In the final adventure of the Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas, D'Artagnan remains in the service of the corrupt King Louis XIV after the Three Musketeers have gone their separate ways. Amidst the grandeur and intrigue of the French court, a mysterious prisoner in an iron mask languishes in the Bastille, where he has been...

The Eclogues by Virgil is an exquisite collection of ten pastoral poems that masterfully blend a Greek literary form with vivid depictions of contemporary Roman life. These poems traverse the tranquil landscapes of rural Italy, where shepherds converse and sing, grappling with the various emotional and socio-political upheavals of their time. Filled with idyllic imagery and poignant emotion, the Eclogues...

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a pioneering work that laid the groundwork for modern feminism and the enduring struggle for gender equality. Written in 1792 by the trailblazing philosopher and advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, this seminal treatise is a compelling call to arms for the emancipation and education of women. In an era marked by the revolutionary fervour...

In time for the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth, a specially curated collection of Mahatma Gandhi's writings on nonviolent resistance and activism. A Penguin Classic The year 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi's birth, and Penguin Classics presents a short but comprehensive selection of text by Gandhi that speaks to non-violent civil disobedience...

Written at a time when furious arguments were raging about the best way to govern America, The Federalist Papers had the practical aim of persuading New Yorkers to accept the newly drafted Constitution in 1787. In this they were successful, but their influence also transcended contemporary debate to win them a lasting place in discussions of American political theory. Acclaimed...

Guy Mannering is an astrologer who only half-believes in his art. Instead, he places his faith in patriarchal power, wealth, and social position. However, the Scotland of this novel is a nation in which the old hierarchies are breaking down. Guy must learn the limits of the nabob's authority in a society where each social group— from gypsies and smugglers,...

"From the Bible through Dante and up to Treblinka and Guantanamo Bay, here is a rich source for nightmares." — The New York Times Book Review Three thousand years of visions of Hell, from the ancient Near East to modern America. A Penguin Classic From the Hebrew Bible's shadowy realm of Sheol to twenty-first-century visions of Hell on earth, The...

The Last Man by Mary Shelley is a landmark novel that invented the human extinction genre and initiated climate fiction. It imagines a world where newly forged communities and reverence for nature rise from the ashes of a pandemic-ravaged society. This edition is now available for the first time in Penguin Classics, with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit. Written while...

The authoritative original English version of a beloved classic. One of the world's best-loved stories of shipwreck and survival, The Swiss Family Robinson portrays a family's struggle to create a new life for themselves on a strange and fantastic tropical island. Blown off course by a raging storm, the family—a Swiss pastor, his wife, their four young sons, plus two...

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain tells the intriguing tale of two boys who, despite their identical looks and shared birthday, lead remarkably different lives. Edward Tudor is a prince and the heir to King Henry VIII, while Tom Canty is a destitute pauper. However, their lives take an unexpected turn when fate intervenes and Edward finds himself...

Possibly the worthiest contender for the title of The Great American Novel, this perennial bestseller is updated with a new introduction by Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen. The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen and a foreword by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and The...

Set against the frozen waste of a harsh New England winter, Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is a tale of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual tensions, published with an introduction and notes by Elizabeth Ammons in Penguin Classics. Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeenie. But when...

"One of the wittiest, most playful, and most alive and ageless books ever written." -- Dave Eggers, The New Yorker A revelatory new translation of the playful, incomparable masterpiece of one of the greatest Black authors in the Americas. A Penguin Classic The mixed-race grandson of ex-slaves, Machado de Assis is not only Brazil's most celebrated writer but also a...

Cooper's most enduringly popular novel combines heroism and romance with powerful criticism of the destruction of nature and tradition. Set against the French and Indian siege of Fort William Henry in 1757, The Last of the Mohicans recounts the story of two sisters, Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of the English commander, who are struggling to be reunited with their...

This enduring novel of crime and retribution vividly reflects the social and moral values of New England in the 1840s. The House of the Seven Gables is Nathaniel Hawthorne's gripping psychological drama concerning the Pyncheon family, a dynasty founded on pious theft, who live for generations under a dead man's curse until their house is finally exorcised by love. Hawthorne,...

An updated edition of a classic African American autobiography, with new supplementary materials. The preeminent American slave narrative first published in 1845, Frederick Douglass's Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838. It describes how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his...

One of the central firsthand accounts of slavery in America A haunting, evocative recounting of her life as a slave in North Carolina and of her final escape and emancipation, Harriet Jacobs's classic narrative, written between 1853 and 1858 and published pseudonymously in 1861, tells firsthand of the horrors inflicted on slaves. In writing this extraordinary memoir, which culminates in...

A romance in many dimensions that has fascinated generations of readers with its clever blend of social satire and mathematical theory. A Penguin Classic A work that continues to pose provocative questions about perception and reality, Flatland is a brilliant parody of Victorian society where all existence is limited to length and breadth—its inhabitants unable even to imagine a third...

A newly revised and expanded version of the great national epic of Persia—the most complete English-language edition and definitive translation by Dick Davis. The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran is now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition. A Penguin Classic. Dick Davis—"our pre-eminent translator from the Persian" (The...

Buddhist Meditation by Kurtis R. Schaeffer is a Tibetan Buddhist anthology of accessible and authentic contemplative exercises designed to help cultivate innate yet undeveloped powers of mind, emotion, and body. A Penguin Classic Drawn from Tibet's rich contemplative literature, Buddhist Meditation offers classic exercises focused on the opportunities and challenges of life. These exercises aim at cultivating inner calm and...

The Romanticism that emerged after the American and French revolutions of 1776 and 1789 represented a new flowering of the imagination and the spirit, and a celebration of the soul of humanity with its capacity for love. This extraordinary collection sets the acknowledged genius of poems such as Blake's Tyger, Coleridge's Khubla Khan and Shelley's Ozymandias alongside verse from less...

Penguin Classics relaunch The Diary of a Nobody began as a serial in Punch and the book which followed in 1892 has never been out of print. The Grossmith brothers not only created an immortal comic character but produced a clever satire of their society. Mr Pooter is an office clerk and upright family man in a dull 1880s suburb....

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. In the Duke's absence from Vienna, his strict deputy Angelo revives an ancient law forbidding sex outside marriage. The young Claudio, whose fiancée is pregnant, is condemned to death by the law. His sister Isabella, soon to become a nun, pleads with Lord...

Guide to Greece is an extremely comprehensive guidebook for tourists, concentrating on buildings, tombs, and statues. It includes a wealth of information on the mythological, religious, and historical background to the monuments described. This book is so informative that it may be called the foundation of classical archaeology, and this ancient Baedeker is still used as a guide to classical...

First Penguin volume Of best Japanese haiku Vivid translations Now a global poetry, the haiku was originally a Japanese verse form that flourished from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Although renowned for its brevity, usually running over three lines in seventeen syllables, and by its use of natural imagery to make Zen-like observations about reality, in fact, the haiku is...

The comprehensive guide to a deeply human tradition of memory, mourning and consolation. Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practised by the Romans, revitalised by the poets of the Renaissance and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It...

An important new selection of First World War poetry, edited by Jon Stallworthy and Jane Potter. This new selection brings together the poetry of three of the most distinctive and moving voices to emerge from the First World War. Here are the controlled passion and rich metaphors of Wilfred Owen's celebrated verses such as Anthem for Doomed Youth and Strange...

A collection of controversial and galvanising essays on literature, culture, and politics from Matthew Arnold, one of the greatest Victorian thinkers. 'One has often wondered whether upon the whole earth there is anything so unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class' Poet, education reformer, social theorist, and...

Daring essays on democracy, history and the nation state by one of China's leading twentieth-century intellectuals. The power, anger and fluency of Liang Qichao's writings make him one of the towering figures in modern Chinese literature. He saw his great, almost unmanageable task as an attempt to write China into the new era - to provide an ancient country, devastated...

The Koran, with parallel Arabic text The Koran is universally accepted by Muslims to be the infallible Word of God as first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel nearly fourteen hundred years ago. Its 114 chapters, or surahs, recount the narratives central to Muslim belief, and together they form one of the world's most influential prophetic works...

An increasing amount of attention is being given to Wilde as a proto-feminist, a proto-republican, an embryonic postmodernist, and a sort of secular saint. The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose collects all of Wilde's journalism, criticism, lectures, and occasional writings. It will also contain a section on aphorisms and dicta attributed to Wilde in conversation.

A collection of three of the sharpest Restoration comedies. The three plays collected in this volume demonstrate Sheridan's unerring ability to create unrivalled comedy out of ingenious plots, witty repartee, farcical situations and flamboyant characters. And while he never overtly moralises, Sheridan uses brilliant comedy to deflate hypocrisy and satirise the manners of his age. In The Rivals, Captain Absolute...

The invigorating, stupendous and exhilarating guide (Observer) to the beguiling form which has attracted many of our most beloved writers. It is hard to know how it could possibly be bettered - Daily Telegraph The prose poem has proven one of the most innovative and versatile poetic forms of recent years. In the century-and-a-half since Charles Baudelaire, Emma Lazarus, Oscar...

A wonderfully enjoyable storehouse of ancient Chinese history and legends, which also has an important role in understanding 21st-century China. The Most Venerable Book (also known as The Book of History) is one of the Five Classics. For many centuries, it was a central work for anyone wishing to work for the Imperial administration, with its prestige stemming from the...

These three plays focus on the family and how it struggles to stay together by telling and exposing lies. In Ghosts, Osvald Alving returns home only to discover the truth about the father he respected and the horrific effect his father's debauchery has had on him. Ibsen's most provocative drama, it strips away the surface of a middle-class family to...

A new selection of John Donne's endlessly innovative and fascinating verse, from the witty conceit of 'The Flea' to the instense spirituality of his divine poems. Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in...

A rich new selection of Buddhist writings, representing the full range of historical periods, geographical origins and literary styles. While Buddhism has no central text such as the Bible or the Koran, there is a powerful body of scripture from across Asia that encompasses the dharma, or the teachings of Buddha. This rich anthology brings together works from a broad...

Vasari (1511-1574) was himself a painter, but he is really remembered for these biographies which begin with Cimabue and Giotto in the late 13th century and trace the developments in Italian art down to the golden epoch of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Titian. Lives of the Artists also conveys much about the author himself and his abilities as a critic inspired...

Lucy Graham is a beautiful but impoverished governess when she meets the wealthy widower Sir Michael Audley, who, instantly besotted, makes her his wife. Their life at Audley Court is happy and uneventful until the arrival of Sir Michael's nephew Robert with his friend George Talboys, who has recently returned from making his fortune in Australia. When George suddenly vanishes...

A rich and exquisite anthology that illuminates Japanese travel over a thousand years Shortlisted for the NSW Translation Prize Discover a realm of travel writing undreamed of in the West - a richly literary tradition extending through a thousand years and more, whose individual works together weave a dense and beautiful brocade of repeated patterns and motifs, tones and textures....

A unique new volume illuminating the philosophy of the ancient Greek and Roman Cynics From their founding in the fifth century BC and for over 800 years, the Cynic philosophers sought to cure humanity of greed and vice with their proposal of living simply. They guaranteed happiness to their adherents through freedom of speech, poverty, self-sufficiency and physical hardiness. In...

A key work of ancient Chinese philosophy is brought back to life in Ian Johnston's compelling, definitive translation. Very little is known about Master Mo, or the school he founded. However, the book containing his philosophical ideas has survived centuries of neglect and is today recognised as a fundamental work of ancient Chinese philosophy. The book contains sections explaining the...

The first collection of its kind—a compendium of source texts on yoga, translated, introduced, and edited by two of the foremost yoga scholars in the world. Despite the immense popularity of yoga today, there is surprisingly little knowledge of its roots amongst practitioners. Roots of Yoga collects together, for the first time, the core teachings of yoga in the words...

Since its first publication in 1762, Of the Social Contract has shaped political thinking. Viewed by some as a revolutionary statement of democratic freedoms and by others as a precursor of tyranny, it has guided and inspired activists from the. 'Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' These are the famous opening words of a treatise that...

Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, leaves the easy life of the Happy Valley, accompanied by his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah, and the much-travelled philosopher Imlac. Their journey takes them to Egypt, where they study the various conditions of men's lives, before returning home in a 'conclusion in which nothing is concluded'. Johnson's tale is not only a satire on optimism,...

The first new translation in over 400 years of one of the great works of the Renaissance — an African diplomat's guide to Africa. In 1518, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, a Moroccan diplomat, was seized by pirates while travelling in the Mediterranean. Brought before Pope Leo X, he was persuaded to convert to Christianity, in the process taking the name...

A selection of Cicero's philosophical writings on 'the good life', in a lively new translation by Thomas Habinek In the first century BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero, orator, statesman, and defender of republican values, created these philosophical treatises on such diverse topics as friendship, religion, death, fate and scientific inquiry. A pragmatist at heart, Cicero's philosophies were frequently personal and ethical,...

A new collection of some of Cicero's greatest and most stirring speeches, translated by Siobhan McElduff. Cicero (106-43BC) was the most brilliant orator in Classical history. Even one of the men who authorised his assassination, the Emperor Octavian, admitted to his grandson that Cicero was—'an eloquent man, my boy, eloquent and a lover of his country'. This new selection of...

One of the masterworks of Japanese literature, ranking with The Tale of Genji, in a groundbreaking new edition. From the acclaimed translator of The Tale of Genji, a groundbreaking rendering of Japan's great martial epic. The fourteenth-century The Tale of the Heike is Japan's Iliad—a moving depiction of the late twelfth-century wars between the Heike and Genji clans. No work...

A richly varied anthology of Spanish short stories, curated by celebrated translator Margaret Jull Costa. This exciting new collection celebrates the Spanish short story, from its modern origins in the nineteenth century to the remarkable work being written today. Featuring over fifty stories selected by revered translator Margaret Jull Costa, it blends hidden gems and old favourites, surprising new voices...

A major celebration of the French short story, spanning three centuries. The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ready for rediscovery. The first volume spans 400 years, taking the reader from the sixteenth century to the 'golden age' of the fin...

A richly varied anthology showcases a teeming, strange, magical world, about to be brought to an end by the catastrophe of 1914. The quarter century or so before the outbreak of the First World War saw an extraordinary boom in the popularity and quality of short stories in Britain. Fuelled by a large new magazine readership and vigorous competition to...

One of the greatest French novelists, Balzac was also an accomplished writer of shorter fiction. This volume includes twelve of his finest short stories, many of which feature characters from his epic series of novels, the Comédie Humaine. Compelling tales of acute social and psychological insight, they fully demonstrate the mastery of suspense and revelation that were the hallmarks of...

Selected Short Fiction by Charles Dickens presents a collection of witty and amusing short pieces where Dickens is liberated from the more formal and sustained demands of the novel. Here, he experiments with a diverse range of fictional techniques. In his tales of the supernatural, Dickens creates frighteningly believable, spine-tingling stories of prophetic dreams and visions, along with more fantastical...

Novels, Tales, Journeys by Alexander Pushkin features the renowned author's masterpieces in prose, translated by the award-winning Pevear and Volokhonsky. The father of Russian literature, Pushkin, is beloved not only for his poetry but also for his brilliant stories, which range from dramatic narratives of love, obsession, and betrayal to lively comic tales, and from satirical epistolary tales to imaginative...

Comic Sagas and Tales brings together the finest comic stories from medieval Iceland. With feuding families and moments of grotesque violence, the sagas see such classic mythological figures as murdered fathers, disguised beggars, corrupt chieftains, and avenging sons do battle with axes, words, and cunning. Icelandic literary culture was one of the richest and most important in the medieval world....

A magical, substantially true narrative of piracy, zoology, anthropology, danger and adventure in the seventeenth-century Caribbean, Pacific and East Indies The first great English-language travel book, A New Voyage Round the World (1697) is an incomparably vivid, chaotic and fascinating account by the pirate, explorer and naturalist William Dampier of his many adventures. The world he describes sprawls all the...

A new verse translation of one of the foundational ancient Greek works by the award-winning poet Alicia Stallings. The ancient Greeks revered Hesiod, believing he had beaten Homer in a singing contest, and that after his dead body was thrown to sea it was brought back by dolphins. His Works and Days is one of the most important early works...

A remarkably powerful yet simple tale of the struggle and triumph of innocence reviled, which Balzac considered his remarkable tour de force. In 1842, eight years before his death, Balzac described Ursule Mirouet as the masterpiece of all the studies of human society that he had written; he regarded the book as a remarkable tour de force. An essentially simple...

C. P. Cavafy is one of the most singular and poignant voices of twentieth-century European poetry, conjuring a magical interior world through lyrical evocations of remembered passions, imagined monologues, and dramatic retellings of his native Alexandria's ancient past. Figures from antiquity speak with telling interruptions from the author in such poems as Anna Comnena and You did not understand, while...

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories is Jhumpa Lahiri's rich and varied selection of the greatest Italian writing of the twentieth century, now available as a Penguin Classics paperback. This landmark collection brings together forty writers, reflecting over a hundred years of Italy's vibrant and diverse short story tradition, from the birth of the modern nation to the end...

Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorise it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate hero Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters. The Life and Opinions...

Part of a series of new editions of D.H. Lawrence's most famous novels, stories and poems. These three novellas display D. H. Lawrence's brilliant and insightful evocation of human relationships - both tender and cruel - and the devastating results of war. In The Fox, two young women living on a small farm during the First World War find their...

Member of Parliament, tutor to Oliver Cromwell's ward, satirist and friend of John Milton, Andrew Marvell was one of the most interesting and important poets of the seventeenth century. The Complete Poems demonstrates his unique skill and immense diversity to the full, and includes lyrical love-poetry, religious works and biting satire. From the passionately erotic To his Coy Mistress, to...

In his introduction, Ronald Blythe places the novel in the context of Henry James's literary career and discusses his depiction of women and themes of money and change. Making her debut in London society, Nanda Brookenham is being groomed for the marriage market. Thrust suddenly into the superficial and immoral circle that surrounds her mother, the innocent but independent-minded young...

A fascinating study of Athenian political machinery, containing invaluable insights into Athenian democracy. Probably written by a student of Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution is both a history and an analysis of Athens' political machinery between the seventh and fourth centuries BC. It stands as a model of democracy at a time when city-states lived under differing kinds of government. The...

The paperback publication of the second volume of our new, substantially complete translation of one of the best-known and most influential classics of world literature. Every night for three years, the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her the next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins...

Tales from the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is bawdy and moving, hilarious and reflective. These stories offer the very best of Boccaccio's Decameron in a brilliant, playful new translation. This hugely enjoyable volume collects the best stories of Boccaccio's masterwork in a fresh, accessible new translation by Peter Hainsworth. It includes such celebrated, thought-provoking tales as Isabella and the Pot...

Sketches by Boz collected a rich and strange mixture of reportage, observation, fancy and fiction centred on the metropolis. It was Dickens's first book, published when he was twenty-four, and in it, we find him walking the London streets, in theatres, pawnshops, law-courts, prisons, along the Thames, and on the omnibus, missing nothing, recording and transforming urban and suburban life...