Penguin Black Classics

Monsieur Goriot is one of a disparate group of lodgers at Madame Vauquer's dingy Parisian boarding house. At first, his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are mysteriously reduced, he becomes shunned by those around him. Soon, his only remaining visitors are his two beautifully dressed daughters. Goriot's fate is intertwined with two other fellow boarders—the young social climber,...

A tale of inheritance and destiny, this is the story Dickens considered his best. The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin sets out from the Wiltshire home of his supposed champion, the scheming architect...

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors, Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie, provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love. Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities — the theory that certain...

One of Japan's most treasured novels, new to Penguin Classics. Botchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher after the death of his parents. Cynical, rebellious, and immature, Botchan finds himself facing several tests, from the pupils — prone to playing tricks on their new, naive teacher; the...

Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie française and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives—the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses, and wily financiers—and...

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel, fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters, and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets....

In 1665, the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he...

When Connecticut mechanic and foreman Hank Morgan is knocked unconscious, he wakes not to the familiar scenes of nineteenth-century America but to the bewildering sights and sounds of sixth-century Camelot. Although confused at first and quickly imprisoned, he soon realises that his knowledge of the future can transform his fate. Correctly predicting a solar eclipse from inside his prison cell,...

'Envy remained hidden in her heart, like a plague germ which may come to life and devastate a city.' Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris—her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot, and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that...

All of Orwell's brilliant writing on England and Englishness collected in a single volume. Much of George Orwell's best writing, brought together in this comprehensive collection, is concerned with England, a country that he found both endearing and frustrating. In the brilliantly perceptive The English People, he lists the national characteristics as 'suspicion of foreigners, sentimentality about animals, hypocrisy, exaggerated...

An expansive collection of George Orwell's writing on the down and out. The vivid, impassioned writings collected together in this powerful volume chronicle Orwell's first-hand experiences of life among the underclass of the 'two nations' of rich and poor. Down and Out in Paris and London is the young Orwell's memoir of his time as a struggling, often penniless writer,...

A superb new translation by Judson Rosengrant of Tolstoy's semi-autobiographical trilogy. Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed. Readers find the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner...

The Aeneid of Virgil (70-19 B.C.) describes the legendary origin of the Roman nation. It tells of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who escaped, with some followers, after Troy fell, and sailed to Italy. Here they settled and laid the foundations of Roman power. The Aeneid is a poet's picture of the world, where human affairs are controlled by human and...

Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, this powerful novel tells how the heroine and her lover, Laurent, kill her husband, Camille, but are subsequently haunted by visions of the dead man and prevented from enjoying the fruits of their crime. Published in 1867, this is Zola's most important work...

A selection of Seneca's most powerful and macabre plays. Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends. Thyestes depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented...

Written in 1857, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands is the autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame rivalled Florence Nightingale's during the Crimean War. Seacole's offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war met with racism and refusal. Undaunted, Seacole set out independently to the Crimea, where she acted as doctor and 'mother' to wounded soldiers...

A landmark in Boswell and Johnson studies In The Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality, in a biography to which we owe much of our knowledge of the man himself. Through a series of richly detailed anecdotes, Johnson emerges as a sociable figure, vigorously engaging and fencing...

The Letters of the Younger Pliny provide a series of fascinating views on imperial Rome. A prominent lawyer and administrator, Pliny (c. AD 61-113) was also a prolific letter-writer, who numbered among his correspondents such eminent figures as Tacitus, Suetonius, and the Emperor Trajan, as well as a wide circle of friends and family. His lively and very personal letters...

Lives of the Artists made Vasari one of the most influential art historians of all time, fusing literary and artistic ability. In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect. Through character sketches and anecdotes, he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in...

A major writer and a leading figure in the public life of Rome, Seneca (c. 4 BC - AD 65) ranks among the most eloquent and influential masters of Latin prose. This selection explores his thoughts on philosophy and the trials of life. In the Consolation to Helvia, he strives to offer solace to his mother following his exile in...

June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement and a catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines...

The essential writings of the 20th century's most influential economist, collected in one volume. John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist, and one of the most influential thinkers, of the twentieth century. He overturned the orthodoxy that markets were optimally self-regulating, and instead argued for state intervention to ensure full employment and economic stability. The Essential Keynes is the...

The provocative historical work on social economy, demography and population control. An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings is Malthus' seminal examination of human population and its dependency on food production and the environment, which was highly controversial upon its publication in 1798. He predicted what is now known as the Malthusian catastrophe, where humans would ignore...

The definitive translation of our history's founding legal document - translated with a new commentary by David Carpenter. Magna Carta is probably the most famous declaration in western legal history. Wrested by rebellious barons from a very reluctant King John, it set out a series of rights and duties which have been appealed to, ignored, suppressed and argued about ever...

Sallust (86-c. 35 BC) is the earliest Roman historian of whom complete works survive. A senator of the Roman Republic, he was a younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey, and Julius Caesar. His Catiline's War tells of the conspiracy in 63 BC led by L. Sergius Catilina, who plotted to assassinate numerous senators and take control of the government but was...

The fascinating story of how NASA sent humans to explore outer space, told through a treasure trove of historical documents—publishing in celebration of NASA's 60th anniversary and with a foreword by Bill Nye. "An extremely useful and thought-provoking documentary journey through the maze of space history. There is no wiser or more experienced navigator through the twists and turns and...

A new edition of Darwin's remarkable account of the connection between emotion and facial expression which grew out of The Descent of Man. Published in 1872, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was a book at the very heart of Darwin's research interests, serving as a central pillar of his 'human' series. This book engaged some of...

"One of the ten most significant books" - Sigmund Freud No book made a greater impact on the intellectual world of its first Victorian readers, nor has had such an enduring influence on our thinking on science, literature, theology, and philosophy. In The Descent of Man, Darwin addresses the crucial question of the origins, evolution, and racial divergence of mankind,...

The essential writings of ancient Egypt, from songs to stories, newly translated. 'Man perishes; his corpse turns to dust; all his relatives pass away. But writings make him remembered.' The fascination Ancient Egypt holds in our minds has many sources, but at the heart of it lie hieroglyphics. This extraordinary writing system was for many years seen as the ultimate...

What is history and how should it be written? This important new anthology contains all the seminal texts that relate to the writing of history in the ancient world. The study of history was invented in the ancient world. Treading uncharted waters, writers such as Plutarch and Lucian grappled with big questions such as how history should be written, how...

The Later Roman Empire is a historical account of the end of the Roman Empire, penned by Ammianus Marcellinus, the last great Roman historian. His writings hold a prestigious place alongside those of Livy and Tacitus. This chronicle spans a period of twenty-five years during Marcellinus' lifetime, covering the reigns of Constantius, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian I, and Valens. It provides...

John Carter's modern translation conveys the compelling style of the original. His extensive introduction provides an in-depth assessment of Appian as a historian and places the work in context. Taken from Appian's Roman History, the five books collected here form the sole surviving continuous historical narrative of the era between 133-35 BC — a time of anarchy and instability for...

Books VI-X of Livy's monumental History of Rome Books VI-X of Livy's monumental work trace Rome's fortunes from its near collapse after defeat by the Gauls in 386 BC to its emergence, in a matter of decades, as the premier power in Italy, having conquered the city-state of Samnium in 293 BC. In this fascinating history, events are described not...

Moving from the Modern Classics into the successful Wells series in the Penguin Classics. Spanning the origins of the Earth to the outcome of the First World War, this is a brilliantly compelling account of the evolution of life and the development of the human race. Along the way, Wells considers such diverse subjects as the Neolithic era, the rise...

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 The 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...

When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy: an unpublished 'dream book'. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105. The Shape...

Gertrude Stein, as a college student at Radcliffe and a medical student at Johns Hopkins Medical School, was a privileged woman. Yet, she was surrounded by women who were trapped by poverty, class, and race into lives that offered little choice. Her portraits of Anna and Lena are examples of realistic depictions of immigrant women who had no occupational choice...

A new selection of foundational works from the influential philosopher who developed the theory of mimetic desire. René Girard eludes easy categories, bridging the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, history, religion, and theology. Influencing such writers as J. M. Coetzee and Milan Kundera, his insight into contagious violence looks ever more prophetic and relevant seven years after his death....

A searing collection of E. M. Forster's short stories about forbidden sexuality and desire. 'Neither of them knew when the end came, and he when he realised it felt no sadness, no remorse' Ranging from moving to satirical, historical to supernatural, Forster's masterful storytelling is on full display in these tales of passion and betrayal. Love, death, class and race...

The brilliant writings of a highly influential Greek philosopher, with a foreword by Daniel Klein, author of Travels with Epicurus. The teachings of Epicurus—about life and death, religion and science, physical sensation, happiness, morality, and friendship—attracted legions of adherents throughout the ancient Mediterranean world and deeply influenced later European thought. Though Epicurus faced hostile opposition for centuries after his death,...

A classic of English rural life by a writer admired by Hemingway, published in Classics for the first time. Considered a classic at the time of its publication in 1910, A Shepherd's Life is a rare account of the lives of those who lived on and worked the land in nineteenth-century rural Britain. A masterful work of prose, W. H....

Robert Fagles's stunning modern-verse translation—available at last in our black-spine classics line. Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Christopher Nolan. A Penguin Classic. The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, renowned translator Robert Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in...

Published in cooperation with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, this volume presents the songs with music, and annotations on their original sources and meaning. The definitive collection of folk music—one of the great English popular art forms. One of the great English popular art forms, the folk song can be painful, satirical, erotic, dramatic, rueful or funny. This...

A wonderful edition of Herbert's poetry, edited by his acclaimed biographer John Drury, and including elegant new translations of his Latin verse by Victoria Moul. George Herbert wrote, but never published, some of the very greatest English poetry, recording in an astonishing variety of forms his inner experiences of grief, recovery, hope, despair, anger, fulfilment and—above all else—love. This volume,...

First complete translation into English of Maxims and Reflections. Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills. Goethe was probably the last true 'Renaissance Man'. Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar's court, where he...

The Italian Renaissance man's handbook, defining the virtues essential for a man of the Court. In The Book of the Courtier (1528), Baldesar Castiglione, a diplomat and Papal Nuncio to Rome, sets out to define the essential virtues for those at Court. In a lively series of imaginary conversations between the real-life courtiers to the Duke of Urbino, his speakers...

"I am large, I contain multitudes" A Penguin Classic When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character.Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of...

Layli and Majnun is the Persian epic that inspired Eric Clapton's unforgettable love song "Layla" and that Lord Byron called "the Romeo and Juliet of the East," presented here in a masterly new translation. A Penguin Classic This iconic love story of the Middle East, written by a twelfth-century Persian poet who has been compared to Shakespeare for his subtlety,...

From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil's great epic. Fleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles' mighty foe in the Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfil his destiny as the founder of Rome. His voyage will take him through stormy seas, entangle him in a tragic love affair, and...

An enthralling exploration of the human experience, from the author of To The Lighthouse. On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for a party and remembering her past. Elsewhere in London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives converge as the party reaches its glittering climax....

One of the central novels in the American canon with a new foreword by Tom Perrotta and an introduction by Hawthorne scholar Robert Milder. The canonical American masterpiece of sin, guilt, and revenge, in an authoritative new edition from Penguin Classics with a foreword by Tom Perrotta. At once retrospective and radically new, The Scarlet Letter portrays seventeenth-century Puritan New...

Charming boyhood adventure tale and perennial seller, this novel 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. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. A consummate prankster with a quick wit,...

The exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's 1984 and foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia, featuring a foreword by the National Book Award-winning New Yorker journalist Masha Gessen. Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. A king and his lords form an austere academy, swearing to have no contact with women for three years. But when the princess of neighbouring France arrives with her female attendants, their pledge is quickly placed under strain. Soon all are smitten and...

Tennyson's version of the life of King Arthur Tennyson had a life-long interest in the legend of King Arthur and after the huge success of his poem Morte d'Arthur, he built on the theme with this series of twelve poems, written in two periods of intense creativity over nearly twenty years. Idylls of the King traces the story of Arthur's...

Crews's novel about a boxer with the gift of knocking himself unconscious, with a new foreword by New York Times-bestselling author S. A. Cosby. A Penguin Classic A favourite of longtime Harry Crews fans, The Knockout Artist (1988) portrays Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia whose champion rise is diverted by a vulnerability, or gift, for knocking...

Ostensibly written by an English knight, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India, and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army and to have travelled in the lands beyond—countries populated by dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons, and Pygmies. Although Marco Polo's slightly earlier narrative ultimately proved more...

After Martin Chuzzlewit was published in 1844, Dickens deliberately took a break from novels to travel in Italy for almost a year. Bored by many traditional tourist sites and repelled by the greed and empty rituals of the Catholic Church, Dickens is far more attracted by urban desolation, the colourful life of the streets, and visible signs of the nation's...

First time in Penguin Classics for this masterpiece of Victorian Gothic One of the most significant and intriguing Gothic novels of the Victorian period, Uncle Silas is enjoyed today as a modern psychological thriller. In Uncle Silas (1864), Le Fanu brought up to date Mrs Radcliffe's earlier tales of virtue imprisoned and menaced by unscrupulous schemers. The narrator, Maud Ruthyn,...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. After squandering his wealth with prodigal generosity, a rich Athenian gentleman finds himself deep in debt. Unshaken by the prospect of bankruptcy, he is certain that the friends he has helped so often will come to his aid. But when they learn his...

A new edition of Hogg's haunting tale of a devilish doppelgänger, edited and introduced by Hogg's celebrated biographer Karl Miller. Brought up by a strict Calvinist pastor, Robert Wringham believes he is one of the elect, predestined for salvation while all others—including his real father and brother—are cursed. Convinced he is indestructible and above the law, Robert commits terrible crimes...

The fierce, irreverent novel of aspiration and rebellion that is both a cornerstone of Australian literature and a feminist classic. Miles Franklin began the candid, passionate, and contrary My Brilliant Career when she was only sixteen, intending it to be the Australian answer to Jane Eyre. But the book she produced—a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about a young girl hungering...

Framley Parsonage is Trollope's story of political advancement, debt, and family pride. Mark Robarts is a clergyman with ambitions beyond his small country parish of Framley. In a naive attempt to mix in influential circles, he agrees to guarantee a bill for a large sum of money for the disreputable local Member of Parliament, while being helped in his career...

Scandinavia's best-loved children's classic from the first female writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature Nils Holgersson is a naughty boy who tortures animals and never listens to his parents - until one day he wakes up as an elf. Deeply puzzled by his new status, he climbs on a gander's back and flies away with him, joining a...

The theme of the great Shakespearean tragedies is the fall from grace of a great man due to a flaw in his nature. Whether it is the ruthless ambition of Macbeth or the folly of Lear, the irresolution of Hamlet or the suspicion of Othello, the cause of the tragedy—even when it is the murder of a king—is trifling compared...

Considered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton's second full-length work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might be called the interior decor of this America and its...

One of the greatest historical records of fourteenth-century England and France. The Chronicles of Froissart (1337-1410) are one of the greatest contemporary records of fourteenth-century England and France. Depicting the great age of Anglo-French rivalry from the deposition of Edward II to the downfall of Richard II, Froissart powerfully portrays the deeds of knights in battle at Sluys, Crecy, Calais...