Penguin Classics: Arts & Culture

A superb translation of one of the greatest nineteenth-century poems—the libretto to Wagner's Ring cycle. The scale and grandeur of Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung has no precedent and no successor. It preoccupied Wagner for much of his adult life and revolutionised the nature of opera, the orchestra, the demands on singers, and on the audience itself. The four...

The greatest classic of Vietnamese literature in a stunning new verse translation. "This manuscript is ancient, priceless, bamboo-rolled, perfumed with musty spices. Sit comfortably by this good light, that you may learn the hard-won lesson that these characters contain." The Song of Kieu is the greatest classic of Vietnamese literature. It tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thoy Kieu,...

The plays in this volume, each written a decade apart, demonstrate different sides of Henrik Ibsen's genius, but all deal with themes of alienation from society and the breaking down of convention. A Doll's House portrays a woman questioning her duty to her husband and seeking to escape from the stifling confines of her marriage—a theme that shocked contemporary audiences...

This new translation, the first to be based on the latest critical edition of Ibsen's works, offers the best version available in English. Four of Ibsen's most important plays in superb modern translations, part of the new Penguin Ibsen series. With her assertion that she is 'first and foremost a human being', Nora Helmer sent shockwaves throughout Europe when she...

A fine collection of the greatest French tales about the legend of Arthur. Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly manner, Chrétien de Troyes fashioned a new form of medieval Romance. The Knight of the Cart is the first telling of the adulterous relationship between Lancelot and Arthur's Queen Guinevere,...

Aspects of the Novel is a collection of literary lectures by E.M. Forster, published in 1927. For the purposes of his study, Forster defines the novel as "any fictitious prose work over 50,000 words." Forster's wit and lively, informed originality have made this study of the novel a classic. Avoiding the chronological approach of what he calls "pseudoscholarship," Forster freely...

One of the last surviving members of the futurist generation, Bruno Munari has been the enfant terrible of Italian art and design for most of the twentieth century. How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design, and the media have changed our vision forever....

Byron's exotic poem on the love life and adventures of Don Juan. Byron's exuberant masterpiece tells of the adventures of Don Juan, beginning with his illicit love affair at the age of sixteen in his native Spain and his subsequent exile to Italy. Following a dramatic shipwreck, his exploits take him to Greece, where he is sold as a slave,...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Good b.o means good "box office." You can smell it from a mile away The legendary sixties New York pop artist Andy Warhol presents hilarious and insightful vignettes and aphorisms on the topics of love, fame,...

A major new translation of Goethe's Faust, Part Two - one of the greatest dramatic-poetic works in all of German literature - by award-winning poet and translator David Constantine. In this sequel to Faust, Mephistopheles takes Faust on a journey through ancient Greek mythology, conjuring for him the insurpassably beautiful Helen of Troy, as well as the classical gods. Faust...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. Angered by the loss of his son in battle, the Earl of Northumberland supports another rebellion against King Henry IV, bringing the country to the brink of civil war. Sick and weary, the old King sends out his forces, including the unruly Sir...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. Conspiracies and intrigue are rife in the court of Henry VIII as a Duke is executed for treason, having been tricked by the Cardinal. And when the King falls in love with Anne Bullen and decides to divorce his wife, he causes an...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. Henry VI Part Two tells the story of Henry VI, who is tricked into marrying Margaret, the lover of the Earl of Suffolk. Suffolk hopes to rule the kingdom through her influence. There is one great obstacle in Suffolk's path, however—the noble Lord...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. I Have More Souls Than One showcases the poignant poetry of Fernando Pessoa. In these verses: 'But no, she's abstract, is a bird Of sound in the air of air soaring, And her soul sings unencumbered...

A richly enthralling and evocative account of King Arthur. Le Morte D'Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's richly evocative and enthralling version of the Arthurian legend. Recounting Arthur's birth, his ascendancy to the throne after claiming Excalibur, his ill-fated marriage to Guenever, the treachery of Morgan le Fay, and the exploits of the Knights of the Round Table, it magically weaves...

For the great Roman orator and statesman Cicero, the good life was at once a life of contentment and one of moral virtue, and the two were inescapably intertwined. This volume brings together a wide range of his reflections upon the importance of moral integrity in the search for happiness. In essays that are articulate, meditative, and inspirational, Cicero presents...

The great German poem on the completion of the story of the Holy Grail Composed in the early thirteenth century, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival is the re-creation and completion of the story left unfinished by its initiator, Chretien de Troyes. It follows Parzival from his boyhood and career as a knight in the court of King Arthur to his ultimate...

Part of the authoritative and acclaimed Penguin Shakespeare series, now rejacketed in the celebrated Penguin Classics livery. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, must solve a riddle in order to marry the daughter of the King of Antioch, or be put to death. But when the answer reveals a horrific secret, the young man faces his greatest dilemma. Danger and adventure follow...

The first of the great Greek tragedians, Aeschylus wrote a large number of plays, of which seven survive. Of the four included in this volume, The Persians is unique in Greek tragedy in having as its subject matter a recent historical event, the defeat of the Persians at the famous battle of Salamis. The other three, Prometheus, The Suppliants and...

Rousseau's final work and meditation After a period of forced exile and solitary wandering brought about by his radical views on religion and politics, Jean-Jacques Rousseau returned to Paris in 1770. Here, in the last two years of his life, he wrote his final work, the Reveries. In this eloquent masterpiece, the great political thinker describes his sense of isolation...

Penguin Classics relaunch Exclusive to Penguin Classics – the definitive text of Shaw's powerful historical drama about Joan of Arc, which led him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature – part of the official Bernard Shaw Library. A Penguin Classic With Saint Joan, which distils many of the ideas Shaw had been exploring in earlier works on politics, religion,...

The Annals of Imperial Rome recounts the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus to the death of Nero in AD 68. With clarity and vivid intensity, Tacitus describes the reign of terror under the corrupt Tiberius, the great fire of Rome during the time of Nero, and the wars, poisonings, scandals, conspiracies, and murders...

A collection of Bacon's vibrant, intelligent essays covering subjects ranging from ambition to the vicissitude of things. One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy, and...

A beautiful, skilfully crafted work of chivalric romance. Written by an unknown author in the twelfth century, this powerful tale of murder and revenge reaches back to the earliest epochs of German antiquity, transforming centuries-old legend into a masterpiece of chivalric drama. Siegfried, a great prince of the Netherlands, wins the hand of the beautiful princess Kriemhild of Burgundy by...

A new translation by Alan H. Sommerstein of four of Aeschylus' most celebrated plays. Aeschylus (525-456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens, raising it to the status of high art. The Persians, the only Greek tragedy to deal with events from recent Athenian history, depicts the final defeat of Persia in the...

An insight into the splendour, squalor and energy of everyday Roman life. Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer energy of everyday Roman life. In The Sixteen Satires, he evokes a fascinating world of whores, fortune-tellers, boozy politicians, slick lawyers, shameless sycophants, ageing flirts and downtrodden teachers. A member...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Sadder than salad. From apples to artichokes, these glittering, fragmented, painterly portraits of food by the avant-garde pioneer Gertrude Stein are redolent of sex, laughter, and the joy of everyday life.

A superb new edition of the essays of one of the greatest and most enjoyable prose writers in English. David Hume reshaped, redirected, and re-energised the English essay. His sceptical, rational, self-questioning persona created what amounted to a new intellectual arena, in which it was possible to think afresh about the world and the self. When he famously wrote that...

A superb new edition of the essays of one of the greatest and most enjoyable prose writers in English. David Hume reshaped, redirected, and re-energised the English essay. His sceptical, rational, self-questioning persona created what amounted to a new intellectual arena, in which it was possible to think afresh about the world and the self. When he famously wrote that...

The final volume in the new Penguin Ibsen series: superb modern translations of four of Ibsen's greatest plays. In these four unforgettably intense plays, Henrik Ibsen explores the complex nature of truth, the tension between freedom and responsibility, and the terrible pull that the past exerts over the present. In The Wild Duck, an idealist destroys a family by exposing...

Together, the poetry of Hesiod and Theognis offers a superb introduction to the life and thought of ancient Greece. Hesiod's Theogony (c. 725 BCE) is a powerful creation myth: an epic, bloody tale of dark forces, sex, and violence, tracing the history of the world from primeval Chaos to the establishment of Zeus as supreme king of the gods. In...

A poetry collection of epic scale and transformative vision from one of the most innovative American poets. For over half a century, Jay Wright's poetry has been celebrated for its alertness to the multiplicity of human experience and identity, and championed by eminent literary figures from Carl Phillips to Harold Bloom. The gravitational pull of Wright's lyric voice transforms life...

Italian Journey 1786-1788 is Goethe's famous account of his time and travels in Italy. In 1786, already recognised as the leader of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, Goethe embarked on a journey to Italy. This journey was both a personal and artistic quest, aiming to provide relief from his responsibilities and the pains of unrequited love. As he visited...

In 1818, when he was in his mid-thirties, Stendhal met and fell passionately in love with the beautiful Mathilde Dembowski. She, however, was quick to make it clear that she did not return his affections, and in his despair, he turned to the written word to exorcise his love and explain his feelings. The result is an intensely personal dissection...

Gaius Plinius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, was born in AD 21. He served both as a cavalry officer in Germania and as a procurator, and he combined this public service with a deep interest in science. Natural History is Pliny's sole surviving work, and in it, he records the sum total of Roman scientific knowledge in the first...

Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834–96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth. News from Nowhere, one of the most significant English works on the theme of utopia, is the tale of William Guest, a Victorian who wakes one morning to find...

A fascinating account of the time of the Vikings and the feuds of the Orkney Isles. Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, Orkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend, and history. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, it tells of an era when the islands were still part...

Revolutionary essays on design, aesthetics, and materialism - from one of the great masters of modern architecture. But art has nothing to do with forgery, with lies. The paths of art may be thorny, but they are clean. Ornament and Crime comprises a selection of essays by celebrated Viennese architect, Adolf Loos, covering the full range of design - from...

First paperback publication of this much-loved anthology of poems to take you from birth to death, and a little beyond... Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare's idea of the "seven ages" of a human life, this new anthology brings together the best-loved poems in English to inspire, comfort, and delight readers for a lifetime. Beginning with babies, the book is divided...

Part of a series of new editions of Lawrence's works From early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the ground-breaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), the poems of D. H. Lawrence challenged convention and inspired later poets. This volume includes extensive selections from these and other editions, and contains some of his...

Browning was one of the greatest of English poets, whose intense and original imagination enabled him to transform any subject he chose—whether everyday or sublime—into startling, memorable verse. In his work, he brought to life the personalities of a diverse range of characters and introduced a new immediacy, colloquial energy, and psychological complexity to the poetry of his day. Selected...

Michael Hamburger's distinguished translation of a selection of poems by German poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) is now recognised as one of Europe's supreme poets. He first found his true voice in the epigrams and odes he wrote when transfigured by his love for the wife of a rich banker. He later embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious sequence of...

We live within a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks. In this series of remarkable pieces from across his career, John Berger celebrates and dissects the close links between art and society and the individual. Few writers give a more vivid and moving sense of how we make art and how art makes us. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber 'Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! - and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing by the watermelons?' Profane and prophetic verses about sex, death, revolution...

A guidebook to melancholia or depression, and a masterly, all-encompassing examination of the human condition. The Anatomy of Melancholy is the vast and only work by Robert Burton, the seventeenth-century English priest and scholar. It 'opens and cuts up' the condition of melancholy, or depression, as we know it today, and in doing so explores a dizzying range of additional...

The Japanese philosopher and aesthete's definitive, hugely influential exposition of his philosophy of folkcrafts, setting out the hallmarks of Japanese design as we know it today - anonymity, quality, simplicity and honesty - and, of course, wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection. Our lives are filled with objects. Everyday things used in everyday settings, they are our constant companions. As such,...

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...

Fifty new books at €1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. 'I have lived in important places, times When great events were decided . . .' By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece The Great Hunger, some of the key poems by the...

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...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. On his deathbed, George Herbert entrusted the manuscript of The Temple to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish it if he thought it was worthy. Herbert died in 1633, and the collection was published the same year to great acclaim, subsequently becoming one of...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series—beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. The Tower was W. B. Yeats's first major collection of poetry as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of his most influential collections. The title refers to Thoor Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower that Yeats purchased in 1917...

A selection of John Berger's writings on photography, including incredible images, edited & selected by Geoff Dyer. John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues, in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. 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...

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 dazzling selection from one of the most beloved American poets, whose distinctive verse resonates around the globe. hear your voice a wild sea pausing in the wind Few poets in history have possessed the irrepressible humanity and abundant positivity that characterise Sonia Sanchez's astonishing body of work. Energetic, infectious and rich with sonic exuberance, Sanchez's poems have radically transformed...

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...

The first part of a major new anthology which uncovers the rich reality of life for queer men in London. In the 1940s, it was believed that homosexuality had been becoming more widespread in the aftermath of war. A moral panic ensued, centred around London as the place to which gay men gravitated. In a major new anthology, Peter Parker...

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. 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 his youth,...

A beautiful boxed set of the major works by the three great Stoic philosophers, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith 'Perfection of character is this- to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.' This collection presents the greatest works by the three major Stoic philosophers, in beautiful hardback editions designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Meditations,...

This exhilarating collection of non-fiction sees one of the greatest twentieth-century writers meditating on the small moments that make up a life. How did I so unwittingly transform the joy of living into the great luxury of being alive? Between 1967 and 1977, Clarice Lispector wrote weekly dispatches from her desk in Rio for the Jornal do Brasil. Already famous...

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...

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...

The first part of a major new anthology which uncovers the rich reality of life for queer men in London In the 1940s, it was believed that homosexuality had been becoming more widespread in the aftermath of war. A moral panic ensued, centred around London as the place to which gay men gravitated. In a major new anthology, Peter Parker...

The second in a major two-part anthology uncovering the rich reality of life for queer men in London, from the end of the Second World War to decriminalization in 1967 In the 1940s, it was believed that homosexuality had been becoming more widespread in the aftermath of war. A moral panic ensued, centred around London as the place to which...

A magnificent new translation of The Odyssey by best-selling author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn. With his Odyssey, best-selling author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn has created a momentous new work, hailed by classicists and poets alike—a translation to stand with those of E. V. Rieu and Robert Fagles. Setting aside the streamlining, modernizing approach of many recent translations, Mendelsohn artfully reproduces...

Sophocles' innovative plays transformed Greek myths into dramas featuring complex human characters, through which he explored profound moral issues. Electra portrays the grief of a young woman for her father Agamemnon, who has been killed by her mother's lover. Aeschylus and Euripides also dramatized this story, but the objectivity and humanity of Sophocles' version provides a new perspective. Depicting 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...

The dazzling essays of the beloved, subversive Chinese writer Wang Xiaobo, a continual bestseller in China, now in English for the first time. Wang Xiaobo made his name as a novelist, but his essays, too, have become ongoing bestsellers in China since their publication in the 1990s. Bringing together his thoughts on reading, talking, and silence during the Cultural Revolution;...

Poems: 1968-2020 presents a new selection of Nikki Giovanni's poetry, spanning from 1968 to the present day. For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. Emerging from the Black Arts Movement in the late 1960s, she quickly became one of the most celebrated and controversial poets of the era. Now considered a living legend, this...

Kipling's reputation as the unofficial Laureate of the British Empire has obscured the true nature and scope of his poetic achievement. His poems range from exhilarating celebrations of British expansion overseas, through vivid character sketches of soldiers and seamen, to enchanting poems for children, political invective, and artistic manifestos. Here, Kipling's poems are presented in chronological order to reveal the...

A light revision of our definitive collection, translated with an introduction by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite. Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. This congenial attitude comes from a poetical...

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...

A new edition of Dylan Thomas's dazzling radio play. It is spring, a moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent... In the Welsh seaside town of Llareggub, night is moving in the streets. Its inhabitants are lost in the land of dreams—old Captain Cat catches up with his drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards the draper is...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. In the summer of 1820, Keats published this collection, his third and final volume of poetry. A few months earlier, he had started coughing up blood; the following February, he would die of tuberculosis in Rome, aged just twenty-five. This volume contains his greatest work, written...

Published for the centenary of his birth, a gathering of lucid, intensely lyrical poetry from one of the twentieth century's pre-eminent literary voices. be courageous when reason fails you be courageous in the final reckoning it is the only thing that counts Zbigniew Herbert was one of the best-known and most-translated poets of post-war Poland, opposed alike to Communism, Fascism,...

One of the major poets of Romanticism, Wordsworth epitomized the spirit of his age with his celebration of the natural world and the spontanous expression of feeling. This volume contains a rich selection from the most creative phase of his life, including extracts from his masterpiece, The Prelude, and the best-loved of his shorter poems such as 'Composed Upon Westminster...

A luminous new translation of one of the greatest poets in Chinese history Li Qingzhao is justly celebrated for her place in Chinese literary history. She was a poet with a wry, unsentimental style and a rich sense of melody. Her ci—lyrics that were originally set to music—are glorious in their depth and genius, spare and arresting on the line....

A window onto the past, full of fire and life- two immortal traditions as the English language has never seen them before SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD The poets in this book are philosophers and statesmen; priestesses and warriors; teenage girls, concerned for their birthday celebrations; drunkards and brawlers; grumpy old men...

An exciting new selection of poems exploring faith, the divine and doubt, written by poets across the world from antiquity to the present Poets have always looked to the skies for inspiration and have written as a way of getting closer to the power and beauty they sense in nature, in each other and in the cosmos. This anthology is...

An ingenious exploration of the meaning of literature, from one of Italy's most beloved writers. 'If the world is increasingly senseless, all we can do is try to give it a style.' The difference between life and literature; the good intentions of holiday reading; the avant-garde; the fate of the novel; the fantastical; the art of translation - these are...