Penguin Classics: General Fiction

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary 'She has many rare and charming qualities, but Sobriety is not one of them.'

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary The Figure in the Carpet 'Did she know and if she knew would she speak?'

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows opens with, “Mind you, it was a pukka, respectable opium-house, and not one of those stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas that you can find all over the City.” Kipling first became famous for his pungent, harsh and shocking stories of northwest India, where he...

The Life of a Stupid Man is part of the Little Black Classics series, launched to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. "What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad." This collection features autobiographical stories from Ryunosuke Akutagawa, one of Japan's masters of modernist storytelling. These pieces...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. I could see that she was still terribly afraid, but I didn't soften anything; instead, seeing that she was afraid I deliberately intensified it. Based on a St Petersburg news report, Dostoyevsky's searing tale of a man who drives his wife to suicide.

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. The Nose by Nikolay Gogol tells the peculiar and surreal tale of a man who loses his nose. Incredibly, it begins leading a life of its own, even assuming the identity of a higher-ranking official. 'Strangely enough, I mistook it for a gentleman at first. Fortunately, I had...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary The Old Man of the Moon by Shen Fu invites readers into a world of emotion and mystery with the poignant question: 'Our passion was so great. Will the Old Man understand and help us once again?' This sentiment captures the essence of the narrative, appealing to those...

The Reckoning by Edith Wharton is part of Little Black Classics, a new series celebrating Penguin's 80th anniversary. 'If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature...'

The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue is part of the Little Black Classics series, a collection crafted to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. "In two I'll slice the hair-seat / of Helga's kiss-gulper." This captivating saga weaves the tale of a love triangle amidst Icelandic society, showcasing themes of rivalry, love, and vengeance. The vivid poetry and dramatic elements bring to life...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. The Steel Flea by Nikolay Leskov is a fascinating tale filled with vibrant characters and incredible feats. The story takes the reader on a journey full of whimsy and ingenuity, showcasing Leskov's unique storytelling abilities. 'The Steel Flea' features intriguing elements, such as the scene where an order...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946 'PALE TERROR GOES BEFORE HIM, DEATH AND DEVASTATION FOLLOW!'

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was a groan of mortal terror ... the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul. Stories about murder, mystery and madness, portraying the author's feverish imagination at its creative height. Introducing Little Black Classics...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary 'There sat the dog with eyes as big as mill wheels' Though criticised for their anarchic immorality when first published, Hans Christian Andersen's tales made him an international star, taken to the hearts of children and adults for their beauty, sorrow and strangeness.

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary The Yellow Wall-Paper "The colour 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 forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalised nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal...

Little Black Classics - 80 books at 80 pence each to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary It was as if the sea, breaking down the wall protecting all the homes of the town, had sent a wave over her head One of Conrad's most powerful, gripping stories Introducing Little Black Classics - 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary ...revealing great shining fangs more than three inches long. Some of the most macabre and wonderful of all Chinese stories, including The Golden Goblet, Scorched Moth the Daoist and The Black Beast. Introducing Little Black Classics - 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the...

A boundary-breaking, riveting romance narrative from the seminal Brazilian writer, Clarice Lispector. A lonely woman in Rio de Janeiro makes a connection that will change her life. Ulisses, a mysterious man, has penetrated her soul and turned her inside out. An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures is a devastating novel of the interior, of a woman yearning to love,...

A searing exploration of a woman's hidden destructive impulses from one of the great writers of the twentieth century. 'There was no longer that ambivalent inconsistency between her words and thoughts, no more fever, no more artificial heat, no more vagueness. Instead was the truth in all its rawness, in black and white, in stark, cruel lines.' Adrift and alone,...

Stefan Zweig's classic novella of obsession, madness and chess. In 1941, a cruise ship is heading to Buenos Aires, and on board, a group of eager passengers challenge the reigning world chess champion to a match. At first, they lose pitifully, until a kind stranger aids them by whispering instructions. He is a masterful chess player, and as they play,...

A classic 1960s novel of J.G. Ballard-ian strangeness, from one of Britain's most haunting and unforgettable voices. The world is threatened by encroaching ice, creeping down day by day from the polar ice caps. The imminent catastrophe has thrown the world's governments into chaos, and no one knows whether the disaster has an environmental or nuclear cause, or how soon...

Maigret's Pickpocket is an intriguing tale where Inspector Maigret himself falls victim to a curious incident involving a pickpocket. The story begins when a pickpocket steals Maigret's wallet, only to return it the next day with the unusual condition that Maigret visits the thief's apartment. Intrigued, Maigret complies, leading him to the unexpected discovery of the thief's dead wife. This...

A spellbinding story of a community defending their land, by one of New Zealand's most established contemporary writers. Destroy the land and sea, we destroy ourselves On the remote coast of New Zealand, at the curve that binds land and sea, a small Māori community live, work, fish, play, and tell stories of their ancestors. But something is changing. The...

A feminist literary classic by one of Africa's greatest writers. First published in 1979, The Joys of Motherhood is the story of Nnu Ego, a Nigerian woman struggling in a patriarchal society. Unable to conceive in her first marriage, Nnu is banished to Lagos where she succeeds in becoming a mother. Then, against the backdrop of World War II, Nnu...

A superb historical novel by one of Japan's greatest novelists In 1613, Father Pedro Velasco's dream came true. He set sail with a small group of Japanese Samurai, first for Mexico, then Spain, then Rome. Velasco could speak Japanese and his zealous hope was to become bishop of a converted, Catholic Japan. They were the first Japanese ever to cross...

New to Penguin Modern Classics Numbers in the Dark is a collection of short stories covering the length of Italo Calvino's extraordinary writing career, from when he was a teenager to shortly before his death. They include witty allegories and wise fables; a town where everything has been forbidden apart from the game of tip-cat; a pitiable tribe watching the...

The first English translation of this stirring novel of idealist loyalty and sibling love, by one of East Germany's most important writers. 1960. The border between East and West Germany has closed. For Elisabeth, a young painter, the GDR is her generation's chance to build an egalitarian socialist future. For her brother Uli, it is a place of stricture and...

New to Modern Classics alongside Spark's The Drivers' Seat (ISBN- 0141188340). A man of devilish charm and enterprising spirit, Dougal Douglas is employed to revitalise the ailing firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley. He succeeds, but not quite in the way his employer intended. Strange things begin to happen as Dougal exerts an uncanny influence on the inhabitants of Peckham...

Glamorous expat life in Paris is brought to life in this new translation, part of the Maigret series. Try to imagine a guest, a wealthy woman, staying at the Majestic with her husband, her son, a nurse and a governess... In a suite that costs more than a thousand francs a day... At six in the morning, she's strangled, not...

It is September 1938 and during a heatwave, Europe tensely awaits the outcome of the Munich conference, where they will learn if there is to be a war. In Paris, people are waiting too, among them Mathieu, Jacques, and Philippe, each wrestling with their own love affairs, doubts, and angsts—and none of them ready to fight. The second volume in...

A new selection of lyrically haunting short stories from a Japanese literary icon. A writer is seized by apocalyptic visions; a voyeuristic marquis commits a brutal act; and a trio of beatniks dance to modern jazz in the ruins of an abandoned church. Here, stark autobiography contrasts with pure horror, and the tenderness of first love cedes to obsession, heartbreak...

The first unabridged English translation of the electrifying novel of secrets and delusions, from one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century. Elisa—orphaned as a child, raised by a 'fallen woman', fed by fairy tales—has lived in an outlandish imaginary world for years. When her guardian dies, she feels compelled to confront her family's tortured and dramatic past,...

An erotic and intricate novella from one of the most enigmatic and important figures in Brazilian literature. Yes, bastard, you're the one I love A pair of lovers - a young female journalist and an older man who owns an isolated farm in the Brazilian outback - spend the night together. The next day they proceed to destroy each other....

From the acclaimed writer Margaret Drabble come her short stories, in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. Margaret Drabble is one of the major literary figures of her generation. In this collection of her complete short fiction from across four decades, she examines the intense private worlds and passions of everyday people. From one man's honeymooning epiphany in Hassan's...

A reissue in a beautiful new PMC jacket of one of the 20th century's great American novels. Published in 1957, two years after its author's death at the age of forty-five, A Death in the Family remains a near-perfect work of art, an autobiographical novel that contains one of the most evocative depictions of loss and grief ever written. As...

A brilliant, yet brutal, portrait of a woman struggling to retrieve both life and love. For six months, Julia has lived alone in a drab Parisian hotel on an allowance from her ex-lover, Mr Mackenzie. When his cheques stop, Julia decides to leave France and return to London. The tale of her ten-day visit contains some of Jean Rhys's most...

Originally published in 1967, Ngugi's third novel is his best known and most ambitious work. A Grain of Wheat portrays several characters in a village whose intertwined lives are transformed by the 1952-1960 Emergency in Kenya. As the action follows the village's arrangements for Uhuru (independence) Day, this is a novel of stories within stories, a narrative interwoven with myth...

Is it possible to die a happy death? This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel, published posthumously and greeted as a major literary event. It tells the story of a young Algerian, Mersault, who defies society's rules by committing a murder and escaping punishment, then experimenting with different ways of life and finally dying a happy man....

On the marriage of Julius von Felden and Melanie Merz, the fortunes of two families are somewhat fatally entwined. In A Legacy, Sybille Bedford depicts their vastly different worlds: the wealthy bourgeois life of the Merzes in Berlin and the aristocratic eccentricity of the von Felden dynasty in rural Baden. Portrayed with exquisite wit and acute observation, their personal upheavals...

All Souls by Javier Marías is a darkly humorous Oxford novel, newly available in Penguin Modern Classics. The pretty young tutor Clare Bayes attracts many eyes at an Oxford college dinner, not least those of a visiting Spanish lecturer who is desperate to escape his conversation with an obese economist about an eighteenth-century cider tax. As they begin an affair,...

'A bitter yet funny satire ... probably the best book to come out of West Africa' - Anthony Burgess As Minister for Culture, the Honourable M. A. Nanga is a man of the people, as cynical as he is charming, and a roguish opportunist. At first, the contrast between Nanga and Odili, a former pupil who is visiting the ministry,...

New to PMC A Month of Sundays, Updike's seventh novel, concerns a month of seven days, a period of enforced rest and recreation as experienced by the Reverend Tom Marshfield. He is sent west from his Midwestern church in disgrace.

How often, honestly, does the unveiling in translation of a 'forgotten genius' live up to the hype? Well here's one that does: Raduan Nassar. Times Literary Supplement I felt the powerful strength of my family overrunning me like a heavy rush of water. For André, a young man growing up on a farm in Brazil, life consists of 'the earth,...

Bennett's remarkable sermon against parental tyranny set in the industrial world of early twentieth century England. Against the beautifully evoked backdrop of the Potteries district, the Five Towns—a gossipy community with its prayer meetings, hard physical work, small-minded bigotry and quick condemnation of others—Anna is dominated by her tight-fisted, tyrannical father. She inherits a fortune— with brilliant sympathy, charm and...

Answered Prayers, Truman Capote's unfinished final novel, is an unsparing tell-all of New York high society that sent a seismic shock through the public and Capote's own social circle. Catapulted from a childhood spent in a Missouri orphanage to the dizzying peaks of New York high society, the destitute and debauched writer P. B. Jones spends his days moving between...

A powerful dystopian novel from a writer who experienced firsthand the dehumanising conditions of Soviet Russia, Ayn Rand's Anthem includes an introduction by Leonard Peikoff in Penguin Modern Classics. Equality 7-2521 is a man apart. Since The Great Rebirth, it has been a crime in his world to think or act as an individual. Even love is forbidden. Yet since...

With an introduction by Maya Jaggi Chris, Ikem, and Beatrice are like-minded friends working under the military regime of His Excellency, the Sandhurst-educated President of Kangan. In the pressurised atmosphere of oppression and intimidation, they are simply trying to live and love—and remain friends. But in a world where each day brings a new betrayal, hope is hard to cling...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. I will go in, out of this dust and heat, out of this dry glitter of vanity, out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. Three disturbing, mysterious and moving stories from Wells, science-fiction pioneer. Introducing Little Black Classics- 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday....

A powerful 1931 portrayal of a German town on the brink of chaos, from bestselling author Hans Fallada. It is summer, 1929, and in a small German town a storm is brewing. The shabby reporter Tredup leads a precarious existence working for the Pomeranian Chronicle—until he takes some photographs that offer the chance to make a fortune. In Kruger's bar,...

Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century. This landmark selection of his short stories opens up a world of wonder, love, cruelty, and curious twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems. In The Fugitive, an office worker composes the most beautiful poem ever, with unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, Magic Paint sees...

Stefan Zweig's most famous novel, reissued with a new jacket and title. 'I can't take any more of your revolting merciful kindness!' Who would have thought that the great military hero Captain Hofmiller - that living monument to his own courage - would have anything burdening his soul? But when he reveals his story, it is not one of bravery...

A dreamlike, frozen dystopia from one of the twentieth century's most unique writers. No one knows why the ice has come, and no one can stop it. Every day it creeps further across the earth, covering the land in snow and freezing everything in its path. Through this bleached, devastated world, one man pursues the silver-haired girl he loves, as...

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....

The first novel in the Great Plains trilogy, this is an ode to the American Midwest and the immigrants who transformed it. To the anger of her brothers, it is Alexandra who is entrusted to manage their family farm in the tough, hostile prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, following the death of their father. As the years pass, Alexandra rises heroically...

A collectible hardcover edition of Virginia Woolf's pioneering novel about a time-travelling sixteenth-century nobleman who wakes up in the body of a woman, with a new foreword by Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. "A brilliant book that teaches you so much about identity and love—all these fundamental questions that we ask ourselves." -...

The best satire of journalism ever written, now in a wonderful new hardback edition. Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of The Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on...

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...

A must-have new edition of Virginia Woolf's masterpiece, featuring a cover illustrated by Alison Bechdel, the New York Times bestselling author of Fun Home, and a new foreword by Patricia Lockwood. A Penguin Classics Graphic Deluxe Edition Every summer, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and their eight children vacation on Scotland's idyllic Isle of Skye, surrounded by artist friends. They expect...

Vile Bodies is Evelyn Waugh's brilliant skewering of the Roaring Twenties, now available in a wonderful new hardback edition. The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade. Whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties, or sports cars, a vivid assortment...

Depicting the daily struggle of the individual against a tyrannical dictatorship, We the Living shows the terrible impact of a revolution on three people who demand the right to live their own lives and pursue their happiness. Kira, determined to maintain her independence and courageous in the face of starvation and poverty; Leo, upper class and paralysed by state repression;...

The new paperback series- Penguin English Library The Penguin English Library Edition of Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster 'I had got an idea that everyone here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they didn't care for, to please people they didn't love; that they never learned to be sincere - and, what's as...

Jean Rhys's unique prequel to Jane Eyre, a masterpiece of twentieth-century literature. Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent...

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...

An extraordinary story of love and exile, from one of the great masters of the Latin American novel. Santiago is trapped. Taken political prisoner in Montevideo after a brutal military coup, he can do nothing but write letters to his family, and try to stay sane. Far away, his nine-year-old daughter Beatrice wonders at the marvels of 1970s Buenos Aires,...

Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh, now available in a wonderful hardback edition, is a masterful depiction of World War II. Waugh's own unhappy experience of being a soldier is superbly re-enacted in this story of Guy Crouchback, a Catholic and a gentleman, commissioned into the Royal Corps of Halberdiers during the war years 1939-45. The narrative is marked by...

Volume two of Javier Marías's acclaimed and evocative novel in parts. The first volume of Javier Marías's novel in parts saw Jacques Deza questioning the morality of his position in an undercover network under the enigmatic Bertram Tupra. When Deza is forced to witness an act of unexpected brutality, he is shaken to his core. Witnessing this event triggers memories...

A man, dispirited by ageing, endeavours to steal a younger man's face; a doctor yearns for a virus that might eliminate his discomfort by turning everyone else into doubles of himself; a Colonel lays out the precepts of the life of DE (Do Easy); conspirators posthumously succeed in blowing up a train full of nerve gas; a mandrill known as...

A new translation of the French classic—the first in a hundred years—by David Coward. The Napoleonic Wars are over. Octave, a young Parisian, loves his mistress Elise—until he witnesses her being unfaithful. His despair leads to decadence, and he becomes the perfect libertine. However, the death of his father takes Octave to the countryside where he falls in love with...

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...

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,...

A strange love triangle unravels in this masterly study of storytelling, deception, and desire. They met when they were teenagers. Quiet, poor, perhaps even a little dull, Miguel fell for languid Alicia during their long walks back from school. Then Lucas arrived and changed everything, entrancing Alicia with his confident bohemian charm. Miguel could not compete. But he stuck around...

A riveting, funny coming-of-age story - the first volume in Pirkko Saisio's award-winning Helsinki trilogy. Grandpa says everyone should leave me alone. If I want to be a boy, then I'm a boy - simple as that. Writing in the wake of her father's death, the narrator of Pirkko Saisio's autofictional novel transports us to the 1950s Finland of her...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. She had lived by delays; she had meant to stop drinking; she had put off the time, and now she had smashed her car. At once harsh and tender, expansive and acutely funny, this is the...

An extraordinary tale of betrayal from the celebrated author of the Maigret series. On the shore of the Black Sea, on the edge of the Soviet Union, a little city has a new Turkish consul. Adil Bey—alone in an alien land—has taken the job after the mysterious death of his predecessor. Receiving only suspicion and hostility, he soon becomes reliant...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. It was what we call in the trade a potato... Tales of low-lifes and grifters trying to make ends meet in pre-War Germany.

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics - irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. With his signature flair and razor-sharp wit, Saki is an undisputed master of the short story. His tales are by turns hilarious, festive, supernatural, and macabre, but all offer fabulous, bite-sized satires of a decadent...

Set in a small town in New Zealand, the story is told through the eyes of a gauche thirteen-year-old boy called Jimmy Sullivan. It is the haunting tale of a young boy growing up in a Catholic household, seeing things he shouldn't and struggling to cope. The book appears to be domestic in scope and provincial in vision, but by...

The thirteenth issue of The Happy Reader, the bookish bi-annual published by Penguin Classics in collaboration with Fantastic Man. 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-form interview with a notable book fanatic...

A landmark anthology, staking a new claim for Bengali literature in English. The prose short story arrived in Bengal in the wake of British colonisers, and Bengali writers quickly made the form their own. By the twentieth century, a profusion of literary magazines and journals meant they were being avidly read by millions. Writers responded to this hunger for words...

The darkly passionate short stories of Thomas Hardy are compelling explorations of love, social class, superstition, and legend. This collection contains many of his finest and most representative works. Included are The Withered Arm, an eerie depiction of arcane witchcraft in nineteenth-century England; Barbara of the House of Grebe, in which a beautiful man's tragic disfigurement by fire is savagely...

A new translation of this haunting collection of short stories that evoke 1930s Ferrara, with an introduction by Ali Smith. Isolated lives and a lost world are evoked in these haunting stories set in the Jewish-Italian community of 1930s Ferrara. A young man's unrequited love; a strange disappearance; a faded hotel; a lonely funfair; the smell of mown hay at...