Penguin Classics: Historical Fiction

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. The pleasure is twice as sweet When you cheat a cheat. The World is Full of Foolish Men by Jean de la Fontaine captures the essence of these timeless words, enticing readers into a world of wit and wisdom.

The story of one Allied air raid over twenty-four hours remains one of the finest British war novels. 31 June, 1943. An RAF crew prepare for their next bombing raid on Germany. It is a night that many will never forget. Len Deighton's devastating novel is a gripping minute-by-minute account of what happens over the next twenty-four hours. Told through...

Declarations of War is Len Deighton's only collection of short stories, examining the experiences of soldiers across two millennia of war. This collection of thirteen stories offers an inside view of fighting men poised at the edge of death. It is a dazzling array of stories that spans twenty-three centuries of warfare. From Hannibal's march on Rome—when strange, moving objects...

A meticulously detailed and moving novel explores the lives of American fighter pilots in World War Two. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is a vivid evocation of wartime England, the story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4. At the centre of the novel are two young men — the deeply reserved...

Primo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Wracked by fear, hunger and fierce rivalries, they link up, fall apart, struggle to stay alive and to sabotage the...

The bestselling epic novel of family, treachery, rivalry, religious fervour and the turbulent fate of a people. The year is 1797, and the kingdom of Segu is flourishing. The people of Segu, the Bambara, are guided by their griots and priests while their lives are ruled by nature. But change is about to come - from the east comes a...

Mailer's classic account of the 1967 anti-Vietnam War rally in Washington D.C., and one of the best 'nonfiction novels' ever written. October 21, 1967, Washington, D.C. 20,000 to 200,000 protesters are marching to end the war in Vietnam, while helicopters hover overhead and federal marshals and soldiers with fixed bayonets await them on the Pentagon steps. Among the marchers is...

One of the finest American novels ever written, Norman Mailer's classic account of the Philippines campaign of WW2. Based on Mailer's own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, The Naked and the Dead is a graphically truthful and shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing... Alexander Lernet-Holenia, championed in his lifetime...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Composed in Iceland in the 13th Century, The Prose Edda is the most renowned of all works of Scandinavian literature, taking readers on a voyage through an enthralling world of gods, giants, dwarfs and monsters. From the beginning of the universe to the dreaded Twilight of the Gods, this is the...

Cranford, Gaskell's best-known work, is set in a small rural town inhabited largely by women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister Miss Matty. However, domestic peace is constantly threatened by financial disaster, imagined burglaries, tragic accidents, and...

Regarded as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges, and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. He watches and records the activities of the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia, the sadistic Tiberius, and the insane excesses of Caligula. Written in the form of Claudius' autobiography, this is the first...

New to Black Classics with a New Introduction by Giles Foden Three men trek to the remote African interior in search of a lost friend—and reach, at the end of a perilous journey, an unknown land cut off from the world, where terrible dangers threaten anyone who ventures near the spectacular diamond mines of King Solomon's Mines...

The Prose Edda is the most renowned of all works of Scandinavian literature and our most extensive source for Norse mythology. Written in Iceland a century after the close of the Viking Age, it tells ancient stories of the Norse creation epic and recounts the battles that follow as gods, giants, dwarves, and elves struggle for survival. It also preserves...

Dreamlike Welsh tales from the thirteenth century Drawing on myth, folklore and history, the stories of The Mabinogion passed from generations of storytellers before they were written down in the thirteenth century in the form we know today. Set in dual realms of the forests and valleys of Wales and the shadowy otherworld, the tales are permeated by a dreamlike...

A tale of princely jealousy and vengeance, The Saga of the Volsungs has been an inspiration for Wagner and J.R.R. Tolkien. Based on Viking Age poems, The Saga of the Volsungs combines mythology, legend, and sheer human drama. At its heart are the heroic deeds of Sigurd the dragon slayer, who acquires magical knowledge from one of Odin's Valkyries. Yet...

A lively and enchanting collection of much-loved tales, new to Penguin Classics. Mystery and excitement abound in this lively collection of fairy tales, folklore, and legends, which celebrate Scotland's enormously rich oral tradition. This anthology offers a carefully chosen combination of old favourites such as Tam Lin, Thomas Rymer, and Adam Bell, as well as more modern stories by master...

An enchanting clothbound edition of the essential tales drawn from the acclaimed translation of The Arabian Nights. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Every night for three years, the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with...

Offers unexpurgated translation of the best-known tales including such classics as Sindbad the Sailor. The tales told by Shahrazad over a thousand and one nights to delay her execution by the vengeful King Shahriyar have become among the most popular in both Eastern and Western literature. From the epic adventures of Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp to the farcical Young...

The selected adventures of Persia's Hercules, from Iran's great national epic. No understanding of world mythology is complete without acquaintance with Rostam, Iran's most celebrated mythological hero. According to the Shahnameh (the tenth-century Book of Kings), this titan, magnificent in strength and courage, bestrode Persia for 500 years. While he often served fickle kings—undergoing many trials of combat, cunning, and...

“[A] gripping new translation.” —Samantha Power, from the Foreword The novel that has done more than any other to inspire opposition to war, in a major new translation that captures its undiminished literary power for a new generation. With a Foreword by Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling war correspondent, human rights advocate, and former U.S. Ambassador...

James Jones' epic drama of army life in the calm before Pearl Harbor comes to Penguin Modern Classics—now with previously censored scenes restored. Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941. Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a career soldier and a champion welterweight. But when he refuses to join the company's boxing team for reasons he will not explain, he is subjected to...

James Jones' classic of combat literature is a brutal and devastating portrait of the senselessness of war. The soldiers of C-for-Charlie Company are not cast from the heroic mould. The unit's captain is too intelligent and sensitive for the job, his first sergeant is psychotic, and the enlisted men begin the campaign gripped by cowardice. But they will all discover...