Top 100 Penguin Classics

First time published individually in Modern Classics, alongside Claudius the God. Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In I, Claudius, he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors—from the...

The acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, reissued with a new PMC jacket. Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer - this is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets as a child, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in...

Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and...

Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living...

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....

Stunningly-designed new editions of Toni Morrison's best-known novels, published by Vintage Classics in celebration of her life and work. With a new introduction by Bernardine Evaristo. Sethe is now miles away from Sweet Home—the farm where she was kept as a slave for many years. Unable to forget the unspeakable horrors that took place there, Sethe is haunted by the...

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, is a monumental work that intricately weaves a gripping narrative with profound philosophical underpinnings. The story unfolds in a dystopian United States, where governmental overreach and stifling regulations have led to an economy on the brink of collapse. At its heart is the enigmatic figure of John Galt, a man whose ambitious plan to 'stop...