ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

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Book SynopsisA far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN''S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free and Swing Time''Alarmingly good'' Metro''Striding with open hearted zest and eloquence between fiction (from EM Forster to David Foster Wallace) and travel, movies and comedy, family and community in a self-portrait that charts the evolution of a formidable talent'' Independent''Supremely good. Smith writes with such infectious zeal and engaging accessibility that it makes you want to turn up at her house and demand tutoring'' Dazed''Brilliant'' Vogue

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Book SynopsisTahar Ben Jelloun was born in 1944 in Fez, Morocco, and emigrated to France in 1961. He is one of North Africa's foremost novelists. Tahar Ben Jelloun's novels include The Sacred Night which received the Prix Goncourt in 1987 and Corruption.

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Book SynopsisIn 1612 Shakespeare gave evidence at the Court of Requests in Westminster it is the only occasion his spoken words are recorded. The case seems routine a dispute over an unpaid marriage-dowry but it opens up an unexpected window into the dramatist's famously obscure life-story. Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating episode in Shakespeare's life. Marshalling evidence from a wide variety of sources, including previously unknown documentary material on the Mountjoys, he conjures up a detailed and compelling description of the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived and worked, and in which he wrote such plays as Othello, Measure for Measure and King Lear.

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Book SynopsisA great king, strong as the stars in Heaven. Enkidu, a wild and mighty hero, is created by the gods to challenge the arrogant King Gilgamesh. But instead of killing each other, the two become friends. Travelling together to the Cedar Forest, they fight and slay the evil monster Humbaba. But when Enkidu is killed, his death haunts and breaks the mighty Gilgamesh. Terrified of mortality, he resolves to find the secret of eternal life...

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Book SynopsisIn Pop Goes the Weasel, Albert Jack explores the strange and fascinating histories behind the nursery rhymes we thought we knew, showing that their real meanings are far from innocent.Who were Mary Quite Contrary and Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? And if Ring a Ring a Roses isn''t about catching the plague, then what is it really about? This ingenious book delves into the hidden meanings of the nursery rhymes and songs we all know so well and discovers all kinds of strange tales ranging from Viking raids to firewalking and from political rebellion to slaves being smuggled to freedom.From the grim true story behind ''Oranges and Lemons'' to the deadly secrets of Mary Quite Contrary''s garden, and from how Lucy Locket lost more than her pocket to why Humpty Dumpty wasn''t egg-shaped at all, Pop Goes the Weasel is a compendium of surprising stories you won''t be able to resist passing on to everyone Trade ReviewAn irresistible treasure-trove ... The way these gossipy little rhymes give us a snapshot of everyday life in centuries gone by is enchanting. You'll never look at nursery rhymes again in the same way * Daily Mirror *The history behind nursery rhymes is not only highly specific but often splendidly grim. This book is a reminder of the riches below the surface: characters, jokes, events and stories * The Times *

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Book SynopsisCharles Dickens is the acclaimed definitive biography by bestselling author Claire Tomalin Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a great novelist - the creator of characters who live immortally in the English imagination: the Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick, Pip, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Lady Dedlock, and many more.At the age of twelve he was sent to work in a blacking factory by his affectionate but feckless parents. From these unpromising beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights, entirely through his own efforts. When he died, the world mourned, and he was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey.Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children. From the award-winning author of Samuel Pepys, Charles Dickens: A Life paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius. If you loved Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, this book is invaluable reading.''By far the most humane and imaginatively sympathetic account yet for the general reader'' Amanda Craig, New Statesman

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Book SynopsisA Place in the Country is a window into the brilliant mind of W. G. Sebald''The greatest writer of our time'' Peter CareyWhen W. G. Sebald travelled to Manchester in 1966, he packed in his bags certain literary favourites which would remain central to him throughout the rest of his life and during the years when he was settled in England. In A Place in the Country, he reflects on six of the figures who shaped him as a person and as a writer, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Jan Peter Tripp. Fusing biography and essay, and finding, as ever, inspiration in place - as when he journeys to the Ile St. Pierre, the tiny, lonely Swiss island where Jean-Jacques Rousseau found solace and inspiration - Sebald lovingly brings his subjects to life in his distinctive, inimitable voice.''A fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe''s most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations'' Evening Standard''SebalTrade ReviewA fascinating volume that confirms Sebald as one of Europe's most mysterious and best-loved literary imaginations * Evening Standard *Sebald was in possession of the uncanny ability to make his own intellectual obsessions, immediately, compulsively his reader's * Observer *Shows a writer at his most inquisitive, gazing deeply under the surface of things * Financial Times *Irresistible . . . an intimate anatomy of the pathos, absurdity and perverse splendour of trying to find patterns in the chaos of the world * Independent *Erudite, truthful, moving * The Times *A beautiful book . . . about the crazy quest for meaning, and how we persist with it despite the shadows that slide towards us -- Joanna Kavenna * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisFor the first time, John Drury convincingly integrates the life and poetry of George Herbert, giving us in Music at Midnight the definitive biography of the man behind some of the most famous poems in the English Language.''Love bade me welcome . . .''''Teach me my God and King . . .''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.He was born in 1593 and died at the age of 39 in 1633, before the clouds of civil war gathered, his family aristocratic and his upbringing privileged. He showed worldly ambition and seemed sure of high public office and a career at court, but then for a time ''lost himself in a humble way'', devoting himself to the restoration of the church at Leighton Bromswold in Buckinghamshire and then to his parish of Bemerton, three miles from Salisbury, whose cathedral music he called ''my heaven on earth''. When in the year of his death his friend Nicholas Ferrar, leader of the quasi-monastic community at Little Gidding, published Herbert''s poems under the title The Temple, his fame was quickly established.Because he published no English poems during his lifetime, and dating most of them exactly is impossible, writing Herbert''s biography is an unusual challenge. In this book John Drury sets the poetry in the whole context of the poet''s life and times, so that the reader can understand the frame of mind and kind of society which produced it, and depth can be added to the narrative of Herbert''s life. (T.S. Eliot: ''What we can confidently believe is that every poem in the book [The Temple] is in tune to the poet''s experience.'') His Herbert is not the saintly figure who has come down to us from John Aubrey, but a man torn for much of his life between worldly ambition and the spiritual life shown to us so clearly through his writings. The result is the most satisfying biography of this exceptional English poet yet written.JOHN DRURY is Chaplain and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He began as a biblical scholar, and while Dean of King''s College, Cambridge, worked with Frank Kermode on the Gospels for The Literary Guide to the Bible, which sharpened his sense of the role of imagination in the formation of the Gospel stories. He took this interest further, and into the realm of Christian paintings and their meaning, in Painting the Word, written while he was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Music at Midnight is the culmination of a lifetime''s interest in Herbert, whose Complete Poetry he is now editing for Penguin Classics.Trade ReviewIncomparable. Drury triumphantly delivers the goods ... artfully weaving the poetry through the life -- Diarmaid MacCulloch * Daily Telegraph *Excellent, captivating, full of moving detail. A terrific book about a remarkable poet -- Sally Vickers * Independent *Dazzling -- David Grylls * Sunday Times *

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Book Synopsis''An indispensable work of reference'' Times Literary SupplementThe Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory is firmly established as a key work of reference in the complex and varied field of literary criticism. Now in its fifth edition, it remains the most comprehensive and accessible work of its kind, and is invaluable for students, teachers and general readers alike.- Gives definitions of technical terms (hamartia, iamb, zeugma) and critical jargon (aporia, binary opposition, intertextuality)- Explores literary movements (neoclassism, romanticism, vorticism) and schools of literary theory- Covers genres (elegy, fabliau, pastoral) and literary forms (haiku, ottava rima, sonnet)Trade ReviewAccomplishes cameo wonders of literary history ... generously and urbanely compiled * New York Times *Scholarly, succinct, comprehensive and entertaining ... an indispensable work of reference * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis“[Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante.” —SlateA Penguin ClassicKristin Lavransdatter interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset's own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of historical novels. This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer's translation in the 1920s—captures Undset's strengt

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Book SynopsisThe work of 21 poets is represented: including Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves, Ivor Gurney, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Mew, Alice Meynell, Wilfred Owen, Herbert Read, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Edward Thomas.

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Book SynopsisBorn to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even here she feels different. Moving to Harlem and eventually to Denmark, she attempts to carve out a comfortable life and place for herself, but ends up back where she started, choosing emotional freedom that quickly translates into a narrow existence. Quicksand, Nella Larsen's powerful first novel, has intriguing autobiographical parallels and at the same time invokes the international dimension of African American culture of the 1920s. It also evocatively portrays the racial and gender restrictions that can mark a life.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout h

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Book SynopsisJorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) lived in Buenes Aires. His COLLECTED FICTIONS was published in Allen Lane in January 1999.

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Book SynopsisA superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of her class, and striking out on her own with an intellectual and existential ambition exceedingly rare in a young woman in the 1920s. Simone de Beavoir describes her early life, from her birth in Paris in 1908 to her student days at the Sorbonne, where she met Jean-Paul sartre - ''the dream-companion I had longed for since I was fifteen''.

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Book SynopsisA fascinating insight into the vibrant culture of Modernism, and the rich artistic world of Paris''s Left Bank, Gertrude Stein''s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas includes an introduction by Thomas Fensch in Penguin Modern Classics.For Gertrude Stein and her wife Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and ''it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning''. Picasso was there with ''his high whinnying Spanish giggle'', as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - ''The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me''. A light-hearted entertainment, this is in fact Gertrude Stein''s own autobiography and a roll-call of all the extraordinary painters and writers she met between 1903 and 1932. Audacious, sardonic and characteristically self-confident, this is a definitive account by American in Paris.Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), a writer of experimental prose, is on

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Book SynopsisThe centenary of Patrick Kavanagh''s birth in 2004 provides the ideal opportunity to reappraise one of modern Ireland''s greatest poets. From a harsh, humble background that he himself described so brilliantly, Kavanagh burst through immense constraints to redefine Irish poetry - a poetry appropriate for a fully independent country, both politically and culturally. Moving beyond Irish verse''s preoccupation with history, national politics and identity, he turned to the land and scenery of his native Inniskeen, portraying the closely-observed minutiae of everyday rural and urban life in an uninhibited, groundbreaking style. Lucid, various, direct and engaging, Kavanagh''s poems have a unique place in the canon and a unique accessibility. This major new edition is the culmination of many years of work by Antoinette Quinn in creating authoritative texts for Kavanagh''s poetry - from his early works such as ''Inniskeen Road: July Evening'' to his masterpiece, the epic ''The Great Hunger'', allowing us to see the development of Kavanagh''s genius as never before.

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Book SynopsisWhy Read the Classics? is an elegant defence of the value of great literature by one of the finest authors of the last century. Beginning with an essay on the attributes that define a classic (number one - classics are those books that people always say they are ''rereading'', not ''reading''), this is an absorbing collection of Italo Calvino''s witty and passionate criticism.Trade ReviewEnthusiasm and intelligence: these are the essential qualities of the critic. Calvino, himself a novelist of rare quality, possessed both generously. This is a book to read for itself, and also because it will send you back to other books to read, either again in a new way, or for the first time... Superb * Daily Telegraph *This volume itself is a classic book at bedtime, a seductive invitation to forgotten opportunities or rereading * The Times *A master’s guidance on everything from the ancient Greeks to Ernest Hemingway, proving that “a classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” This timeless description applies to Calvino’s own books too -- John Self

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Book SynopsisArthur Miller''s play A View from the Bridge is a tragic masterpiece of the inexorable unravelling of a man, set in a close-knit Italian-American community in 1950s New York. Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman and a straightforward man, with a strong sense of decency and of honour. For Eddie, it''s a privilege to take in his wife''s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, straight off the boat from Italy. But, as his niece Catherine begins to fall for one of them, it''s clear that it''s not just, as Eddie claims, that he''s too strange, too sissy, too careless for her, but that something bigger, deeper is wrong - and wrong inside Eddie, in a way he can''t face. Something which threatens the happiness of their whole family.This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by the author and a new foreword by actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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Book SynopsisA reticent personnel manager living with his mother, Mr Newman shares the prejudices of his times and of his neighbours - and neither a Hispanic woman abused outside his window nor the persecution of the Jewish store owner he buys his paper from are any of his business. Until Newman begins wearing glasses, and others begin to mistake him for a Jew.Arthur Miller''s chilling novel displays the same searing moral precision and emotional intensity of his plays, as the intensity of anti-Semitism in 1945 New York mounts, and the prejudices Newman shares begin to turn threateningly against him.

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Book SynopsisA new collection of John Donne's verse, from the witty conceit of The Flea to the intense spirituality of his Divine Poems  Regarded by many as the greatest of the metaphysical poets, John Donne was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan Age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in his youth, he was raised a Catholic but later became one of the most admired Protestant preachers of his time. Reflecting this wide diversity, Collected Poetry includes his youthful songs and sonnets, epigrams, elegies, letters, satires, and the profoundly moving Divine Poems composed toward the end of his life. From joyful works such as The Flea, which transforms the image of a louse into something marvelous, to the intimate and intense Holy Sonnets, Donne breathed new vigor into poetry by drawing startling metaphors from the world in which he lived. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publi

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Book SynopsisRainer Maria Rilke’s powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet.    At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. These profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for generations of writers and artists of all kinds, including Lady Gaga and Patti Smith. With honesty, elegance, and a deep understanding of the loneliness that often comes with being an artist, Rilke’s letters are an endless source of inspiration and comfort. Lewis Hyde’s new introduction explores the context in which these letters were written and how the author embraced his isolation as a creative force. This edition also includes Rilke’s later work The Letter from the Young Worker.  For more than 80 years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature Trade Review...I cannot think of a better book to put into the hands of any young would-be poet, as an inspirational guide to poetry and to surviving as a poet in a hostile world. -- Harry Fainlight * The Times *

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Book SynopsisPart of the "Clothbound Classics" series, this title collects sonnets of Shakespeare's that deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. It also includes the sonnet "A Lover's Complaint", in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.

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Book SynopsisBeautifully written yet highly controversial, An Image of Africa asserts Achebe''s belief in Joseph Conrad as a ''bloody racist'' and his conviction that Conrad''s novel Heart of Darkness only serves to perpetuate damaging stereotypes of black people. Also included is The Trouble with Nigeria, Achebe''s searing outpouring of his frustrations with his country. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

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Book Synopsis''Literature is not innocent,'' stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays, arguing that only by acknowledging its complicity with the knowledge of evil can literature communicate fully and intensely. These literary profiles of eight authors and their work, including Emily Brontë''s Wuthering Heights, Baudelaire''s Les Fleurs du Mal and the writings of Sade, Kafka and Sartre, explore subjects such as violence, eroticism, childhood, myth and transgression, in a work of rich allusion and powerful argument.Trade ReviewBataille is one of the most important writers of the twentieth century -- Michel FoucaultBataille intellectualizes the erotic, as he eroticizes the intellect ... reading him can be a disturbing kind of game * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisIn July 1914, Franz Kafka''s fiancée Felice broke off their engagement in a humiliating public tribunal, surrounded by her friends and family, and the other woman with whom Kafka had recently fallen in love. Broken and bereft, Kafka - at the height of his writing powers - turned the experience into his masterpiece, The Trial, where his lovers became the faceless prosecutors of Josef K. In Kafka''s Other Trial, Canetti explores each letter that Kafka wrote to his fiancée, from their first tender moments together to his final letter and his refusal to reconcile. In this affecting book, he offers moving insights into the creativity of Franz Kafka and the torment he suffered as a man, a lover, and a writer.Trade ReviewPerhaps the most revealing essay on Kafka ever published. At last Kafka is matched in thought and prose * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisAn undisputed modernist classic, "Ulysses'" ceaseless verbal inventiveness and astonishing wide-ranging allusions confirms its standing as an imperishable monument to the human condition. This title states that "Ulysses" is 'an endlessly open book of utopian epiphanies.Trade ReviewEverybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the twentieth century -- Anthony Burgess

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Book SynopsisThe extraordinary letters of Italo Calvino, one of the great writers of the twentieth century, translated into English for the first time by Martin McLaughlin, with an introduction by Michael Wood.Italo Calvino, novelist, literary critic and editor, was also a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal and Pier Paolo Pasolini. This collection of his extraordinary letters, the first in English, gives an illuminating insight into his work and life. They include correspondence with fellow authors, generous encouragement to young writers, responses to critics, thoughts on literary criticism and literature in general, as well as giving glimpses of Calvino''s role in the antifascist Resistance, his disenchantment with Communism and his travels to America and Cuba. Together they reveal the searching intellect, clarity and passionate commitment of a great writer at work.''This literally marvelous collection of letters

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Book SynopsisFrom Evelyn Waugh, the author of beloved novels such as Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust and Vile Bodies, this is the biography of Ronald Knox - priest, classicist, prolific writer and one of the outstanding men of letters of his time. The renowned Oxford chaplain was a friend of figures such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and was known for his caustic wit and spiritual wisdom. Evelyn Waugh, his devoted friend and admirer, was asked by Knox to write his biography just before his death in 1957. The result, published after two years of research and writing, is a tribute to a uniquely gifted man: ''the wit and scholar marked out for popularity and fame; the boon companion of a generation of legendary heroes; the writer of effortless felicity and versatility ... who never lost a friend or made an enemy''.Trade ReviewWaugh wrote like an angel ... a fallen one Irish Times

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Book SynopsisA translation that describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide. It depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. It also includes explanatory notes and illustrations showing the different layers of hell.Trade ReviewThe perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism...likely to be the best modern version of Dante -- Bernard O'Donoghue

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Book SynopsisPart of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Elder Edda is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien''s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings''I was in the East, battling giants,wicked-hearted women, who wandered the fells;great would be the giant-race, if they all lived: mankind would be nothing under, middle-earth. What did you do meantime, Grey-beard?''J.R.R. Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating and teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves and magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature and, even if he had never written The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, would be recognised today as a significant figure in the rediscovery of these extraordinary tales.Legends from the Ancient North brings together from Penguin Classics five of the key works behi

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Book Synopsis''An indispensable writer ... Calvino, possesses the power of seeing into the deepest recesses of human minds and then bringing their dreams to life'' Salman RushdieThe difference between life and literature; the good intentions of holiday reading; the avante-garde; the fate of the novel; the fantastical; the art of translation: these are just some of the ideas in The Written World and the Unwritten World. A collection of essays, articles, interviews, correspondence, notes and other occasional pieces on writing, reading and interpreting books, this work gives us new insight into Italo Calvino''s expansive, curious and generous mind.Translated by Ann GoldsteinTrade ReviewElectric . . . this rich collection of essays, reviews, interviews and more . . . are not only the backstory to his fictional method, but often another expression of it -- Tim Adams * Observer *Engagingly whimsical . . . a wry sense of humour . . . there are gems to be mined. And, like real precious stones, they are found in unlikely places * Economist *Glimmering insight and wit . . . incisive . . . reading this book is time spent with a first-rate mind -- Chris Power * The Sunday Times *Playful . . . unfailingly stimulating . . . there are plenty of delights -- John Self * Guardian *It is for these moments of pathos, irony and honesty, when palaces of dazzling reflection are swept aside and the most adventurous thinking is undone, that one reads Italo Calvino -- Tim Parks * TLS *Intelligent, witty, pleasingly erudite and razor-sharp -- Alberto Manguel * Literary Review *Wonderful . . . surveys his varied interests and discerning style . . . Calvino's prose is sparkling as ever, and he approaches ideas with wit and an open mind, always ready to challenge a stale point of view. This anthology will delight Calvino fans old and new * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisOriginally written only for his personal consumption, Marcus Aurelius''s Meditations has become a key text in the understanding of Roman Stoic philosophy. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Martin Hammond and an introduction by Diskin Clay.Written in Greek by an intellectual Roman emperor without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a wide range of fascinating spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the leader struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Spanning from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the question of virtue, human rationality, the nature of the gods and Aurelius''s own emotions. But while the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation, in developing his beliefs Marcus also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a series of wise and practical aphorisms that have been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and ordinary readers for almost two thousand years.Martin Hammond''s new translation fully expresses the intimacy and eloquence of the original work, with detailed notes elucidating the text. This edition also includes an introduction by Diskin Clay, exploring the nature and development of the Meditations, a chronology, further reading and full indexes.Marcus Aelius Aurelius Antoninus (121-80) was adopted by the emperor Antoninus Pius and succeeded him in 161, (as joint emperor with adoptive brother Lucius Verus). He ruled alone from 169, and spent much of his reign in putting down various rebellions, and was a persecutor of Christians. His fame rest, above all, on his Meditations, a series of reflections, strongly influenced by Epictetus, which represent a Stoic outlook on life. He was succeeded by his natural son, thus ending the period of the adoptive emperors.If you enjoyed Meditations, you might like Seneca''s Letters from a Stoic, also available in Penguin Classics.Trade ReviewMartin Hammond's translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, like his Iliad and Odyssey, is the work of an unusually gifted translator, and one who understands the value added by careful attention to supplementary material. He writes natural English, direct and often eloquent; the text is well supported by effective notes and a characteristically thorough and well-planned index; Diskin Clay supplies a useful introduction. This is a fine volume -- Malcolm Heath * Greece & Rome Journal *Marcus is well served by this new translation. Hammond has a pithy turn of phrase to match the emperor's own . . . His notes abound in helpful explanation and illuminating cross-reference. Diskin Clay contributes a sparkling and sympathetic introduction. The combination of introduction, translation and notes is as good as they get -- John Taylor * Journal of Classics Teaching *

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Book Synopsis''Shall I compare thee to a summer''s day?Thou art more lovelyand more temperate . . .''Shakespeare''s 154 sonnets contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, dealing with eternal themes such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by time. This new edition collects them in a pocket-sized volume, perfect for gifting. William Shakespeare was born some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world''s pre-eminent dramatist.

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Book SynopsisA new series of beautiful hardcover nonfiction classics, with covers designed by Coralie Bickford-SmithWorld-changing ideas meet eye-catching design: the best titles of the extraordinarily successful Great Ideas series are now packaged in Coralie Bickford-Smith’s distinctive,award-winning covers. Whether on a well-curated shelf or in your back pocket, these timeless works of philosophical, political, and psychological thought are absolute musthaves for book collectors as well as design enthusiasts.The Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. Lucretius demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear, as the soul is mortal and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature rather than by gods. By believing this, men can live with peace of mind and happiness. His far-ranging lyrical exploration of the universe continues with aTrade ReviewOne of the most extraordinary classical translations of recent times -- Peter Stothard * Times Literary Supplement *A.E. Stallings's brilliant recent translation -- Eric Orrmsby * Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisDazzling modern lyrical poems from Catullus - by turns smutty, abusive, romantic and deeply moving.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Catullus (c.84-54 BCE). Catullus''s The Poems is available in Penguin Classics.

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Book SynopsisTakes us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. This title features stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

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Book Synopsis''Yes, we did many things, then - allBeautiful ...''Lyrical, powerful poems about love, sexuality, sun-soaked Greece and the gods.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Sappho (c.630-570 BCE). Sappho''s Stung with Love is available in Penguin Classics.

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Book SynopsisA unique history of the Beats, in the words of the movement''s most central member, Allen Ginsberg, based on a seminal series of his lecturesIn 1977, twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem ''Howl'', Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation - partly to preserve his own memories of those years. The Best Minds of My Generation presents the best of these candid, intimate and illuminating lectures, revealing Kerouac, Burroughs and the rest of the Beats as Ginsberg knew them: friends, confidantes, literary mentors and fellow visionaries in a group who started a revolution.''Marvellous ... spellbinding ... preserving intact the story of the literary movement Ginsberg led, promoted and never ceased to embody'' The New York Times Book Review''An awesome exhaustive feat ... fascinatingly readable'' Sunday Times''Astonishingly intimate ... Full of penetrating insight and fascinating literary gossip, the book is a major contribution to the core Beat canon ... situates the Beats in cultural history in a way that no other exploration of their work does'' San Francisco Chronicle

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Book SynopsisControversy raged through England during the 1570-80s as Puritans denounced all manner of games & pastimes as a danger to public morals. Writers quickly turrned their attention to their own art and the first & most influential response came with Philip Sidney''s Defense. Here he set out to answer contemporary critics &, with reference to Classical models of criticism, formulated a manifesto for English literature. Also includes George Puttenham''s Art of English Poesy, Samuel Daniel''s Defence of Rhyme, & passages by writers such as Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon & George Gascoigne.

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Book SynopsisIn these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of intense beauty.Twilight in Italy is a vibrant account of Lawrence''s stay among the people of Lake Garda, whose decaying lemon gardens bear witness to the twilight of a way of life centuries old. In Sea and Sardina, Lawrence brings to life the vigorous spontaneity of a society as yet untouched by the deadening effect of industrialization. And Etruscan Places is a beautiful and delicate work of literary art, the record of a dying man drinking from the founts of a civilization dedicated to life.

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Book SynopsisE.M. Forster''s Aspects of the Novel is an innovative and effusive treatise on a literary form that, at the time of publication, had only recently begun to enjoy serious academic consideration. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, and features a new preface by Frank Kermode.First given as a series of lectures at Cambridge University, Aspects of the Novel is Forster''s analysis of this great literary form. Here he rejects the ''pseudoscholarship'' of historical criticism - ''that great demon of chronology'' - that considers writers in terms of the period in which they wrote and instead asks us to imagine the great novelists working together in a single room. He discusses aspects of people, plot, fantasy and rhythm, making illuminating comparisons between novelists such as Proust and James, Dickens and Thackeray, Eliot and Dostoyevsky - the features shared by their books and the ways in which they differ. Written in

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Book SynopsisFew, if any, English-language critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that Russia''s outstanding writers and philosophers had on its culture. In addition to Tolstoy''s philosophy of history, which he addresses in his most famous essay, ''The Hedgehog and the Fox,'' Berlin considers the social and political circumstances that produced such men as Herzen, Bakunin, Turgenev, Belinsky, and others of the Russian intelligentsia, who made up, as Berlin describes, ''the largest single Russian contribution to social change in the world.''Trade ReviewThe enduring vitality of Berlin's characterisation of Russian thought is demonstrated by the publication [...] of a new edition of Russian Thinkers, painstakingly revised and augmented by Henry Hardy ... a series of sparkling and sympathetic essays * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE 2020 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHYSelected as a Book of the Year 2019 by the SPECTATOR, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN and FINANCIAL TIMES ''Definitive and delightful'' Stephen Fry ''There can be no doubting the brilliance - the sheer explanatory vigour - of Moser''s biography... a triumph of the virtues of seriousness and truth-telling that Susan Sontag espoused'' New Stateman The definitive portrait of one of the twentieth century''s most towering figures: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her private face Susan Sontag was our last great literary star. Her brilliant mind, political activism and striking image made her an emblem of the seductions - and the dangers - of the twentieth-century world.Her writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, Fascism and Freudianism, Communism and Americanism, reflected the conflicted meanings of a most conflicted word: modernity. She was there when the Cuban Revolution began and the Berlin Wall came down, in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel. Sontag tells these stories and examines the work upon which her reputation was based, exploring the private woman hidden behind the formidable public face.Drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted from Maui to Stockholm and from Manhattan to Sarajevo - and featuring nearly one hundred images, many never seen before - Sontag is the first book based on the writer''s restricted archives, and on access to many people who have never before spoken about her, including Annie Leibovitz. It is an indelible portrait of one of the twentieth century''s greatest thinkers, who lived one of that century''s most romantic - and most anguished - lives.Trade ReviewMoser intelligently brings together both public and private, onstage and off-. His scrutiny of her essays, fiction, films, and political activism is clear-eyed, his analysis of her tumultuous affective life sympathetic... Sontag offers a thoroughly researched chronicle of an unparalleled American figure and the institutions tied to her... deft and sometimes dishy * Bookforum *Moser does rather a brilliant job...we have Sontag as daughter, friend, lover, wife and mother, but Moser's writing is appropriately bold and anecdotal, so there is less the feeling of years accrued than of selves tried out. He's an essayist, taking on an essayist, and his best passages are biographical readings of her writing. His assessment of her novels is punchy and insightful...this biography keeps her defiantly alive: argumentative, wilful, often right, always interesting, encouraging us to up our game as we watch her at the top of hers * The Guardian *Moser is good at elucidating Sontag's ideas and putting into context the fecundity of her thought. He discusses her "Olympian" sex life with sympathy and insight - her galaxy of lovers included Bobby Kennedy, Jasper Johns, Warren Beatty and Annie Leibovitz - and is unbiased when it comes to evaluating her writing * The Sunday Times *Moser's socially panoramic, psychologically incisive biography does a superb job of charting Sontag's self-invention * The Guardian *There can be no doubting the brilliance - the sheer explanatory vigour - of Moser's biography... a triumph of the virtues of seriousness and truth-telling that Susan Sontag espoused again and again but was conspicuously and often quite consciously unable to force herself to live by. * The New Statesman *Moser has had the confidence and erudition to bring all of [Sontag's] contradictory aspects together in a biography fully commensurate with the scale of his subject. He is...a gifted, compassionate writer. * The TLS *A portrait of the intellectual conscience of the babyboomer generation - faults and all * The Financial Times *Sensational...provides an indelible portrait of a personality, a career and various milieu -- Leo Robson * Books of the Year, New Statesman *Evocative and entertaining...Moser renders Sontag's ascent to intellectual stardom as a rich and often rollicking affair * The Best Books of 2019, Oprah Magazine *An exhausting biography about an exhausting woman that will keep you up nights greedily reading all 800 pages until you pass out exhausted yourself - exhilarated and amazed at this difficult, brilliant but clueless writer's life. -- John Waters * The Amazon Book Review *a monumental work that reveals the flawed private person behind the ferocious intellectual public persona -- Carl Wilkinson * FT Essential Reads of 2019 *Benjamin Moser's accomplishment here is breathtaking: it includes an extraordinary knowledge of the subject, her milieu, her writings, her ideas, and her friends and family, beautiful prose, extraordinary insights, a capacity to understand her driven emotional life and her stellar intellectual life. It will be called unsparing, because some of its truths about this complex figure are harsh, but it is generous to the subject as well as to readers who want to understand this woman who stood so tall and cast such a long shadow across twentieth-century intellectual life. -- Rebecca SolnitI always found Susan Sontag in turns brilliant, vain, wise, foolish, high, low, dazzlingly insightful, pretentious, pure ... but always fiercely and frighteningly intelligent, learned, alert and aware. Benjamin Moser's monumental biography reveals the surprisingly tender, insecure, simple and intellectually dedicated story of one the most remarkable literary figures to emerge in twentieth century America. Her influence on aesthetics, writing and the wider culture is almost impossible to overstate and Moser's own fierce intelligence weaves between the life and the work quite magnificently. She stands reclaimed for our century, a much more lovable and variegated character than I ever guessed. Definitive and delightful -- Stephen FrySusan Sontag made and broke the mold of American 20th century public intellectual. Fifteen years after her death, her ethos of 'high seriousness' seems quaint and dated. In this long-awaited, brilliant biography, Benjamin Moser show us how to read Sontag - and, by extension, her times - in the present, and reveals the extents and limits of her genius. His psychologically nuanced critical study is written with sang-froid and compassion. -- Chris KrausBenjamin Moser brings his iconic subject to life in this gripping, insightful and supremely stylish biography. He makes a modern epic out of Sontag's remarkable story, from her tortured relationship with her alcoholic mother to her unflinching visits to besieged Sarajevo, revealing at every turn the vital, complicated, imperfect human being behind the formidable public intellectual. -- Edmund GordonAn astonishing page-turner, like a brilliant suspense novel (even for one who knew what happened next). The Sue/Susan/Sontag/"Susan Sontag" character emerges here in all her wonderfulness and terribleness and staggering complexity. This is it: the last word on Susan Sontag. I can't imagine the necessity of another book about her life -- Sigrid NunezIf it's already difficult to imagine American culture without Susan Sontag's contributions to it, it may soon become difficult to imagine her life without Benjamin Moser's account of it. A significant life like Sontag's demands a significant biography. That demand has now been incisively, extravagantly met -- Michael CunninghamDon't be fooled by the length. This book, at more than 800 pages, is compulsive reading: moving, maddening, ridiculous and beautiful scenes from the life of Susan Sontag, and the epochs she traversed. Moser has a true and deep love for his subject, a love unafraid to be truthful, and it shows. -- Rachel Kushner

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Book Synopsis''If you''re someone who dreams of penning a bestseller, read this book'' The Week''What if the success of E.L.James and Dan Brown was not so random? What if there were an algorithm that could pick out the bestseller DNA concealed within these books before they''re published? This is the audacious claim made by Jodie Archer and Matthew Jockers ... Smart, savvy and full of ideas'' Fiona Wilson, The TimesGirl on the Train. Fifty Shades. The Goldfinch. Why do some books capture the whole world''s attention? In The Bestseller Code, Archer and Jockers boldly claim that not only can mega-hits be explained and identified - but they''ve built the algorithm to prove it. Using cutting-edge text mining techniques, they have developed a model that analyses theme, plot, style and character to explain why some books resonate more than others with readers. Provocative, entertaining, and ground-breaking, The Bestseller Code explo

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Book SynopsisPoetry and music have been associated with each other from the very beginning. The Penguin Book of English Song draws together a great variety of English poetry (including Irish, Scots and Welsh writers) that has reached a wider audience through the magic of music. Richard Stokes''s rich anthology of verse stretches from the fourteenth century to the twentieth, collecting poems that have inspired musical settings by one hundred English poets, along with a treasure trove of illuminating notes and marginalia about their lives, work and, often, their approach to music.Stokes gathers together in a single volume a huge amount of information about English song that will assist musicians in performing these works, and enlighten all those enthusiasts who delight in the fusion of words and music that has produced countless moments of incandescent magic.

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Book SynopsisRich girl, street punk, lost girl and icon ... scholar, stripper, victim and media-whore: The late Kathy Acker''s legend and writings are wrapped in mythologies, created mostly by Acker herself. In this first, fully authorized biography, Kraus approaches Acker both as a writer, and as a member of the artistic communities from which she emerged. At once forensic and intimate, After Kathy Acker traces the extreme discipline and literary strategies Acker used to develop her work, and the contradictions she longed to embody. Using exhaustive archival research and ongoing conversations with mutual colleagues and friends, Kraus charts Acker''s movement through some of the late 20th century''s most significant artistic enterprises.Trade ReviewThis is a gossipy, anti-mythic artist biography which feels like it's being told in one long rush of a monologue over late-night drinks by someone who was there. Acker emerges as an unlikely literary hero, but an utterly convincing one. -- Sheila Heti, author of How Should A Person BeThe path of the female artist. Is hell. Chris Kraus's veracious and intricately structured portrait rouses and stirs as it documents in meticulous and fascinating detail the life, work and body of Kathy Acker and what it takes to a become a 'great writer as countercultural hero.' -- Viv AlbertineKraus reconstitutes Acker's wanderings with real wit and beauty, understanding without pandering to the painfully high stakes of her identity games -- Olivia Laing * Guardian *To pin down the real Kathy Acker then is a self-defeating task but Chris Kraus's biography of her is a brilliant and necessary thing. Kraus pushes Acker's writing to the foreground making us understand how difficult a territory the so-called avant-garde was, and is, for a woman. -- Suzanne Moore * New Statesman *'To lie is to try,' Chris Kraus writes in this examination of the various personae of Kathy Acker, the fucked-up girl from high school who, through lying and trying, became an experimental writer of rare courage and vision. In some ways a contemporary and in some ways as far off as the days when people moved to New York and San Francisco for the cheap rent, Acker needed a key, and Chris Kraus provides it. -- Ben MoserChris Kraus's After Acker sets the bar for what will surely be a new era of critical and biographical reckoning with the life and work of Kathy Acker. Kraus had a ringside seat, has done her homework, and here provides a substantive effort to pay homage not only to the complex, singular, raucous, and crucial writer and human that Acker was, but also to the constellation of artists, musicians, writers, and thinkers who were her friends, lovers, inspirations, and fellow makers of history. -- Maggie NelsonHardly anyone writes better or more insightfully than Chris Kraus about the lives of women and artists. After Kathy Acker is an intense, riveting portrait of a writer who was raw and savvy, fragile and brilliant, whose self-deceptions were inseparable from her greatness. Quotes from her profane and passionate journals reveal Kathy the crazy poet, the bad girlfriend, the Upper East Side schoolgirl, the downtown writer, Kathy in love and in denial. Gossipy, sexy, tragic, terrific. -- Julie Phillips, author of The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

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