Search results for ""penguin classics""

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.Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter, in her first year of separation from her husband. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time, and remains one of Yuko Tsushima's most beloved works.'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble

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'Acker gives her work the power to mirror the reader's soul' William S. Burroughs'Kathy Acker's writing is virtuoso, maddening, crazy, so sexy, so painful, and beaten out of a wild heart that nothing can tame. Acker is a landmark writer' Jeanette WintersonThis is the story of Janey, who lived in a locked room, where she found a scrap of paper and began to write down her life. It's a story of lust, sex, pain, youth, punk, anarchy, gangs, the city, feminism, America, Jean Genet and the prisons we create for ourselves. A heady, surreal mash-up of coming-of-age tale, prose, poetry, plagiarism and illustration, Kathy Acker's breakthrough 1984 novel caused huge controversy and made her an avant-garde literary icon.Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Kathy Acker's untimely death, Blood and Guts in High School is published for the first time in Penguin Classics, acknowledging the profound impact she has had on our culture, and alongside the authors her work pulsates with the influence of: William S. Burroughs, Cervantes and Charles Dickens, among others.

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One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'A beautiful edition of Anne Brontë's most enduring novel, to accompany her sisters' greatest books in Penguin Clothbound Classics.Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behaviour becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that the truth is revealed and the shocking details of the disastrous marriage she has left behind emerge. Told with great immediacy, combined with wit and irony, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom. The Penguin Classics edition of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has been designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith and is edited with an introduction and notes by the novelist Stevie Davies.

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Ford Madox Ford's great masterpiece exploring love and identity during the First World War, in a Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Julian Barnes. A masterly novel of destruction and regeneration, Parade's End follows the story of aristocrat Christopher Tietjens as his world is shattered by the First World War. Tracing the psychological damage inflicted by battle, the collapse of England's secure Edwardian values - embodied in Christopher's wife, the beautiful, cruel socialite Sylvia - and the beginning of a new age, epitomized by the suffragette Valentine Wannop, Parade's End is an elegy for both the war dead and the passing of a way of life.'The finest English novel about the Great War'Malcolm Bradbury'The best novel by a British writer ... It is also the finest novel about the First World War. It is also the finest novel about the nature of British society'Anthony Burgess'There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them'W.H. Auden'The English prose masterpiece of the time'William Carlos Williams

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Born a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841. He spent the next twelve years as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. During this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life. After regaining his freedom in 1853, Northup published this gripping account of his captivity. As an educated man, Northup was able to present an exceptionally detailed description of slave life and plantation society. Indeed, this book is probably the fullest, most realistic picture of the 'peculiar institution' during the three decades before the Civil War. Northup tells his story both from the viewpoint of an outsider, who had experienced thirty years of freedom and dignity in the United States before his capture, and as a slave, reduced to total bondage and submission. Very few personal accounts of American slavery were written by slaves with a similar history. This extraordinary slave narrative, new to Penguin Classics, has a new introduction by prize-winning historian and author Ira Berlin, an an essay by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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A wonderful new collection of tales exploring Henry James's favourite 'international theme': the experiences of Americans in Europe, and the meeting of the old world and new. Daisy Miller is one of Henry James's great heroines - a young, independent American travelling in Europe, whose flouting of social conventions has the potential to lead to disaster. Her story is here accompanied by six more set among English castles, Swiss hotels and French ports, and all riffing on a classic Jamesian theme: the clash between the old world and new, Europe and America.The tales included in this volume are 'Travelling Companions', 'Madame de Mauves', 'Four Meetings', 'Daisy Miller', 'An International Episode', 'Europe' and 'Fordham Castle', and the collection has been edited by renowned scholar of Anglo-American literature, Stephen Fender, under the general editorship of Philip Horne. This is one of three new volumes of James's greatest tales in Penguin Classics, and is accompanied by The Aspern Papers and Other Tales and The Turn of the Screw and Other Tales (forthcoming).

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Jane Austen's brilliant, hilarious - and often outrageous - early stories, sketches and pieces of nonsense, in a beautiful Penguin Classics clothbound edition. Jane Austen's earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into human folly, and a preoccupation with manners, morals and money. But they are also a product of the eighteenth century she grew up in - dark, grotesque, often surprisingly bawdy, and a far cry from the polished, sparkling novels of manners for which she became famous. Drunken heroines, babies who bite off their mother's fingers, and a letter-writer who has murdered her whole family all feature in these very funny pieces. This edition includes all of Austen's juvenilia, including her 'History of England' - written by 'a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian' - and the novella 'Lady Susan', in which the anti-heroine schemes and cheats her way through high society. Taken together, they offer a fascinating - and often surprising - insight into the early Austen.This major new edition is the first time Austen's juvenilia has appeared in Penguin Classics. Edited by Christine Alexander, it includes an introduction, notes and other useful editorial materials.Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. In her youth she wrote many burlesques, parodies and other stories, including a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan. On her father's retirement in 1801, the family moved to Bath, and subsequently to Chawton in Hampshire. The novels published in Austen's lifetime include Sense and Sensibility(1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16, and was published, together with Northanger Abbey, posthumously in 1818. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817. Christine Alexander is Scientia Professor of English at the University of New South Wales and general editor of the Juvenilia Press. She has published extensively on the Brontës and has co-edited the first book on literary juvenilia, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf (2005).'Spirited, easy, full of fun, verging with freedom upon sheer nonsense...At fifteen she had few illusions about other people and none about herself' - Virginia Woolf'[Her] inspiration was the inspiration of Gargantua and of Pickwick; it was the gigantic inspiration of laughter' - G. K. Chesterton

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A definitive edition of perhaps the greatest short story collection in the English languageJames Joyce’s Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of “dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead,” delve into the heart of the city of Joyce’s birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners’ speech and portraying with an almost brute realism their outer and inner lives. Dubliners is Joyce at his most accessible and most profound, and this edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the author’s original wishes.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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'Though best-known for his epic masterpiece Moby-Dick, Herman Melville also left a body of short stories arguably unmatched in American fiction. In the sorrowful tragedy of Billy Budd,Sailor; the controlled rage of Benito Cereno; and the tantalizing enigma of Bartleby, the Scrivener; Melville reveals himself as a singular storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America, deftly navigating political and social issues that resonate as clearly in our time as they did in Melville's. Also including The Piazza Tales in full, this collection demonstrates why Melville stands not only among the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, but also as one of our greatest contemporaries.This Penguin Classics edition features the Reading Text of Billy Budd, Sailor, as edited from a genetic study of the manuscript by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry text of The Piazza Tales.

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The story of the man-cub Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle, guided by his mentors Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and the ancient python Kaa, and who confronts his arch-enemy Shere Khan the tiger, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. Mowgli's adventures are juxtaposed with other animal stories set in the British Empire, ranging from the heroic battle of 'Rikki-tikki-tavi' and the Himalayan pastoral 'Purun Bhagat' to the drama of survival in 'The White Seal'. With The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling drew on ancient beast fables, Buddhist philosophy and memories of his Anglo-Indian upbringing to create a rich, symbolic portrait of man and nature, and an eternal classic of childhood that has had a lasting impact on our imaginations.Part of a series of new editions of Kipling's works in Penguin Classics, this volume contains a General Preface by Jan Montefiore and an introduction by Kaori Nagai discussing the many imperial, Indian and literary contexts of The Jungle Books.

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'The underlying message of the series is, of course, that Death comes for us all, and if it interrupts the recreations of the wealthy rather more insolently than those of the poor, then let that be a lesson to us' Nick Lezard, GuardianA new departure in Penguin Classics: a book containing one of the greatest of all Renaissance woodcut sequences - Holbein's bravura danse macabreOne of Holbein's first great triumphs, The Dance of Death is an incomparable sequence of tiny woodcuts showing the folly of human greed and pride, with each image packed with drama, wit and horror as a skeleton mocks and terrifies everyone from the emperor to a ploughman. Taking full advantage of the new literary culture of the early 16th century, The Dance of Death took an old medieval theme and made it new.This edition of The Dance of Death reproduces a complete set from the British Museum, with many details highlighted and examples of other works in this grisly field. Ulinka Rublack introduces the woodcuts with a remarkable essay on the late medieval danse macabre and the world Holbein lived in.

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The first of Shakespeare's four plays about the Wars of the Roses, dramatizing the rivalry between power-hungry noble houses, divided by grievances inherited from the past. This Penguin Shakespeare edition is edited by Norman Sanders with an introduction by Jane Kingsley-Smith.'Send between the red rose and the whiteA thousand souls to death and deadly night'After the death of Henry V, the French revolt and threaten to reclaim their country from English rule. Guided by his Lord Protector, the young King Henry VI journeys to Paris to reaffirm his rule over France. But while the British battle Joan of Arc abroad, discontent is also breeding at home between the two ancient Houses of York and Lancaster.This book contains a general introduction to Shakespeare's life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to the play, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, an essay by Rebecca Brown discussing performance options on both stage and screen, and a commentary.Shakespeare's first tetralogy, about the Wars of the Roses, is continued by Henry VI, Parts II and III, and Richard III, all available in Penguin Classics.

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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. Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie have nothing in the world except the clothes on their back - and a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley, but their hopes are dashed as Lennie becomes a victim of his own strength. Tackling universal themes of friendship and shared vision, and giving a voice to America's lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and Men remains Steinbeck's most popular work, achieving success as a novel, Broadway play and three acclaimed films.'Such a perfect book' - Nick Hornby

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A haunting Modernist masterpiece and the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning film Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness explores the limits of human experience and the nightmarish realities of imperialism. Conrad's narrator Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz: dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities. Travelling upriver to the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow's discovery of how Kurtz has gained his position of power over the local people involves him in a radical questioning, not only of his own nature and values, but also those of western civilisation. Part of a major series of new editions of Conrad's most famous works in Penguin Classics, this volume contains Conrad's Congo Diary, a chronology, further reading, notes, a map of the Congo, a glossary and an introduction discussing the author's experiences in Africa, the narrative and symbolic complexities of Heart of Darkness and critical responses to the novel.Edited with an introduction by Owen Knowles'Seems to reach into the heart of Conrad himself' Peter Ackroyd

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Set against a vividly depicted background of fin de siécle New York, this novel centers on the conflict between a self-made millionaire and a fervent social revolutionary-a conflict in which a man of goodwill futilely attempts to act as a mediator, only to be forced himself into a crisis of conscience. Here we see William Dean Howells's grasp of the realities of the American experience in an age of emerging social struggle. His absolute determination to fairly represent every point of view is evident throughout this multifaceted work. Both a memorable portrait of an era and a profoundly moving study of human relationships, A Hazard of New Fortunes fully justifies Alfred Kazin's ranking of Howells as "the first great domestic novelist of American 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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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A beautiful Penguin Classics clothbound edition of Tolstoy's magnificent epic novel of love, conflict, fate and human life in all its imperfection and grandeur At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon's army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants to soldiers and Napoleon himself. In War and Peace, Tolstoy entwines grand themes - conflict and love, birth and death, free will and faith - with unforgettable scenes of nineteenth-century Russia, to create a magnificent epic of human life in all its imperfection and grandeur.Translated with an introduction and notes by Anthony Briggs, and with an afterword by Orlando Figes Anthony Briggs's superb translation combines stirring, accessible prose with fidelity to Tolstoy's original, while Orlando Figes's afterword discusses the novel's vast scope and depiction of Russian identity. This edition also contains appendices, notes, a list of prominent characters and maps.'A masterpiece ... This new translation is excellent' - Anthony Beevor

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'L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard'Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition, with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Ricks's introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics edition.'The book that I would never tire of ... Sterne was about 250 years ahead of his time'Roy Porter, author of Enlightenment: Britain And The Creation Of The Modern World

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The inspiration for the major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, plus eighteen other stories by the beloved author of The Great Gatsby In the title story of this collection by one of America’s greatest writers, a baby born in 1860 begins life as an old man and proceeds to age backward. F. Scott Fizgerald hinted at this kind of inversion when he called his era “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” Perhaps nowhere in American fiction has this “Lost Generation” been more vividly preserved than in Fitzgerald’s short fiction. Spanning the early twentieth-century American landscape, this original collection captures, with Fitzgerald’s signature blend of enchantment and disillusionment, America during the Jazz Age.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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Robin Kirkpatrick's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy, published in a single volume, is the ideal edition for students as well as the general reader coming to this great masterpiece of Italian literature for the first timeThe Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption.This volume includes a new introduction, notes, maps and diagrams 'The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism... likely to be the best modern version of Dante' - Bernard O'Donoghue'The most moving lines literature has achieved' - Jorge Luis Borges'This version is the first to bring together poetry and scholarship in the very body of the translation - a deeply-informed version of Dante that is also a pleasure to read' - Professor David Wallace, University of PennsylvaniaIndividual editions of Robin Kirkpatrick's translation - Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso - are also available in Penguin Classics, and include Dante's Italian printed alongside the English text.

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Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Saga of the Volsungs is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings'They summoned their friends, readiedtheir horses, and prepared their helmets,shields, swords, coats of mail' 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 behind Tolkien's fiction.They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations.They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength.They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe and bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century.

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'A gripping work, and a gripping translation' Nicholas Lezard, GuardianNiccolò Machiavelli's brutally uncompromising manual of statecraft, The Prince is translated and edited with an introduction by Tim Parks in Penguin Classics As a diplomat in turbulent fifteenth-century Florence, Niccolò Machiavelli knew how quickly political fortunes could rise and fall. The Prince, his tough-minded, pragmatic handbook on how power really works, made his name notorious and has remained controversial ever since. How can a leader be strong and decisive, yet still inspire loyalty in his followers? When is it necessary to break the rules? Is it better to be feared than loved? Examining regimes and their rulers the world over and throughout history, from Roman Emperors to renaissance Popes, from Hannibal to Cesare di Borgia, Machievalli answers all these questions in a work of realpolitik that still has shrewd political lessons for today. Tim Parks's acclaimed contemporary translation renders Machiavelli's no-nonsense original as alarming and enlightening as when it was first written. His introduction discusses Machiavelli's life and reputation, and explores the historical background to the work.'Tim Parks's swift and supple new translation brings out all its chilling modernity' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

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Barack Obama, via Facebook: “A compelling story of how the transformative events of history weigh on individual lives and relationships.”The Nobel Prize–nominated Kenyan writer’s best-known novel, featuring an introduction by Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak GurnahSet in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya's independence from Britain, A Grain of Wheat follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952–1960 Emergency. At the center of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village's chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret. As we learn of the villagers' tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly story unfolds in which compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed, and loves are tested.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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Tolstoy's epic novel of love, destiny and self-destruction, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition from Penguin Classics. Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.This acclaimed modern translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky won the PEN/ Book of the Month Club Translation Prize in 2001. Their translation is accompanied in this edition by an introduction by Richard Pevear and a preface by John Bayley'The new and brilliantly witty translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is a must' - Lisa Appignanesi, Independent, Books of the Year'Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English, and their superb rendering allows us, as perhaps never before, to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy's "characters, acts, situations"' - James Wood, New Yorker

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A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror"I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." -Stephen KingFrequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft's preeminent interpreter, presents a selection of the master's fiction, from the early tales of nightmares and madness such as "The Outsider" to the overpowering cosmic terror of "The Call of Cthulhu." More than just a collection of terrifying tales, this volume reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical- and visionary-American writer.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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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The first complete English translation of the Nobel Prize-winner’s literary masterpiece A Penguin Classic Mysteries is the story of Johan Nilsen Nagel, a mysterious stranger who suddenly turns up in a small Norwegian town one summer—and just as suddenly disappears. Nagel is a complete outsider, a sort of modern Christ treated in a spirit of near parody. He condemns the politics and thought of the age, brings comfort to the “insulted and injured,” and gains the love of two women suggestive of the biblical Mary and Martha. But there is a sinister side of him: in his vest he carries a vial of prussic acid... The novel creates a powerful sense of Nagel's stream of thought, as he increasingly withdraws into the torture chamber of his own subconscious psyche.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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'L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard'One of the greatest novels ever written, now in a wonderful new clothbound edition Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition, with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Ricks's introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics edition.'The book that I would never tire of ... Sterne was about 250 years ahead of his time'Roy Porter, author of Enlightenment: Britain And The Creation Of The Modern World

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A landmark new translation of the ancient Chinese oracle and book of wisdom, in a stunning Penguin Classics Deluxe EditionThe I Ching, or Book of Change, has been consulted through the ages, in both China and the West, for answers to fundamental questions about the world and our place in it. The oldest extant book of divination, it dates back three thousand years to ancient shamanistic practices involving the ritual preparation of the shoulder bones of oxen. From this early form of communication with the other world, it has become the Chinese spiritual book par excellence. An influence on such cultural icons as Bob Dylan, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Philip K. Dick, and Philip Pullman, the I Ching is turned to by millions around the world for insights on spiritual growth, business, medicine, genetics, game theory, strategic thinking, and leadership, and of course for the window it opens on China.This new translation, over a decade in the making, is informed by the latest archaeological discoveries and features a gorgeously rendered codex of divination signs-the I Ching's sixty-four Tarot-like hexagrams. It captures the majesty and mystery of this legendary work and charts an illuminating path to self-knowledge.

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Containing an enchanting mix of familiar favourites and hidden gems, the Penguin Classics edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales is translated by Tiina Nunnally and edited with an introduction by Jackie Wullschlager.The first writer to create timeless, universal fairy tales from his own imagination, Hans Christian Andersen conjured up a world of icy queens, match girls and tin soldiers, rewarded virtue and unfulfilled desire. Rich with popular tales such as 'The Emperor's New Clothes' and 'The Ugly Duckling', this revelatory new collection contains many later, darker and rarely collected stories, such as 'Auntie Toothache' and 'The Shadow', in which a man's shadow slyly takes over his life.This sparkling new translation captures the eccentric charm of Andersen's original, colloquial Danish style as never before. The introduction vividly describes his changing style and there are notes on every tale.'Truly scrumptious, a proper treasury ... Read on with eyes as big as teacups'Guardian'This translation gives me, for the first time, a real sense of the range and variety of Andersen's style'A.S. Byatt'There have been some capable versions in English, but Tiina Nunnally's seems to me the best. Jackie Wullschlager's introduction will be of enormous value'Harold Bloom

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A classic introduction to Latin literature, with translations of the best passages from Virgil, Livy, Ovid, Seneca and many others.This classic anthology traces the development of Latin literature from the early Republican works of Cicero and Catullus, to the writers of the Empire such as Lucan and Petronius, to the later writings of St Augustine. The selections cover comedy and epic, history and philosophy, in prose and in verse, and each passage is prefaced by an introduction to the author and his influence. The translators range across history from Alexander Pope and Lord Byron to contemporaries. The result is a broad and brilliant overview of the civilization of Rome and its Empire - an ideal introduction to Latin literature.Michael Grant was born in 1914. He served as an intelligence officer during the Second World War, and subsequently held academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Khartoum and Belfast. Over his lifetime, he published nearly fifty books on the ancient world, ranging from studies of Roman coinage, to biographies of Caesar, Nero and Jesus, to books on Ancient Israel and the Middle Ages. Many of his translations were published in Penguin Classics. Professor Grant moved to Italy in 1966, where he spent most of the rest of his life until his death in 2004.

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From the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a domestic comedy that examines slavery, Protestant theology, and gender differences in early America.First published in 1859, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s third novel is set in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, a community known for its engagement in both religious piety and the slave trade. Mary Scudder lives in a modest farmhouse with her widowed mother an their boarder, Samuel Hopkins, a famous Calvinist theologian who preaches against slavery. Mary is in love with the passionate James Marvyn, but Mary is devout and James is a skeptic, and Mary’s mother opposes the union. James goes to sea, and when he is reportedly drowned, Mary is persuaded to become engaged to Dr. Hopkins.With colorful characters, including many based on real figures, and a plot that hinges on romance, The Minister’s Wooing combines comedy with regional history to show the convergence of daily life, slavery, and religion in post-Revolutionary New England.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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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A stunning Penguin clothbound edition of Homer's great epic, in E. V. Rieu's classic translation.The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture. The story centres on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus' killing of Hektor and determine the fate of Troy. But Homer's theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background.. Seven Greek cities claim the honour of being the birthplace of Homer (c. 8th-7th century BC), the poet to whom the composition of the Iliadand Odyssey are attributed. The Iliad is the oldest surviving work of Western literature, but the identity - or even the existence - of Homer himself is a complete mystery, with no reliable biographical information having survived.E. V. Rieu initiated Penguin Classics with Allen Lane and his famous translation of the Odyssey was the first book published in the series in 1947. The Iliad followed in 1950.

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"The most important work of fiction by an American in this literary generation." -The New RepublicNow celebrating the 50th anniversary of its publication, Omensetter's Luck is the masterful first novel by the author of The Tunnel, Middle C, On Being Blue, and Eyes: Novellas and Stories.Greeted as a masterpiece when it was first published in 1966, Omensetter's Luck is the quirky, impressionistic, and breathtakingly original story of an ordinary community galvanized by the presence of an extraordinary man. Set in a small Ohio town in the 1890s, it chronicles - through the voices of various participants and observers - the confrontation between Brackett Omensetter, a man of preternatural goodness, and the Reverend Jethro Furber, a preacher crazed with a propensity for violent thoughts. Omensetter's Luck meticulously brings to life a specific time and place as it illuminates timeless questions about life, love, good, and evil. This edition includes an afterword written by William Gass in 1997.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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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One of the greatest translations of all time: Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three volumes. This second volume includes The Guermantes Way and Cities of the Plain.Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff's famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics.This second volume includes The Guermantes Way and Cities of the Plain.'Scott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced' - A. N. Wilson'For the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original' - Telegraph'I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation' - Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

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One of the greatest translations of all time: Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three volumes. This third volume includes The Captive, The Sweet Cheat Gone and Time Regained.Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff's famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics.This third volume includes The Captive, The Sweet Cheat Gone and Time Regained.'Scott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced' - A. N. Wilson'For the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original' - Telegraph'I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation' - Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

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Now in a riveting new verse translation Jason and the Argonauts (also known as the Argonautica), is the only surviving full account of Jason's voyage on the Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece aided by the sorceress princess Medea. Written in third century B.C., this epic story of one of the most beloved heroes of Greek mythology, with its combination of the fantastical and the real, its engagement with traditions of science, astronomy and medicine, winged heroes, and a magical vessel that speaks, is truly without exact parallel in classical or contemporary Greek literature and is now available in an accessible and engaging translation.Apollonius of Rhodes published his first version of the Argonautica sometime in the middle of the third century B.C. At the end of his life he was director of the famous Library of Alexandria, which was the principal storehouse of all literature and learning at the time.Aaron Poochigian, born in 1973, is a poet and an associated lecturer in Classics at The Ohio State University and has translated the Penguin Classics edition of Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments by Sappho, as well as works by Aeschylus and Aratus. He lives in New York City. Benjamin Acosta-Hughes is Professor of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University. He is the author of several works of nonfiction, including Arion's Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry.

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W.B. Yeats's Selected Poems is edited with an introduction and notes by Timothy Webb in Penguin Modern Classics.Few have lived their ideas so passionately and nobly as W.B. Yeats in his love affairs, politics and poetry. From his youth in the 1880s, a fertile dreamer rediscovering and remaking the Irish tradition, he grew into a great and innovative poet of the twentieth century. This selection of Yeats's work includes the final book from the unjustly neglected narrative poem The Wanderings of Oisin and a number of lyrics from Yeats's work as poetic dramatist. This edition breaks new ground by allowing the reader to engage with a dozen poems in alternative versions; in many other cases it provides significant variants, so that Yeats's struggle to revise his poetry can be experienced with unusual immediacy. It also includes explanatory and textual notes for each poem.W B Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the great and innovative poets of the twentieth century. Much of his most vigorous verse on love, sex, Irish and international politics, the complexities of the occult and the 'sedentary toil' of poetry was produced in the years between his fiftieth birthday in 1915 and his death in 1939.If you enjoyed Selected Poems, you might like The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, also available in Penguin Classics.'A compelling poetic presence ... together with Joyce, Yeats made modern Irish poetry possible'Timothy Webb

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Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is an inspiring and tragic account of an ordinary life lived in extraordinary circumstances that has enthralled readers for generations. This Penguin Classics edition is edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty, and includes an introduction by Elie Wiesel, author of Night.'June, 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.'In Amsterdam, in the summer of 1942, the Nazis forced teenager Anne Frank and her family into hiding. For over two years, they, another family and a German dentist lived in a 'secret annexe', fearing discovery. All that time, Anne kept a diary. Since its publication in 1947, Anne Frank's diary has been read by tens of millions of people. This Definitive Edition restores substantial material omitted from the original edition, giving us a deeper insight into Anne Frank's world. Her curiosity about her emerging sexuality, the conflicts with her mother, her passion for Peter, a boy whose family hid with hers, and her acute portraits of her fellow prisoners reveal Anne as more human, more vulnerable and more vital than ever.'One of the greatest books of the twentieth century'Guardian'A modern classic'Julia Neuberger, The Times

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Part 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 behind Tolkien's fiction.They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations.They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength.They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe and bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century.

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Having done the longest day in literature with his monumental Ulysses, James Joyce set himself even greater challenges for his next book — the night."A nocturnal state...That is what I want to convey: what goes on in a dream, during a dream." The work, which would exhaust two decades of his life and the odd resources of some sixty languages, culminated in the 1939 publication of Joyce's final and most revolutionary masterpiece, Finnegans Wake.A story with no real beginning or end (it ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence), this "book of Doublends Jined" is as remarkable for its prose as for its circular structure. Written in a fantantic dream language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most brilliant inventive work. Sixty years after its original publication, it remains, in Anthony Burgess's words, "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page."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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Pitching an extraordinary battle between cruel authority and a rebellious free spirit, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel that epitomises the spirit of the sixties. This Penguin Classics edition includes a preface, never-before published illustrations by the author, and an introduction by Robert Faggen.Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electroshock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy - the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. The subject of an Oscar-winning film starring Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.If you enjoyed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, you might like Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'A glittering parable of good and evil'The New York Times Book Review'A roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the Rulers who enforce them'Time'If you haven't already read this book, do so. If you have, read it again'Scotsman

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A fascinating journey through literary America over the last forty years, guided by one of the "most gifted chroniclers in the Western World" (The Times [London])A Penguin Classic“Sentence by sentence, page by page, Bellow is simply the best writer we have.” —The New York Times Book Review In It All Adds Up, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow takes readers on a brilliantly insightful journey through literary America over a forty-year period. In sentence after sentence, page after page, readers are offered brilliant perceptions and unusual insights into everyday life in America and the life of the mind. Moving from political figures like Roosevelt and Khrushchev to artists like Mozart, Dostoevsky, and John Cheever, from New York and Chicago to Paris—and including the deeply personal “Autobiography of Ideas”—Bellow, with great humor and wisdom, records the enduring thoughts and opinions of a lifetime of observation, thoughts that speak to us with renewed energy for our times.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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The Lost Estate is Robin Buss's translation of Henri Alain-Fournier's poignant study of lost love, Le Grand Meaulnes.'I read it for the first time when I was seventeen and loved every page. I find its depiction of a golden time and place just as poignant now as I did then' Nick Hornby When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne, everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and charisma. But when Meaulnes disappears for several days, and returns with tales of a strange party at a mysterious house - and his love for the beautiful girl hidden within it, Yvonne de Galais - his life has been changed forever. In his restless search for his Lost Estate and the happiness he found there, Meaulnes, observed by his loyal friend Francois, may risk losing everything he ever had. Poised between youthful admiration and adult resignation, Alain-Fournier's compelling narrator carries the reader through this evocative and unbearably poignant portrayal of desperate friendship and vanished adolescence. Robin Buss's translation of Le Grand Meaulnes sensitively and accurately renders Alain-Fournier's poetically charged, expressive and deceptively simple style. In his introduction, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik discusses the life of Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the First World War after writing this, his only novel.If you liked Le Grand Meaulnes, you might enjoy Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education, also available in Penguin Classics.

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For more than 2,000 years, Sun Tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle, in business or in relationships. Now, in this crisp, accessible new translation, John Minford brings this seminal work to life for today's readers. A lively, learned introduction, chronologies and suggested further reading are among the valuable apparatus included in this authoritative volume. Even those readers familiar with The Art of War will experience it anew, finding it more fascinating - and more chilling - than ever.Little is known about Sun Tzu (544-496 B.C.) and his life during the Warring States period after the decline of the Zhou dysnasty, but his classic, The Art of War, has been one of the central works of Chinese literature for 2500 years.John Minford studied Chinese at Oxford and at the Australian National University and has taught in China, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. He edited (with Geremie Barme) Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience and (with Joseph S. M. Lau) Chinese Classical Literature: An Anthology of Translations. He has translated numerous works from the Chinese, including the last two volumes of the Penguin Classics edition of Cao Xueqin's eighteenth-century novel The Story of the Stone and the martial-arts fiction of the contemporary Hong Kong novelist Louis Cha.

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A dazzling speculative novel of 'counterfactual history' from one of America's most highly-regarded science fiction authors, Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle includes an introduction by Eric Brown in Penguin Modern Classics.Philip K. Dick's acclaimed cult novel gives us a horrifying glimpse of an alternative world - one where the Allies have lost the Second World War. In this nightmare dystopia the Nazis have taken over New York, the Japanese control California and the African continent is virtually wiped out. In a neutral buffer zone in America that divides the world's new rival superpowers, lives the author of an underground bestseller. His book offers a new vision of reality - an alternative theory of world history in which the Axis powers were defeated - giving hope to the disenchanted. Does 'reality' lie with him, or is his world just one among many others?Philip Kindred Dick (1928-82) was born in Chicago in 1928. His career as a science fiction writer comprised an early burst of short stories followed by a stream of novels, typically character studies incorporating androids, drugs, and hallucinations. His best works are generally agreed to be The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the inspiration for the movie Blade Runner.If you enjoyed The Man in the High Castle, you might like Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, also available in Penguin Classics.'The most brilliant science fiction mind on any planet'Rolling Stone'Dick's finest book, and one of the very best science fiction novels ever published'Eric Brown

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One of the twentieth century's great undisputed masterpieces, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano includes an introduction by Michael Schmidt in Penguin Modern Classics.It is the fiesta 'Day of the Dead' in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac. In the shadow of the volcano, ragged children beg coins to buy skulls made of chocolate, ugly pariah dogs roam the streets and Geoffrey Firmin - ex-consul, ex-husband, an alcoholic and a ruined man - is living out the last day of his life. Drowning himself in mescal while his former wife and half-brother look on, powerless to help him, the consul has become an enduring tragic figure. As the day wears on, it becomes apparent that Geoffrey must die. It is his only escape from a world he cannot understand. His story, the image of one man's agonised journey towards Calvary, became a prophetic book for a whole generation.Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957) was born and died in England. Between school and studying English at St Catherine's College, Cambridge he spent five months at sea as a deckhand, an experience which gave him the material for his first novel, Ultramarine (1933). After marrying in Paris, he moved to New York where he completed In Ballast to the White (1936). Under The Volcano was begun in Hollywood, coloured by a short stay in the Mexico that it describes, and eventually finished in Dollarton, British Columbia. If you enjoyed Under the Volcano, you might like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, also available in Penguin Classics.'A Faustian masterpiece'Anthony Burgess

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Framed as the confession of a tormented outcast who has murdered the only woman capable of understanding him, Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by writers such as Albert Camus and Graham Greene. This Penguin Classics edition is translated by Margaret Sayers Peden with an introduction by Colm Tóibín.Infamous for the murder of Maria Iribarne, the artist Juan Pablo Castel is now writing a detailed account of his relationship with the victim from his prison cell: obsessed from the first moment he saw her examining one of his paintings, Castel had become fixated on her over the next months and fantasized over how they might meet again. When he happened upon her one day, a relationship was formed which swiftly convinced him of their mutual love. But Castel's growing paranoia would lead him to destroy the one thing he truly cared about...Ernesto Sabato (1911-2011) was born in Rojas, a small town in Buenos Aires Province. He read physics at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, attended the Sorbonne in Paris, and worked at the Curie Institute. After World War II, he lost faith in science and began writing fiction.If you enjoyed The Tunnel, you might like Albert Camus' The Outsider, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'Sabato captures the intensity of passions run into uncharted passages where love promises not tranquillity, but danger'Los Angeles Times'An existentialist classic ... Retains a chilling, memorable power'The New York Times Book Review

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Now the basis for the major BBC tv adaptation The Paradise, this is a lavish drama and a timeless commentary on consumer capitalism. The Penguin Classics edition of Émile Zola's The Ladies' Delight is based on an acclaimed, vivid and modern translation by Robin Buss, who has also introduced the novel.The Ladies' Delight is the glittering Paris department store run by Octave Mouret. He has used charm and drive to become director of this mighty emporium, unscrupulously exploiting his young female staff and seducing his lady customers with luxurious displays of shimmering silks, satins, velvets and lace. Then Denise Baudu, a naïve provincial girl, becomes an assistant at the store - and Mouret discovers that he in turn can also be enchanted. With its greedy customers, gossiping staff and vibrant sense of theatre, The Ladies' Delight (Au Bonheur des Dames in the original French) is one of the most richly exciting novels in Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart cycle.This edition also contains a bibliography, introduction, chronology and explanatory notes.Emile Zola (1840-1902) was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction. His principal work, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a panorama of mid-19th century French life, in a cycle of 20 novels which Zola wrote over a period of 22 years, including Au Bonheur des Dames (1883), The Beast Within (1890), Nana (1880), and The Drinking Den (1877).'A complete page-turner about the consumer society, greed, fashion and instant gratification'India Knight'A fine translation'The Times Literary Supplement

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Also known as Journey to the West, Wu Ch'êng-ên's Monkey is one of the Four Great Classical Novels in Chinese literature, translated by Arthur Waley in Penguin Classics. Monkey depicts the adventures of Prince Tripitaka, a young Buddhist priest on a dangerous pilgrimage to India to retrieve sacred scriptures accompanied by his three unruly disciples: the greedy pig creature Pipsy, the river monster Sandy - and Monkey. Hatched from a stone egg and given the secrets of heaven and earth, the irrepressible trickster Monkey can ride on the clouds, become invisible and transform into other shapes - skills that prove very useful when the four travellers come up against the dragons, bandits, demons and evil wizards that threaten to prevent them in their quest. Wu Ch'êng-ên wrote Monkey in the mid-sixteenth century, adding his own distinctive style to an ancient Chinese legend, and in so doing created a dazzling combination of nonsense with profundity, slapstick comedy with spiritual wisdom. Arthur Waley's humorous and energetic translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing the story's background in history and legend, its elements of anti-bureaucratic satire and the allegorical nature of its characters Very little is known about Wu Ch'êng-ên (c.1505-80) although he is believed to have held the post of District Magistrate for a time. He had a reputation as a good poet but only a few rather commonplace verses of his survive in an anthology of Ming poetry and in a local gazetteer.If you enjoyed Monkey, you might like Confucius's The Analects, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

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