Classic fiction Books 623 results

Agatha Christie

An archaeologist's wife is murdered on the shores of the River Tigris in Iraq... It was clear to Amy Leatheran that something sinister was going on at the Hassanieh dig in Iraq; something associated with the presence of 'Lovely Louise', wife of celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner. In a few days' time Hercule Poirot was due to drop in at the excavation site. But with Louise ...

Agatha Christie

A man returns from the dead, and the body of a mysterious stranger is found in his room... A few weeks after marrying an attractive young widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune. Shortly afterwards, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the ...

Leo Tolstoy

Hadji Murat, one of the most feared and venerated mountain chiefs in the Caucasian struggle against the Russians, defects from the Muslim rebels after feuding with his ruling imam, Shamil. Hoping to protect his family, he joins the Russians, who accept him but never put their trust in him - and so Murat must find another way to end the struggle.Tolstoy knew as he was writing th...

Agatha Christie

A woman is killed by a poisoned dart in the enclosed confines of a commercial passenger plane... From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8,...

Agatha Christie

Stabbed in the back A pieced of lead piping nearby It should be a simple case... Poirot is summoned to France, but arrives too late to save his client, whose body now lies face down in a shallow grave on a golf course. Why is the dead man wearing his son's overcoat? And who was the intended recipient of the love-letter in the pocket? Before Poirot can answer these ques...

Niccolo Machiavelli

A 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 p...

Jane Austen

The pride of high-ranking Mr Darcy and the prejudice of middle-class Elizabeth Bennet conduct an absorbing dance through the rigid social hierarchies of early-nineteenth-century England, with the passion of the two unlikely lovers growing as their union seems ever more improbable.One of the most cherished love stories in English literature, Jane Austen's 1813 masterpiece has a ...

Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels

'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.' Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes - one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated. 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 t...

Jane Austen

'She has many rare and charming qualities, but Sobriety is not one of them.' A selection of Austen's dark and hilarious early writings - featuring murder, drunkenness, perjury, theft, poisoning, women breaking out of prison, men forging wills and babies biting off their mothers' fingers... Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Cla...

Plato

'I'll stop doing it as soon as I understand what I'm doing.' Somewhere between a historical account and work of philosophy, Socrates' Defence details the final plea of Plato's beloved mentor. 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 ...

Patricia Highsmith

BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN 'Very wicked, very funny . . . very unsettling' GUARDIAN 'Each story is more appalling than the next, deadpan in tone and dripping with black humour' INDEPENDENT 'These little tales are tremendous fun, glorious hand grenades lobbed at the reader by a gleeful, cackling Patricia Highsmith' DAN ...

Agatha Christie

There's more than petty theft going on in a London youth hostel... An outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot's interest. But when he saw the list of stolen and vandalized items - including a stethoscope, some old flannel trousers, a box of chocolates, a slashed rucksack and a diamond ring found in a bowl of so...

Henry Miller

Shocking, banned and the subject of obscenity trials, Henry Miller's first novel Tropic of Cancer is one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century -- new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostit...

Agatha Christie

A simple accident? Or attempted murder? Everyone blamed the dog. When a wealthy spinster trips on the stairs, it seems only natural to assume it was an accident - a rubber ball left there by her lively terrier. And yet the more Emily Arundell thought about it, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her. Seeking answers, she writes to t...

William Shakespeare

One of the best-loved comedies ever written, Twelfth Night is perhaps Shakespeare's most lyrical as well as most experimental play. This Penguin Shakespeare edition is edited by M. M. Mahood with an introduction by Michael Dobson. 'If music be the food of love, play on...' Separated from her twin brother Sebastian after a shipwreck, Viola disguises herself as a boy to serve the...

Walt Whitman

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars... First published in 1855, and edited, revised and expanded over thirty years, 'Leaves of Grass' has become one of the most celebrated poetry collections in the history of American literature. A master of free verse...

Jonathan Swift

'... a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food...' Swift's devastating short satire on how to solve a famine 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 L...

Leo Tolstoy

'Although he feared death, he could not stop. 'If I stopped now, after coming all this way - well, they'd call me an idiot ' A pair of short stories about greed, charity, life and death from one of Russia's most influential writers and thinkers. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity ...

William S. Burroughs

Nightmarish and fiercely funny, William Burroughs' virtuoso, taboo-breaking masterpiece Naked Lunch follows Bill Lee through Interzone: a surreal, orgiastic wasteland of drugs, depravity, political plots, paranoia, sadistic medical experiments and endless, gnawing addiction. One of the most shocking novels ever written, Naked Lunch is a cultural landmark, now in a restored edit...

Agatha Christie

The daughter of an American millionaire dies on a train en route for Nice... When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again - for a heavy blow has killed her, disfiguring her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing. The prime suspect is R...

Mary Shelley

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadA stunning new clothbound edition of Mary Shelley's infamous work of horror fiction, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design Obsessed by creating life ...

Jane Austen

**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World** Discover Jane Austen's most beloved classic. When Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr Darcy, she is repelled by his overbearing pride and prejudice towards her family. But the Bennet girls are in need of financial security in the shape of husbands, so when Darcy's friend, the affable Mr Bingley, forms an attachment to Jane, Darcy beco...

Franz Kafka

Like George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka's world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial, where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials, and if there is any help to be had, it will come from unexpected sources, is a chilling, blackly amusing tale that maintains, to the very end, a relentles...

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy's most personal novel, Anna Karenina scrutinizes fundamental ethical and theological questions through the tragic story of its eponymous heroine. Anna is desperately pursuing a good, "moral" life, standing for honesty and sincerity. Passion drives her to adultery, and this flies in the face of the corrupt Russian bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, the aristocrat Konstantin Lev...

Fyodor Dostoevsky

'A truly great translation . . . This English version really is better' - A. N. Wilson, The SpectatorTIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014This acclaimed new translation of Dostoyevsky's 'psychological record of a crime' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. ...

Emily Brontë

The tale of Heathcliff and Cathy's ungovernable love and suffering, and the havoc that their passion wreaks on the families of the Earnshaws and the Lintons, shocked the book's first readers, with even Emily's sister Charlotte wondering whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff . Replete with unforgettable characters and situations that have seared thems...

George Orwell

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way...

Agatha Christie

The old children's game now seemed rather tasteless. The real Mrs McGinty was killed by a crushing blow to the back of the head and her pitifully small savings were stolen.Suspicion falls immediately on her lodger, hard up and out of a job. Hercule Poirot has other ideas - unaware that his own life is now in great danger... ...

Agatha Christie

A charity murder game at a Devon house turns into the real thing. Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fete, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for ...

Shirley Jackson

Mrs Halloran has inherited the great Halloran house on the death of her son, much to the disgust of her daughter-in-law, the delight of her wicked granddaughter, and the confusion of the rest of the household. But when the original owner - long dead - arrives to announce the world is ending and only the house and its occupants will be saved, they find themselves in a nightmare ...