Classic fiction Books 622 results

Jack Kerouac

A timeless travelogue from the leading light of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac's Lonesome Traveller is a jubilant celebration of human discovery As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records, in prose of pure poetry, life on the road. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexic...

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac's classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature A witty, moving philosophical novel, Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums is a journey of self-discovery through the lens of Zen Buddhist thought. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ann Douglas. Following the explosive energy of On the Road, the book that put ...

Murasaki Shikibu

The most famous work of Japanese literature and the world's first novel—written a thousand years ago and one of the enduring classics of world literature.Written centuries before the time of Shakespeare and even Chaucer, The Tale of Genji marks the birth of the novel—and after more than a millennium, this seminal work continues to enchant readers throughout the world. Lady Mura...

Daphne Du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again... Working as a lady's companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. Whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to his brooding estate, Manderley, on th...

Jane Austen

Chiltern Publishing was formed in 2018 with a vision to create the most beautiful classics. Jane Austen's original books (particularly Pride and Prejudice) from the 1800s were our inspiration. So, using a perfect mix of tradition and the very latest in printing techniques, 19th Century quality has met 21st Century technology. The specification of our books reflects the size and...

Jane Austen

Chiltern Publishing creates the most beautiful editions of the World's finest literature. Your favourite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colours of these remarkable covers make these titles feel extra special and will look striking on any shelf. This book has matching lined and blank journals (sold sepa...

Charlotte Brontë

Chiltern Publishing creates the most beautiful editions of the World's finest literature. Your favourite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colours of these remarkable covers make these titles feel extra special and will look striking on any shelf. This book has matching lined and blank journals (sold sepa...

Agatha Christie

A collection of short stories featuring the 'heart specialist', Parker Pyne. Mrs Packington felt alone, helpless and utterly forlorn. But her life changed when she stumbled upon an advertisement in The Times which read: 'ARE YOU HAPPY? IF NOT, CONSULT MR PARKER PYNE'. Equally adept at putting together the pieces of a marriage or the fragments of a murder mystery, Mr Parker ...

Charlotte Brontë

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.A beloved classic and undisputed masterpiece, Charlotte Bron...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?'A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer.One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around t...

Jane Austen

'Of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a Man of his age! - just old enough to be formal, ungovernable and to have the Gout - too old to be agreable, and too young to die.'The scheming and unscrupulous Lady Susan is unlike any Austen heroine you've met in this fascinating early novella.One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the ...

Agatha Christie / Dorothy L. Sayers / G. K. Chesterton

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton and nine other writers from the legendary Detection Club collaborate in this fiendishly clever but forgotten crime novel first published 80 years ago. Inspector Rudge does not encounter many cases of murder in the sleepy seaside town of Whynmouth. But when an old sailor lands a rowing boat containing a fresh corpse with a sta...

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's ingenious murder mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. Luke Fitzwilliam could not believe Miss Pinkerton's wild allegation that a multiple murderer was at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood - or her speculation that the local doctor was next in line...

Agatha Christie

A beautiful heiress is fatally poisoned in a West End restaurant... Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary - in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously. No one present on that fateful night would ever forget the woman's face, contorted beyond recognition - or...

James Joyce

Universally known for his groundbreaking prose - especially for the monumental novel Ulysses and its depictions of Dublin at the turn of the twentieth century - James Joyce started off as a writer of lyrical poetry, a genre which he never abandoned in his lifetime and which informs and enriches the rest of his literary production. This volume, which includes Joyce's first publ...

Dante Alighieri

'Happiness beyond all words! A life of peace and love, entire and whole!' A collection of cantos from Paradiso, the most original and experimental part of the Divina Commedia. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with wo...

Agatha Christie

Two trains Side by side for a brief moment In that moment, a murder Elspeth McGillicuddy is positive she witnessed a man strangling a woman to death. But it was only the merest glimpse through a carriage window as the trains drew parallel. She is the only witness, there are no suspects, and, most importantly, there is no corpse. Who, apart from her friend Jane M...

Angela Carter

'Wicked, wayward or otherwise, Carter's classic collection is a very erudite expression of girl power' MINA HOLLAND, GUARDIAN 'One of the century's greatest writers' SUNDAY TIMES This bestselling collection of stories extols the female virtues of discontent, sexual disruptiveness and bad manners. These are subversive tales by Ama Ata Aidoo, Jane Bowles, Angela Carter, Colette...

Leo Tolstoy

At its simplest, Anna Karenina is a love story. It is a portrait of a beautiful and intelligent woman whose passionate love for a handsome officer sweeps aside all other ties - to her marriage and to the network of relationships and moral values that bind the society around her. The love affair of Anna and Vronsky is played out alongside the developing romance of Kitty and Levi...

Franz Kafka

A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis - an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, ...

Ryunosuke Akutagawa

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.' Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling. 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 m...

Graf Leo Tolstoy

"No one pitied him as he would have liked to be pitied." As Ivan Ilyich lies dying he begins to re-evaluate his life, searching for meaning that will make sense of his sufferings. In "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and the other works in this volume, Tolstoy conjures characters who, tested to the limit, reveal glorious and unexpected reserves of courage or baseness of a near inhuma...

Nikolai Gogol

One of six beloved Christmas classics in collectible hardcover editions Written in 1831 by the father of Russian literature, this uproarious tale tells of the blacksmith Vakula's battle with the devil, who has stolen the moon and hidden it in his pocket, allowing him to wreak havoc on the village of Dikanka. Both the devil and Vakula are in love with Oksana, the most beautiful ...

J L Carr

'Tender and elegant' Guardian'Unlike anything else in modern English literature' D.J. Taylor, SpectatorA damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village life he...

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Penguin English Library Edition The deadly hand of Professor Moriarty once more reaches out to commit a vile and ingenious crime, but a mole in Moriarty's criminal organization alerts Sherlock Holmes of the evil deed by means of a cipher . . . When Holmes and Watson arrive at a Sussex manor house they appear to be too late. The discovery of a body suggests that Moriarty's h...

Leo Tolstoy

With an Introduction by Anthony Briggs Translated by Louise Maude This powerful novel, Tolstoy's third major masterpiece, after War and Peace and Anna Karenina, begins with a courtroom drama (the finest in Russian literature) all the more stunning for being based on a real-life event. Dmitri Nekhlyudov, called to jury service, is astonished to see in the dock, charged with murd...

Michael Ende

"Small and insignificant Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. One day, while immersed in the pages of an old book, he discovers a mysterious world of enchantment - but it's a world that is falling into decay. The great task of making things well again falls on Bastian and so begins a dazzling, magical adventure . . ."--Back cover. ...

Albert Camus

'My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.'In The Outsider (1942), his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. Meursault, his anti-hero, will not lie. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of vi...

George Orwell

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedi...

Emilia Pardo Bazan

A rich and unforgettable tragic-comic novel of sexual intrigue and political scheming, The House of Ulloa is one of the greatest works of nineteenth-century Spanish literature. The House of Ulloa follows pure and pious Father Julián Alvarez, who is sent to a remote country estate to put the affairs of the marquis, an irresponsible libertine, in order. When he discovers moral de...