Classics

Written in 1833-4, when Marx was barely twenty-five, this astonishingly rich body of works formed the cornerstone for his later political philosophy. In the Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State, he dissects Hegel's thought and develops his own views on civil society, while his Letters reveal a ..

The definitive text of Jane Austen's penetrating and sparkling satire, "Emma", this "Penguin Classics Edition" includes an introduction by Fiona Stafford. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, rich - and fiercely independent - is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marria..

One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that..

A survey of one of the giants of Renaissance thought, The Essays: A Selection collects some of Michel de Montaigne's most startling and original works, translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech in Penguin Classics. To overcome a crisis of melancholy after t..

Depicting the fatal clash between material desires and the liberating power of human passions, Honoré de Balzac's Eugénie Grandet is translated with an introduction by M.A. Crawford in Penguin Classics. In a gloomy house in provincial Saumur, the miser Grandet lives with his wife and daugh..

From fabulous enchantments and supernatural horrors to subtler, more psychological terrors, the best of nineteenth-century fantastic literature is collected here by Italo Calvino. These mysterious and macabre tales include Hoffmann's nightmarish 'The Sandman', Poe's terrifying 'The Tell-Tale Heart' ..

In this sequel to Faust, Mephistopheles takes Faust on a journey through ancient Greek mythology, conjuring for him the insurpassably beautiful Helen of Troy, as well as the classical gods. Faust falls in love with and marries Helen, embodying for Goethe his 'imaginative longing to join poetica..

Ishmael Reed has created a sharp, wildly funny slave’s-eye view of the Civil War.Three slaves infected with Dysaethesia Aethipica (a term coined in the nineteenth century for the disease that makes Negroes run away) escape from Virginia. Not satisfied with leaving slavery halfway, one of the trio ha..

No gamble in history has been more momentous than the landfall of Columbus's ship the Santa Maria in the Americas in 1492 - an event that paved the way for the conquest of a 'New World'. The accounts collected here provide a vivid narrative of his voyages throughout the Caribbean and finally to the ..

A terrifying vision of scientific progress without moral limits, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein leads the reader on an unsettling journey from the sublime beauty of the Swiss alps to the desolate waste of the arctic circle. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Mauri..

One of the central texts of the Middle Ages, The Golden Legend deeply influenced the imagery of poetry, painting and stained glass with its fascinating descriptions of saints' lives and religious festivals. By creating a single-volume sourcebook of core Christian stories, Jacobus de Voragi..

The Grapes Of Wrath (Penguin Modern Classics) is a story with a backdrop of the Great Depression in America. It is about a family of tenant farmers who face drought, economic hardships, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures. Due to such difficulties, they are unable to sustain themsel..