In February 1822 the writer and adventurer Edward John Trelawny arrived in Pisa to make the acquaintance of his heroes Shelley and Byron, leaving a broken marriage and an exotic seafaring career behin
My First Wife is Jakob Wassermann's intense, powerful account of a marriage - and its ruinous collapse - translated by the award-winning translator of Alone in Berlin, Michael Hofmann. It is the story
Introduction by Jeffrey EugenidesWritten in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the aut
In 1581 Edmund Campion, a Jesuit priest working underground in Protestant England, was found guilty of treason and hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Years later he would be beatified. Evelyn Waug
Looking at every aspect of the city, from its waterways, streets and architecture to its food, politics and people, the author captures its magnificence and beauty, and recalls his own memories of the
Lady Chatterley's Lover is both one of the most beautiful and notorious love stories in modern fiction. The summation of D.H. Lawrence's artistic achievement, it sharply illustrates his belief that te
The Penguin English Library Edition of Nostromo by Joseph Conrad 'There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still persevere, and will curse the da
The Penguin English Library Edition of New Grub Street by George Gissing 'If only I had the skill, I would produce novels out-trashing the trashiest that ever sold fifty thousand copies' In New Grub S
A dapper Paris doctor dispenses a treatment for dissatisfied wives. A mother auditions for her first porn movie. A writer working on a study of pain makes himself the subject of his experiments. A voy
On a train journey from Paris to Madrid a young opera singer becomes fascinated by those in his compartment: a middle-aged businessman, his alluring wife and their male travelling companion. Soon his
The Penguin English Library Edition of Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens 'The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light' Dombey and Son is both a
'Anthology' comes from the Greek word that stands for garlands - a bouquet of flowers. An anthology then, should be a small token of something much larger. In the case of flowers, they bring to mind t
Also known as Dulcimer Street, Norman Collins's London Belongs to Me is a Dickensian romp through working-class London on the eve of the Second World War. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes
Jean Valjean is an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience
E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel is an innovative and effusive treatise on a literary form that, at the time of publication, had only recently begun to enjoy serious academic consideration. This Pe
