Classic Fiction

Some of our favorite classic stories, modern classics, and classic stories reimagined.

Updated September 11, 2025
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Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua.
Paper Book
"A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world." --Barack Obama "African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe." --Toni Morrison "A...
Watership Down
Adams, Richard
Paper Book
Fiver could sense danger. Something terrible is about to happen to the warren - he feels sure of it. And Fiver's sixth sense is never wrong, according to his brother Hazel. They had to leave immediately, and they had to persuade the other rabbits to join them. And so begins a long and perilous...
Every rising sun
Ahmed, Jamila
Paper Book
Before she was the legendary Persian queen who spun a thousand tales, Shaherazade was a girl who saw something she shouldn't have.She told the king.She thought she was doing what was right.She couldn't have imagined what was to come.The Seljuk Empire is on fire and...
Little women
Alcott, Louisa May
Paper Book
Louisa May Alcott's classic tale of four sisters in a deluxe hardcover edition, with beautiful cover illustrations by Anna Bond, the artist behind world-renowned stationery brand Rifle Paper Co. Grown-up Meg, tomboyish Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. The four March...
Persuasion
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
Jane Austen's last completed novel, marrying witty social realism to a Cinderella love story At twenty--seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick...
The silence of the girls
Barker, Pat
Paper Book
Queen Briseis has been stolen from her conquered homeland and given as a concubine to a foreign warrior. The warrior is Achilles- famed hero, loathed enemy, ruthless butcher, darkly troubled spirit. Briseis's fate is now indivisibly entwined with his. No one knows it yet, but there are...
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
For use in schools and libraries only. A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners suddenly realizes their merit.
Jane Eyre
Brontë, Charlotte
Paper Book
Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds a position as governess at...
A clockwork orange
Burgess, Anthony
Paper Book
The daring dystopian satire that inspired one of the most notorious films ever made, beautifully reimagined as part of the Penguin Essentials series 'Every generation should discover this book' Time Out ________________ In this...
Kindred
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
Octavia E. Butler's ground-breaking masterpiece, with an original foreword by Ayòbámi Adébáyò. Now an acclaimed TV series streaming on Disney + 'A marvel of imagination, empathy and detail' NEW YORK TIMES 'The marker you should judge all other time...
Don Quixote
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
Ebook
The woman in white
Collins, Wilkie
Paper Book
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice,...
The last of the Mohicans
Cooper, James Fenimore
Paper Book
Introduction and Notes by David Blair. University of Kent at Canterbury. It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for...
Robinson Crusoe
Defoe, Daniel
CD
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Great expectations
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's...
Crime and punishment
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Paper Book
Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon- acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game...
Invisible man
Ellison, Ralph.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. One of The Atlantic<...
James : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. From the "literary icon" (Oprah Daily), Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and one of the most decorated writers of our...
The sound and the fury : the corrected text
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin.  *  The definitive corrected text, including Faulkner's Appendix One of The Atlantic...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott.
Paper Book
Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach ... Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young,...
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.
Paper Book
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been one of the literary giants of the past century; his body of work is an undisputed cultural landmark and a touchstone for countless readers and writers alike. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a true classic, a timelessly fascinating and intricately...
Lord of the flies : a novel
Golding, William
Paper Book
The 50th Anniversary Edition of the Lord of the Flies is the volume that every fan of this classic book will have to own! Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal...
A haunting on the hill
Hand, Elizabeth
Paper Book
**Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Harper's Bazaar** SIXTY YEARS LATER, HILL HOUSE IS OCCUPIED AGAIN . . . 'Scary and beautifully written, imbued with the same sense of dread and inevitability as...
Far from the madding crowd
Hardy, Thomas
Paper Book
The classic novel of passion and courtship in rural England In Thomas Hardy's first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three...
The scarlet letter
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Paper Book
A dramatic, moving depiction of social defiance and social deference A stark and allegorical tale of adultery, guilt, and social repression in Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letteris a foundational work of American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's exploration of the...
Catch-22
Heller, Joseph
Paper Book
This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller's masterpiece with a new introduction; critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos; and much more. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels...
Demon Copperhead
Kingsolver, Barbara
Paper Book
A masterpiece in storytelling from the global bestselling author of Unsheltered and Flight Behaviour.
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper.
Paper Book
Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize...
The call of the wild
London, Jack
Paper Book
Puffin Classics- the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child Join Puffin in celebrating 120 years since Call of the Wild first published with this very special anniversary edition. To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing,...
Moby Dick
Melville, Herman
Paper Book
The Penguin English Library Edition of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 'The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain...' Moby-Dick is one of the most...
Circe
Miller, Madeline
Paper Book
The international Number One bestseller from the author of The Song of Achilles, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.  This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story" (...
The tale of Genji : abridged
Murasaki Shikibu
Paper Book
An abridged edition of the world's first novel, in a translation that is "likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come" (The Wall Street Journal) A Penguin Classic Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly...
Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir.
Paper Book
'You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.' Humbert Humbert, a European intellectual adrift in America, is a middle-aged college professor. Haunted by memories of a lost adolescent love, he falls outrageously (and illegally) in lust with his landlady's...
Hello Beautiful : A Novel
Napolitano, Ann
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! From the author of Dear Edward comes a "powerfully affecting" (People) family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole? "Another tender tearjerker...
The bell jar
Plath, Sylvia
Paper Book
A student from Boston wins a guest editorship on a national magazine, and finds a new world at her feet. Her New York life is crowded with possibilities, so the choice of future is overwhelming. She is faced with the perennial problems of morality, behaviour and identity.
All Quiet on the Western Front
Remarque, Erich Maria.
Paper Book
A beautiful hardback edition of the most famous anti-war novel ever written, translated by Brian Murdoch. 'A necessary, shattering read' Irish Times In 1914, a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to...
Wide Sargasso sea
Rhys, Jean
Paper Book
Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The Catcher in Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth and has influenced countless coming-of-age stories since. Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up,...
Frankenstein, : or, The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear....
A thousand acres
Smiley, Jane.
Audiobook
Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Jane Smiley's spellbinding novel also headed bestseller lists for many months. A Thousand Acres is the powerful, mythic story of an American farm family and the land that nourishes and consumes its members. ...
The grapes of wrath
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized--and sometimes outraged--millions of readers. One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning...
Dracula
Stoker, Bram
Paper Book
When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England- an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman...
Uncle Tom's cabin
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
Editedand with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine. University of Kent at Canterbury. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most popular, influential and controversial book written by an American. Stowe's rich, panoramic novel passionately dramatises why the whole of...
Vanity fair
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Ebook
Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is William Thackeray's celebrated satirical novel of 19th century British society. Vanity Fair follows the rags-to-riches tale of the captivating and ruthless Becky Sharpe as she navigates her way through London society with fearsome determination and ambition.
War and peace
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Paper Book
War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the best-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind...
A Confederacy of Dunces
Toole, John Kennedy.
Paper Book
Considered by most to be completely unhinged, Ignatius tours the fleshpots of New Orleans in order to preach his moral message. But when his momma insists that he gets a job, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with.
The adventures of Tom Sawyer
Twain, Mark
Paper Book
Who could forget the pranks, the adventures, the sheer fun of Tom Sawyer? It's something every child should experience and every child will love. From Tom's sly trickery with the whitewashed fence--when he cleverly manipulates everyone so they happily do his work for him--to his and Becky...
Journey to the centre of the Earth
Verne, Jules
Paper Book
An ancient book is opened by the eccentric Professor Lidenbrock and his life - and the life of his nephew Axel - is changed for ever. An old piece of paper has tumbled from the book, a priceless parchment that will lead them on a terrifying journey to find what lies at the centre of the Earth. ...
Slaughterhouse-five, or The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death
Vonnegut, Kurt
Paper Book
Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is "a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century" (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time * One of The Atlantic's...
The age of innocence
Williams, Kate
Paper Book
With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting...
The picture of Dorian Gray
Wilde, Oscar
Paper Book
Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman inthe eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears...
The man who lived underground : a novel
Wright, Richard
Paper Book
Fred Daniels, a black man, is picked up randomly by the police after a brutal murder in a Chicago neighbourhood and taken to the local precinct where he is tortured until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit. After signing a confession, he escapes from the precinct and takes up residence in the...

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