A master of narrative momentum and suspense, Zane Grey sweeps readers into his stories and makes them feel that things are out of control, that boundaries are being burst. In Riders of the Purple Sage, the most famous novel of the American West, Grey creates a hero of epic proportions, a villain of legendary evil and a world in which the landscape is rendered with such force that it seems to express thoughts and feelings, to become a character in its own right. Indeed, Riders of the Purple Sage derives much of its depth and power from passions whose forbidden and...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
"It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham," wrote Gore Vidal. "He was always so entirely there."
Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sensitive boy born with a clubfoot who is orphaned and raised by a religious aunt and uncle. Philip yearns for adventure,...

A much neglected literary figure, Ivan Bunin is one of Russia's major writers and ranks with Tolstoy and Chekhov at the forefront of the Russian Realists. Drawing artistic inspiration from his personal experience, these powerful, evocative stories are set in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia of his youth, in the countries that he visited and in France, where he spent the last thirty years of his life. In the title story, for example, a family's tour of fashionable European resorts comes to an unexpected end; 'Late Hour' describes an old man's return to the little Russian...

A party of English people are aboard the Euphrosyne, bound for South America. Among them is Rachel Vinrace, a young girl, innocent and wholly ignorant of the world of politics and society, books, sex, love and marriage. She is a free spirit half-caught, momentarily and passionately, by Terence Hewet, an aspiring writer who she meets in Santa Marina. But their engagement is to end abruptly, and tragically. Virginia Woolf's first novel, published in 1915, is a haunting exploration of a young woman's mind, signalling the beginning of her fascination with capturing the mysteries and complexities...

Jacob Flanders is a young man passing from adolescence to adulthood in a hazy rite of passage. From his boyhood on the windswept shores of Cornwall to his days as a student at Cambridge, his elusive, chameleon-like character is gradually revealed in a stream of loosely related incidents and impressions: whether through his mother's letters, his friend's conversations, or the thoughts of the women who adore him. Then we glimpse him as a young man, caught under the glare of a London streetlamp. It is 1914, he is twenty-six, and Europe is on the brink of war... This tantalizing novel heralded...

A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America's most enduring authors

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years,...

London's suspense thriller focuses on the fine distinction between state- justified murder and criminal violence in the Assassination Bureau--an organization whose mandate is to rid the state of all its enemies.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished...

"The most important of all immigrant novels."--Carl Van Doren

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1.700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trus the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Eighty short stories by a master of the genre
O. Henry's comic eye and unique, ironic approach to life's realities are unmatched. These stories about con men and tricksters and "innocent" deceivers, about fate, luck, and coincidence have delighted generations of readers. Set in New York and the West, in Central America and the South, they demonstrate O. Henry's mastery of speech and place, and highlight his appreciation of life's quirks.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than...

This classic literary critique of turn-of-the-century capitalism in the United States reveals Norris's powerful story of an obsessed trader intent on cornering the wheat market and the consequences of his unchecked greed.