"One of the most important and gifted writers of our time" Italo Calvino

Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century: a man who survived one of the ugliest times in history, yet who was able to describe his own Auschwitz experience with an unaffected tenderness.
Levi was a master storyteller but he did not write fairytales. These stories are an elegy to the human figures who stood out against the tragic background of Auschwitz, "the ones in whom I had recognized the will and capacity to react, and hence a rudiment of virtue." Each...

The masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis one of three books at the heart of The Republic of Imagination by Azar Nafisi, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran
George F. Babbitt, a conniving, prosperous real estate man from Zenith, Ohio, revels in his popularity, his success, and, especially, in the material rewards they bring. He bullies his wife, flirts with other women, and patronizes the less successful. But when his best friend is sent to prison for killing his wife, Babbitt's middle-class complacency is shattered,...

The first annotated paperback publication of Lawrence's autobiographical and strikingly innovative unfinished novel
Begun in 1920, Mr Noon is divided into two distinct parts, the first of which appeared in 1934 and the second of which remained unpublished until the Cambridge edition of 1984, the first publication of the novel in full. Abandoning a promising academic career at Cambridge, Gilbert Noon returns to Whetstone, where he becomes a teacher at the local technical school. His rootlessness leads him into an inept experiment of 'spoony' love with a fellow schoolteacher,...

A best seller in his lifetime though neglected in recent years, Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) is due to be restored to his rightful place in literary history as one of the first great American Modernist poets. His poetry was revolutionary, though it looked deceptively conventional because it was written in metre and rhyme. He cast aside the stiff archaism and prettiness favoured by his contemporaries, instead employingeveryday language with dramatic power, wit, and sensitivity. His lyric poems illuminate ordinary people, especially the downtrodden, the bereft, and the mistunderstood....

Like the characters in the popular dime novels of the time, London's heroes display such manly virtues as courage, loyalty, and steadfastness as they conftont the merciless frozen expanses of the north. Yet London breaks free of stereotypical figures and one-dimensional plots to explore deeper psychological and social questions of self-mastery, masculinity, and racial domination. The uneasy relationship between the Native Americans and whites lies at the heart of many of the stories, while others reflect London's growing awareness of the destruction wrought by the white incursion on Indian...

In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties.

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...

Set in the highlands of the Mexican state of Chiapas, The Book of Lamentations tells of a fictionalized Mayan uprising that resembles many of the rebellions that have taken place since the indigenous people of the area were first conquered by European invaders five hundred years ago. With the panoramic sweep of a Diego Rivera mural, the novel weaves together dozens of plot lines, perspectives, and characters. Blending a wealth of historical information and local detail with a profound understanding of the complex relationship between victim and tormentor, Castellanos captures the...

In stories that draw heavily on her own life, Anzia Yezierska portrays the immigrant's struggle to become a "real" American, in such stories as "Yekl," "Hunger," "The Fat of the Land," and "How I Found America." Set mostly in New York's Lower East Side, the stories brilliantly evoke the oppressive atmosphere of crowded streets and shabby tenements and lay bare the despair of families trapped in unspeakable poverty, working at demeaning jobs, and coping with the barely hidden prejudices of their new land.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic...

"The most important work of fiction by an American in this literary generation." -The New Republic
Now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its publication, Omensetter's Luck is the masterful first novel by the author of The Tunnel, Middle C, On Being Blue, andEyes: Novellas and Stories.
Greeted as a masterpiece when it was first published in 1966, Omensetter's Luck is the quirky, impressionistic, and breathtakingly original story of an ordinary community galvanized by the presence of an extraordinary man. Set in a small Ohio town in the 1890s,...

Beloved American poet Robert Frost's first three books, in one collection
This volume presents Frost s first three books, masterful and innovative collections that contain some of his best-known poems, including "Mowing," "Mending Wall," "After Apple-Picking," "Home Burial," "The Oven Bird," "Birches," and "The Road Not Taken."
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and...