Penguin Archive
90 books in this series
The History of England by a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian
During his reign, Lord Cobham was burnt alive, but I forget what for.
In Jane Austen’s breezy and entirely biased telling of English history, Mary, Queen of Scots is a scandalously wronged victim, Elizabeth I is a wicked villain and most historical facts and dates are cheerfully disregarded. It is accompanied here by other riotous early pieces in which young women steal money, escape from prison, agree to marry two men at once, faint and repeatedly ‘run mad’.
In Jane Austen’s breezy and entirely biased telling of English history, Mary, Queen of Scots is a scandalously wronged victim, Elizabeth I is a wicked villain and most historical facts and dates are cheerfully disregarded. It is accompanied here by other riotous early pieces in which young women steal money, escape from prison, agree to marry two men at once, faint and repeatedly ‘run mad’.
Hop-Frog
Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilizingly terse sketcher out of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original subtitle was: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) as it is such an affront to decency, but you will certainly never forget it.
Horsie
What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you. I’ll see you in hell first. Why, thank you, I’d like to awfully, but I’m having labor pains.
Acerbic, pithy and vibrant, Dorothy Parker’s writings capture the dizzying decadence of Jazz Age New York. Though Parker refuses to be swept along: she gleefully deconstructs its hypocrisy, prejudice and taboos with style and precision.
The House of Hunger
‘No, I don’t hate being black. I’m just tired of saying it’s beautiful. No, I don’t hate myself. I’m just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw.’
A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera’s seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit exiled from the land and the self. An inimitable and internationally admired writer, his profound ambivalence and wry, existential sensibility was forged in this iconic book.
A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera’s seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit exiled from the land and the self. An inimitable and internationally admired writer, his profound ambivalence and wry, existential sensibility was forged in this iconic book.
How I Came to Know Fish
‘Of all the sleep a man can have, the fisherman’s sleep is the sweetest. It is the greatest of luxuries – sleep and fishing.’
Through tender, vivid, and often humorous recollections – from magical fishing trips to the rivers and ponds of Bustehrad to his charismatic father’s eccentric business ventures - this bittersweet memoir tells the story of a childhood in Czechoslovakia, against the backdrop of World War II.
Through tender, vivid, and often humorous recollections – from magical fishing trips to the rivers and ponds of Bustehrad to his charismatic father’s eccentric business ventures - this bittersweet memoir tells the story of a childhood in Czechoslovakia, against the backdrop of World War II.
A Hunger-Artist
The whole town got involved with the hunger-artist; from day to day of his starving, people’s participation grew; everyone wanted to see the hunger-artist at least once a day; on the later days there were season-ticket holders who sat for days on end in front of his little cage
Reading these stories by the master of the absurd is like entering a dreamworld in which nothing, and yet somehow everything, makes sense.
I am a Bird from Paradise
May I remember always when,
Your glance in secrecy met mine,
And in my face your love was like
A visibly reflected sign.
May I remember always when,
Your chiding eyes were like my death,
And your sweet lips restored my life,
Like Jesus’s reviving breath.
May I remember always when,
We drank our wine as darkness died,
My friend and I, alone at dawn,
Though God was there too, at our side.
Your glance in secrecy met mine,
And in my face your love was like
A visibly reflected sign.
May I remember always when,
Your chiding eyes were like my death,
And your sweet lips restored my life,
Like Jesus’s reviving breath.
May I remember always when,
We drank our wine as darkness died,
My friend and I, alone at dawn,
Though God was there too, at our side.
Jasmine Tea
‘But how sweet a fruit the ‘suppose’ must be, that people will sup and sup on it! A juicy fruit, like a lychee but without the pit, sparkling and light green: a fruit that hides the tart within the sweet.’
In this haunting collection of stories, a young man’s obsession leads to tragedy and a woman’s bitterness poisons a family’s legacy. In delicate, piercing prose, Chang captures a world of quiet cruelties and calamitous desires in pre-revolutionary China.
In this haunting collection of stories, a young man’s obsession leads to tragedy and a woman’s bitterness poisons a family’s legacy. In delicate, piercing prose, Chang captures a world of quiet cruelties and calamitous desires in pre-revolutionary China.
The Lady Bandit
Priests with shotguns, scheming lovers and a necrophiliac gravedigger haunt the fables of Emilia Pardo Bazán, the formidable Spanish aristocrat, intellectual and feminist. These stories paint a rich and variegated image of Old Spain – sometimes tender, often provocative, always entertaining. But if you decide to visit, beware the Lady Bandit, whose strong, rough hands might grab your neck, and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze . . .
A Lady in Kyoto
All moonlight is moving, wherever it may be…
Japanese gentlewoman Sei Shonagon invites us to look behind the painted screens in the Emperor’s palace and discover a lost world, in which games of poetry are the highest form of wit, lovers send each other elegant morning-after letters, and appreciation of the natural world – wild geese in autumn, the pure white frost of winter – is one of life’s most exquisite pleasures.
Japanese gentlewoman Sei Shonagon invites us to look behind the painted screens in the Emperor’s palace and discover a lost world, in which games of poetry are the highest form of wit, lovers send each other elegant morning-after letters, and appreciation of the natural world – wild geese in autumn, the pure white frost of winter – is one of life’s most exquisite pleasures.
Lady L.
‘Why should I bother to invent things? My life has been far more exciting and wonderful than any fairy-tale’
In the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by irritatingly polite relatives and hopeless sycophants, Lady L. is celebrating her eightieth birthday. But as the guests disperse, she feels the undeniable pull of a mysterious pavilion in the lush grounds, and the terrible secret she buried there many years ago . . .
In the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by irritatingly polite relatives and hopeless sycophants, Lady L. is celebrating her eightieth birthday. But as the guests disperse, she feels the undeniable pull of a mysterious pavilion in the lush grounds, and the terrible secret she buried there many years ago . . .
Lamb to the Slaughter
No author perfected the twist in the tale better than Roald Dahl. His stories – many of which were filmed as Tales of the Unexpected – take us into a world that is shocking, cruelly funny and always has a sinister edge. What if plants could feel pain? What kind of father would bet his daughter in a wager? And what is the secret behind that delicious lamb dinner…?
Lois the Witch
Beware the self-righteous man of faith, the wicked-eyed child, the jealous lover. For this is Salem, in 1691, where rumours fly on the wind and witchcraft is abroad. Lois Barclay, cursed in childhood, is a stranger in a strange land – and the devil will work his mischief on Lois’s neighbours before the season of madness is out.
A Lost Lady
How light and alive she was! Like a bird caught in a net . . .
Marian Forrester enchants everyone around her: her husband, an elderly railroad pioneer; the small town of Sweet Water; and Niel Herbert, her unwavering confidant. Yet, her irresistible charm and dazzling wit conceal a dangerous vulnerability – and her greatest secret. A significant inspiration for The Great Gatsby, this exquisite novella is a poignant elegy for a bygone era, fading into history.
Marian Forrester enchants everyone around her: her husband, an elderly railroad pioneer; the small town of Sweet Water; and Niel Herbert, her unwavering confidant. Yet, her irresistible charm and dazzling wit conceal a dangerous vulnerability – and her greatest secret. A significant inspiration for The Great Gatsby, this exquisite novella is a poignant elegy for a bygone era, fading into history.
The Maverick Pig
Razor-sharp, pugnacious and blackly funny, Wang Xiaobo’s essays established him as one of China’s most popular – and subversive – writers. From the political power of silence to the irrepressible spirit of a pig he met while working in a commune, these reflections on life and literature in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution provide a rare glimpse of a fearless satirical genius.
A Moment of War
In one of the great English war memoirs, we learn what it is to cross the Pyrenees through freezing snow to fight fascism in Spain; to narrowly escape execution by your own side; to kill a man with a borrowed rifle and feel nothing but shame. Moving and shrapnel-sharp, A Moment of War recalls the defeat of idealism; ‘that flush of youth which never doubts self-survival, that idiot belief in luck’.