Penguin Clothbound Classics: The Complete List
This gorgeous series of Penguin Clothbound Classics has long been one of my favorite book collections. I can still remember when the first editions were released a decade ago. Spotting them in my local bookstore, I started collecting these beautiful designs. As much as I try to keep my home library minimal, I’ve held onto these timeless classics, slowly adding to my own collection as the number of titles has expanded over the years. I’m lucky enough to have most of these titles at home!
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Who is the Penguin Clothbound Classics designer?
Award-winning Penguin designer Coralie Bickford-Smith is responsible for these beautiful hard-cover designs, which are foil stamped into linen. They are beautiful design objects in which motifs from the stories (sometimes developed in collaboration with illustrators like Despotica) are worked into patterns with bold color combinations. As she describes it, the series ‘harks back to the world of Victorian bindings and a golden age of book binding’. They have a wonderful tactile feel, with ribbon bookmarks and look beautiful on the shelf.
How many Penguin Clothbound Classics are there?
At present count there are 98 titles in the series so far, though it depends if you consider the India Special Editions (4 titles) as part of the series. These four titles are different to the remainder of the series as they were published separately by Penguin India, are religious texts (rather than classics) and were not designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.
Which Penguin Clothbound Classics are out of print?
There are three titles out of print. The first is Madame Bovary which was first printed in 2008 and then reprinted in 2014. The second is Crime and Punishment which was first printed in 2008 and caused problems with the printing press. It had to be hand foiled, resulting in a limited print run, which makes it a very rare book (which I’m very lucky to own!) Thanks to a successful petition by some dedicated readers, which was due for reprint in 2018 in a different color variation. The third is the Qur’an which is currently out of print and rather difficult to find!
Which titles come in the Penguin Clothbound Classics box set?
Collections of some of these titles are also available in gorgeous boxed sets. These special collections currently exist for Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Jane Austen and the Brontë Sisters.
Are there Penguin Clothbound Classics new releases?
There have been new titles released each year in the past decade, with five titles currently due for release in 2024, some of which are available for pre-order. Future titles beyond that are a mystery, though there is a petition requesting more titles by African-American authors which could possibly influence releases to come!
Find all the Penguin Clothbound Classics listed below:
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2008 (10 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2009 (10 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2010 (3 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics: India Special Editions (4 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2011 (8 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2012 (3 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2013 (8 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2014 (8 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2015 (1 title)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2016 (12 titles)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2017 (1 title)
- Penguin Clothbound Classics 2018 (4 titles)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2008
1.
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
Published: 6th November 2008 (out of print)
ISBN: 9780141040318
Reprinted: 7th August 2014
ISBN: 9780141394671
Setting: France
Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert’s erotically charged, psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: ‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi’.
2.
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141040363
Setting: England
Pip doesn’t expect much from life… His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pip’s narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal, is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all, an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new life in London. Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip’s fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected?
3.
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141040356
Setting: England
In a house haunted by memories, the past is everywhere… As darkness falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will come to learn the story of Cathy: how she was forced to choose between her well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge – and continues to torment those in the present. How love can transgress authority, convention, even death.
4.
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141040370
Setting: England
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love – and its threatened loss – the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.
5.
Cranford
by Elizabeth Gaskell
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141442549
Setting: England
Gaskell’s best known work is set in a small rural town, inhabited largely by women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister Miss Matty. But domestic peace is constantly threatened in the form of financial disaster, imagined burglaries, tragic accidents, and the reappearance of long-lost relatives.
6.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141040332
Setting: England
When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her ‘cousin’ Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy’s novels.
7.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141040349
Setting: England
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships,gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.
8.
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Published: 6th November 2008 (out of print, hard to find due to a small print run)
ISBN: 9780140455687
Published: Planned for 9th October 2018
ISBN: 9780241347683
Setting: Russia
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 of cat-and-mouse with Porfiry, a suspicious detective, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murderer, Dostoyevsky’s dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone’s faith in humanity is tested.
9.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141040387
Setting: England
Charlotte Brontë’s first published novel, Jane Eyre was immediately recognised as a work of genius when it appeared in 1847. Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. How she takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, meets and loves Mr Rochester and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage are elements in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman’s passionate search for a wider and richer life than that traditionally accorded to her sex in Victorian society.
10.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
Published: 6th November 2008
ISBN: 9780141442464
Setting: England
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 in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The novel was a succès de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2009
11.
Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192413
Setting: United States of America
Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth – four “little women” enduring hardships and enjoying adventures in Civil War New England. The charming story of the March sisters, Little Women has been adored by generations. Readers have rooted for Laurie in his pursuit of Jo’s hand, cried over little Beth’s death, and dreamed of traveling through Europe with old Aunt March and Amy. Future writers have found inspiration in Jo’s devotion to her writing. In this simple, enthralling tale, both parts of which are included here, Louisa May Alcott has created four of American literature’s most beloved women.
12.
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192420
Setting: England
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, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.
13.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192437
Setting: England
The terrible spectacle of the beast, the fog of the moor, the discovery of a body, this classic horror story pits detective against dog. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse. It is left to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to solve the mystery of the legend of the phantom hound before Sir Charles’ heir comes to an equally gruesome end.
14.
The Odyssey
by Homer
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192444
Setting: Greece
The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature. Confronted by natural and supernatural threats – shipwrecks, battles, monsters and the implacable enmity of the sea-god Poseidon – Odysseus must use his wit and native cunning if he is to reach his homeland safely and overcome the obstacles that, even there, await him.
15.
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192451
Setting: England, Treasure Island (many places claim to be the inspiration for this setting; including locations in Cuba, the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Scotland, the United States of America, Trinidad and Tobago)
The story grew out of a map that led to imaginary treasure, devised during a holiday in Scotland by Stevenson and his nephew. The tale is told by an adventurous boy, Jim Hawkins, who gets hold of a treasure map and sets off with an adult crew in search of the buried treasure. Among the crew, however, is the treacherous Long John Silver who is determined to keep the treasure for himself. Stevenson’s first full-length work of fiction brought him immediate fame and continues to captivate readers of all ages.
16.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192468
Setting: England, Wonderland
‘I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole without the least idea what was to happen afterwards,’ wrote Dodgson, describing how Alice was conjured up one ‘golden afternoon’ in 1862 to entertain his child-friend Alice Liddell. In the magical world of Wonderland and the back-to-front Looking-Glass kingdom, order is turned upside-down: a baby turns into a pig; time is abandoned at a tea-party; and a chaotic game of chess makes a 7-year-old a Queen.
17.
Emma
by Jane Austen
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192475
Setting: England
Beautiful, clever, rich – and single – Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen’s most flawless work.
18.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
by D.H. Lawrence
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192482
Setting: England
Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to her husband’s gamekeeper and embarks on a passionate affair that brings new life to her stifled existence. Can she find a true equality with Mellors, despite the vast gulf between their positions in society? One of the most controversial novels in English literature, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is an erotically charged and psychologically powerful depiction of adult relationships.
19.
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192499
Setting: England
The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens’s tale of childhood innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled by vivid and memorable characters – the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely newkind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.
20.
The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint
by William Shakespeare
Published: 1st October 2009
ISBN: 9780141192574
Setting: Unknown (likely England)
When this volume of Shakespeare’s poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The 154 sonnets – all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man or a treacherous ‘dark lady’ – contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. Also included is A Lover’s Complaint, originally published with the sonnets, in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2010
21.
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings
by Charles Dickens
Published: 25th November 2010
ISBN: 9780141195858
Setting: England
After reading Christmas Carol, the notoriously reculsive Thomas Carlyle was “seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality” and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas spirit, and about the season as a time for celebration, charity, and memory.
22.
Inferno: The Divine Comedy I
by Dante
Published: 25th November 2010
ISBN: 9780141195872
Setting: Hell
Describing Dante’s descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonizing torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all. For it is only by encountering Satan, in the heart of Hell, that he can truly understand the tragedy of sin.
23.
Gulliver’s Travels
by Johnathan Swift
Published: 25th November 2010
ISBN: 9780141196640
Setting: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, Houyhnhnm
Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters – with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos – give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift’s savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves.
Penguin Clothbound Classics: India Special Editions
24.
The Qur’an
by Tarif Khalidi (Translator)
Published: 2nd September 2010
ISBN: 9780670084173
Literally “the recitation,” The Qur’an is considered within the Muslim faith to be the infallible word of God. Tarif Khalidi, the foremost scholar of Islamic history and faith, provides a fresh English translation that captures the startling, exquisite poetry of one of the world’s most beloved religious texts. Retaining the structure and rhythms of the original Arabic, Khalidi enlivens the ancient teachings and prophetic narratives central to the Muslim faith and solidifies The Qur’an as a work of spiritual authority and breathtaking beauty.
25.
The Ramayana
by Valmiki, Arshia Sattar (Translator)
Published: 2nd September 2010
ISBN: 9780670084180
Setting: India and surrounds (such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan)
One of India’s greatest epics, the Ramayana pervades the country’s moral and cultural consciousness. Believed to have been composed by Valmiki sometime between the eighth and sixth centuries BC, the Ramayana tells the tragic and magical story of Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, an incarnation of Lord Visnu, born to rid the earth of the terrible demon Ravana. An idealized heroic tale, the Ramayana is also an intensely personal story of family relationships, love and loss, duty and honour, of harem intrigue, petty jealousies and destructive ambitions – all this played out in a universe populated by larger-than-life humans, gods, wondrous animals and terrifying demons.
26.
The Mahabharata
by John D. Smith (Translator)
Published: 2nd September 2010
ISBN: 9780670084159
Setting: India
The Mahabharata is the story of two warring factions of cousins – 100 demons in human form against five sons of gods. Woven into this epic martial tale of great and bloody battles are numerous narrative digressions and much religious instruction – including the wisdom of Bhisma, give from a deathbed of arrows, and the legendary Bhagavadgita, spoken by Krsna on the very verge of war. The enactment of eternal conflicts, it is also a vital Hindu text on the nature of dharma – the right way for each person to live his or her life, and the only way to secure an improved lot in future births.
27.
The Bhagavad Gita
by Juan Mascaro (Translator)
Published: 2nd September 2010
ISBN: 9780670084166
Setting: India
The Bhagavad Gita, a scintillating jewel embedded in the great Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, is a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna set against the background of war. At the beginning of the poem, we learn that there is going to be a great war for the rule of a kingdom. On the battlefield, with armies of the Kuru clan ranged against each other, Arjuna and Krishna explore the necessity of war and the nature of the human soul. The eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita encompass the whole spiritual struggle of a human soul, and the central themes of this immortal poem arise from the symphonic vision of God in all things and of all things in God.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2011
28.
Dracula
by Bram Stoker
Published: 2nd June 2011
ISBN: 9780141196886
Setting: Transylvania (modern-day Romania), England
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 discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the ‘Master’ and his imminent arrival. In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.
29.
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens
Published: 2nd June 2011
ISBN: 9780141196909
Setting: France, England
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.
30.
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
Published: 2nd June 2011
ISBN: 9780141196893
Setting: England
George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as ‘one of the few English novels written for adult people’.
31.
Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
Published: 6th October 2011
ISBN: 9780141198354
Setting: England
As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens’s most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.
32.
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
Published: 6th October 2011
ISBN: 9780141198347
Setting: England
Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and family with facts, he bans fancy and wonder from any young minds. As a consequence his obedient daughter Louisa marries the loveless businessman and ‘bully of humanity’ Mr Bounderby, and his son Tom rebels to become embroiled in gambling and robbery. And, as their fortunes cross with those of free-spirited circus girl Sissy Jupe and victimized weaver Stephen Blackpool, Gradgrind is eventually forced to recognize the value of the human heart in an age of materialism and machinery.
33.
Persuasion
by Jane Austen
Published: 3rd November 2011
ISBN: 9780141197692
Setting: England
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 Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortunenor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen’s last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.
34.
Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen
Published: 3rd November 2011
ISBN: 9780141197708
Setting: England
Taken from the poverty of her parents’ home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle’s absence in Antigua, the Crawford’s arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen’s first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.
35.
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
Published: 3rd November 2011
ISBN: 9780141197715
Setting: England
During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine’s love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and and optimistic of Jane Austen’s works.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2012
36.
Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense: Collected Poems
by Lewis Carroll
Published: 6th September 2012
ISBN: 9780141195940
Setting: Looking-Glass World
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe…’ wrote Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, in his wonderfully playful poem of nonsense verse, Jabberwocky. This beautiful, clothbound new edition collects together the marvelous range of Carroll’s poetry, including nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques, and more. Alongside the title piece are such enduringly wonderful pieces as ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, ‘The Mock Turtle’s Song’, ‘Father William’ and many more.
37.
Les Miserables
by Victor Hugo
Published: 25th October 2012
ISBN: 9781846140495
Setting: France
Victor Hugo’s tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, 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, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Inspector Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
38.
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas
Published: 29th November 2012
ISBN: 9780141392462
Setting: France, Italy, Greece, Constantinople (modern Turkey)
A beautiful clothbound edition of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge. Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of the Château d’If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2013
39.
Vanity Fair
by William Thackeray
Published: 7th March 2013
ISBN: 9780141199542
Setting: England, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany
In William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, no one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles – military and domestic – are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honorable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray’s gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.
40.
Moby Dick
by Herman Mellville
Published: 26th September 2013
ISBN: 9780141199603
Setting: United States of America, Portugal, South Africa, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan
In Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab is an eerily compelling madman who focuses his distilled hatred and suffering (and that of generations before him) into the pursuit of a creature as vast, dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. More than just a novel of adventure, this is a haunting social commentary populated with some of the most enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith and the nature of perception.
41.
Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
Published: 26th September 2013
ISBN: 9780141393384
Setting: England
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 very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy’s novel of swiftpassion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.
42.
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
Published: 3rd October 2013
ISBN: 9780141393391
Setting: Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, England, Ireland, Scotland and the North Pole
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. This chilling gothic tale, begun when Mary Shelley was just nineteen years old, would become the world’s most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.
43.
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer
Published: 26th September 2013
ISBN: 9780141393216
Setting: England
In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight’s account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath’s Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook.
44.
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy
Published: 28th November 2013
ISBN: 9780141199610
Setting: Russia, Italy, Germany
Anna Karenina seems to have everything – beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life – and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.
45.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
Published: 31st October 2013
ISBN: 9780141199573
Setting: United States of America
Mark Twain’s tale of a boy’s picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft conveyed the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work had done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the ‘sivilizing’ Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series of adventures that draw him to feuding families and the trickery of the unscrupulous ‘Duke’ and ‘Dauphin’. Beneath the exploits, however, are more serious undercurrents – of slavery, adult control and, above all, of Huck’s struggle between his instinctive goodness and the corrupt values of society, which threaten his deep and enduring friendship with Jim.
46.
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
Published: 28th November 2013
ISBN: 9780141393407
Setting: England, Morocco, Brazil, Trinidad, Portugal, Spain
Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the power and originality of Defoe’s famous book. Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being. First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe has been praised by such writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Johnson as one of the greatest novels in the English language.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2014
47.
Metamorphases
by Ovid
Published: 3rd April 2014
ISBN: 9780141394619
Setting: Unnamed
Ovid’s sensuous and witty poetry brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation – often as a result of love or lust – where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light-hearted, dramatic yet playful, the Metamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes.
48.
The Jungle Books
by Rudyard Kipling
Published: 3rd April 2014
ISBN: 9780141394626
Setting: India
The story of Mowgli, the man-cub who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters such unforgettable creatures as the bear Baloo, the graceful black panther Bagheera and Shere Khan, the tiger with the blazing eyes. Other animal stories in The Jungle Books range from the dramatic battle between good and evil in ‘Rikki-tikki-tavi’ to the macabre comedy ‘The Undertakers’. With The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling drew on ancient beast fables, Buddhist philosophy and memories of his Anglo-Indian childhood to create a rich, symbolic portrait of man and nature, and an eternal classic of childhood.
49.
Paradise Lost
by John Milton
Published: 1st May 2014
ISBN: 9780141394633
Setting: Heaven, Hell, The Garden of Eden
In Paradise Lost Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties – blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution – Paradise Lost’s apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, or exposes the cruelty of Christianity.
50.
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
Published: 1st May 2014
ISBN: 9780141394640
Setting: England
This is the novel Dickens regarded as his ‘favourite child’ and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experiences from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are Rosa Dartle, Dora, Steerforth, and the ‘umble Uriah Heep, along with Mr Micawber, a portrait of Dickens’s own father which evokes a mixture of love, nostalgia and guilt. Dickens’s great Bildungsroman (based, in part, on his own boyhood) is a work filled with life, both comic and tragic.
51.
The Pearl
by John Steinbeck
Published: 7th August 2014
ISBN: 9780141394688
Setting: Mexico
The Pearl is Steinbeck’s flawless parable about wealth and the evil it can bring. When Kino, an Indian pearl-diver, finds ‘the Pearl of the world’ he believes that his life will be magically transformed. He will marry Juana in church and their little boy, Coyotito, will be able to attend school. Obsessed by his dreams, Kino is blind to the greed, fear and even violence the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors. Haunting and lyrical, The Pearl sets the values of the civilized world against those of the primitive and finds them tragically inadequate.
52.
Love and Friendship: And Other Youthful Writings
by Jane Austen
Published: 25th September 2014
ISBN: 9780140433340
Setting: England
Jane Austen’s earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into human folly, and a preoccupation with manners, morals and money. But they are also a product of the eighteenth century she grew up in – dark, grotesque, often surprisingly bawdy, and a far cry from the polished, sparkling novels of manners for which she became famous. Drunken heroines, babies who bite off their mother’s fingers, and a letter-writer who has murdered her whole family all feature in these very funny pieces.
53.
The Portrait of A Lady
by Henry James
Published: 6th November 2014
ISBN: 9780141394664
Setting, England, Italy, United States of America
When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy her freedom, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a rich prize waiting to be taken. In this portrait of a ‘young woman affronting her destiny’, Henry James created one of his most magnificent heroines, and a story of intense poignancy.
54.
The Illiad
by Homer
Published: 6th November 2014
ISBN: 9780141394657
Setting: Troy (modern Turkey)
The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization – an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture. The story centers on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus’ killing of Hektor and determine the fate of Troy. But Homer’s theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2015
55.
The Travels
by Marco Polo
Published: 26th February 2015
ISBN: 9780141198774
Setting: Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, India, Italy
Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book. His account of his travels offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad: unfamiliar religions, customs and societies; the spices and silks of the East; the precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts of faraway lands. Evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy, Marco’s book revolutionized western ideas about the then unknown East and is still one of the greatest travel accounts of all time.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2016
56.
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Published: 7th January 2016
ISBN: 9780241265543
Setting: Russia
At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon’s army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants to soldiers and Napoleon himself. In War and Peace, Tolstoy entwines grand themes – conflict and love, birth and death, free will and faith – with unforgettable scenes of nineteenth-century Russia, to create a magnificent epic of human life in all its imperfection and grandeur.
57.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Anne Bronte
Published: 28th January 2016
ISBN: 9780241198957
Setting: England
Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behaviour becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that the truth is revealed and the shocking details of the disastrous marriage she has left behind emerge. Told with great immediacy, combined with wit and irony, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful depiction of a woman’s fight for domestic independence and creative freedom.
58.
Villette
by Charlotte Bronte
Published: 25th February 2016
ISBN: 9780241198964
Setting: England, Belgium or France
With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls’ boarding school in the small town of Villette. There, she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, the hostility of headmistress Madame Beck, and her own complex feelings – first for the school’s English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë’s autobiographical novel, the last published during her lifetime, is a powerfully moving study of loneliness and isolation, and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.
59.
Naked Lunch
by William S Burroughs
Published: 6th October 2016
ISBN: 9780241284636
Setting: United States of America, Mexico, Morocco, Interzon
Nightmarish and fiercely funny, William Burroughs’ virtuoso, taboo-breaking masterpiece Naked Lunch follows Bill Lee through Interzone: a surreal, orgiastic wasteland of drugs, depravity, political plots, paranoia, sadistic medical experiments and endless, gnawing addiction. One of the most shocking novels ever written, Naked Lunch is a cultural landmark, now in a restored edition incorporating Burroughs’ notes on the text, alternate drafts and outtakes from the original.
60.
Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
Published: 6th October 2016
ISBN: 9780241281901
Setting: Jamaica, Dominica, England
Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness, and her husband into the arms of another novel’s heroine. This classic study of betrayal, a seminal work of postcolonial literature, is Jean Rhys’s brief, beautiful masterpiece.
61.
Orlando
by Virginia Woolf
Published: 27th October 2016
ISBN: 9780241284643
Setting: England, Turkey
Orlando has always been an outsider… His longing for passion, adventure and fulfillment takes him out of his own time. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to the modern world. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian Princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey – a nobleman, traveller, writer? Man or… woman?
62.
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
Published: 6th October 2016
ISBN: 9780241284667
Setting: United States of America
A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern – this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city’s fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, 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…
63.
Brideshead Revisited
by Evelyn Waugh
Published: 20th October 2016
ISBN: 9780241284629
Setting: England, Italy, Morocco, United States of America
The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh’s novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder’s infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian Flyte at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize his spiritual and social distance from them.
64.
The Day of the Triffids
by John Wyndham
Published: 6th October 2016
ISBN: 9780241284674
Setting: England
When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor shower. Now, with civilization in chaos, the triffids – huge, venomous, large-rooted plants able to ‘walk’, feeding on human flesh – can have their day…
65.
Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 1
by Marcel Proust
Published: 24th November 2016
ISBN: 9780241205921
Setting: France
Proust’s masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator’s experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics. This first volume includes Swann’s Way and Within a Budding Grove.
66.
Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 2
by Marcel Proust
Published: 24th November 2016
ISBN: 9780241205945
Setting: France
Proust’s masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator’s experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics. This second volume includes The Guermantes Way and Cities of the Plain.
67.
Remembrance of Things Past: Volume 3
by Marcel Proust
Published: 24th November 2016
ISBN: 9780241205969
Setting: France
Proust’s masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator’s experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics. This third volume includes The Captive, The Sweet Cheat Gone and Time Regained.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2017
68.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
by Jules Verne
Published: 27th April 2017
ISBN: 9780241198773
Setting: United States, Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, Mediterranean and Red Seas
In this thrilling adventure tale by the ‘Father of Science Fiction’, three men embark on an epic journey under the sea with the mysterious Captain Nemo aboard his submarine the Nautilus. Over the course of their fantastical voyage, they encounter the lost city of Atlantis, the South Pole and the corals of the Red Sea, and must battle countless adversaries both human and monstrous. Verne’s triumphant work of the imagination shows the limitless possibilities of science and the dark depths of the human mind.
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2018
69.
Don Quixote
by Miguel Cervantes
Published: 5th July 2018
ISBN: 9780241347768
Setting: Spain
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading romances of chivalry that he determines to become a knight errant and pursue bold adventures, accompanied by his squire, the cunning Sancho Panza. As they roam the world together, the aging Quixote’s fancy leads them wildly astray, tilting at windmills, fighting with friars, and distorting the rural Spanish landscape into a fantasy of impenetrable fortresses and wicked sorcerers. At the same time the relationship between the two men grows in fascinating subtlety. Often considered to be the first modern novel, Don Quixote is a wonderful burlesque of the popular literature its disordered protagonist is obsessed with.
70.
The Mayor of Casterbridge
by Thomas Hardy
Published: 6th September 2018
ISBN: 9780241347775
Setting, England
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
71.
The Ring of the Nibelung
by Richard Wagner
Published: 7th June 2018
ISBN: 9780241305850
Setting: Germany
The scale and grandeur of Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung has no precedent and no successor. It preoccupied Wagner for much of his adult life and revolutionized the nature of opera, the orchestra, the demands on singers and on the audience itself. The four operas – The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods – are complete worlds, conjuring up extraordinary mythological landscapes through sound as much as staging.
72.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 6th September 2018
ISBN: 9780241347782
Setting: England
This collection includes many of the famous cases – and great strokes of brilliance – that made the legendary Sherlock Holmes one of fiction’s most popular creations. With his devoted amanuensis, Dr Watson, Holmes emerges from his smoke filled rooms in Baker Street to grapple with the forces of treachery, intrigue and evil in such cases as ‘The Speckled Band’, in which a terrified woman begs their help in solving the mystery surrounding her sister’s death, or ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, which portrays a European king blackmailed by his mistress. In ‘Silver Blaze’ the pair investigate the disappearance of a racehorse and the violent murder of its trainer, while in ‘The Final Problem’ Holmes at last comes face to face with his nemesis, the diabolical Professor Moriarty – ‘the Napoleon of crime’.
Updates
These are the new titles and upcoming releases to keep track of this ever expanding collection:
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2018
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, ISBN: 9780241382707 (Published 6th December 2018)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2019
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, ISBN: 9780241382691 (Published 4th July 2019)
Tales from 1001 Nights, ISBN: 9780241382714 (Published 5th September 2019)
Sandition by Jane Austen, ISBN: 9780241436585 (Published 12th September 2019)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2020
Around The World In 80 Days by Jules Verne, ISBN: 9780241468654 (To be published November 2020)
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, ISBN: 9780241468647 (To be published November 2020)
The Aeneid by Virgil, ISBN: 9780141994222 (To be published November 2020)
Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman, 1SBN: 9780241472729 (To be published October 2020)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2021
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, ISBN: 9780241453513 (Published 7th January 2021)
Animal Farm by George Orwell, ISBN: 9780241453865 (Published 7th January 2021)
Monkey King by Wu Cheng’en, ISBN: 9780141393445 (Published 11th February 2021)
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon, ISBN: 9780241504123 (Published 3rd June 2021)
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, ISBN: 9780241508664 (Published 2nd December 2021)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2022
Ulysses by James Joyce, ISBN: 9780241552636 (Published 27th January 2022)
On the Road by Jack Kerouac, ISBN: 9780241552643 (Published 3rd March 2022)
The Outsider by Albert Camus, ISBN: 9780241554401 (Published 2nd June 2022)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, ISBN: 9780241552650 (Published 8th Nov 2022)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2023
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, ISBN: 9780241552667 (Published 26th January 2023)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, ISBN: 9780241552674 (Published 2nd March 2023)
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, ISBN: 9780241638439 (Published 7th September 2023)
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, ISBN: 9780241552681 (Published 7th September 2023)
Penguin Clothbound Classics 2024
Please note: not all of these titles for 2024 are available for pre-order in some regions, see links for more details.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, ISBN: 9780241655566 (Published January 4th 2024)
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov, ISBN: 9780241638422 (To be published 28th March 2024)
Tinker Taylor Solider Spy by John le Carré, ISBN: 9780241685143 (To be published 27th June 2024)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, ISBN: 9780241655573 (To be published 4th July 2024)
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, ISBN: 9780241689646 (To be published 26th September 2024)
Note: Other titles will be added here as soon as we know about them!
What do you think of these Penguin Clothbound Classics?
Which one is your favorite? Do you own any of these beautiful books? How many Penguin Clothbound Classics do you have in your collection? Are you trying to collect them all? What would you like to see released in future editions? I’d love to hear about more about your thoughts on the Penguin Clothbound Classics in the comments below!
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49 comments
My dream is to have The Waves by Virginia Woolf in Clothbound Edition
Hi Blazej, that would be beautiful indeed! Who knows what might come next? While I haven’t seen it as a Penguin Clothbound Classic just yet, I quite like the beautiful designs of this edition and this one too! 🙂
Thanks for this! I’ve been wanting to start collecting beautiful editions like these but I didn’t want to start this series if there were already a bunch out of print. It sounds like most still are. 🙂 I’m going to tell my family that I need these for Christmas and my birthday now. 🙂
Hi Chrissy, thanks for commenting! The good news is that you can still get your hands on most of these beautiful Penguin Clothbound Classics. I like your thinking too, I’ve also requested a few of these for Christmas over the years myself. Wishing you all the best with your collection! 🙂
This is an amazing list. One I’ve looked for for years. It does though have two I know of missing. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli which are both designed also by Coralie Bickford-Smith.
Hi Steven, thanks so much! I’ve kept this little list in my notebook for years, so I’m glad I finally shared it! The two books you mention were designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith indeed, but are part of a different series by Penguin called Great Ideas. These non-fiction titles cover philosophical, political, and psychological thought. In case you are interested, here are the titles in that series!
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
The Nature of Things by Lucretius
Confessions by Augustine of Hippo
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
After reading this page I am pretty sure see you are a follower of mine @Goodreads’ Penguin Clothbound Classics Group! 😉
Hi Carlijn, it’s nice to meet you! I’m not a follower (though I should be!) however I do recognize you from your petition for a reprint of ‘Crime and Punishment’, congratulations on making it happen! I’m always so happy to meet other Penguin Clothbound collectors. Are you based in the Netherlands? 🙂
I’m rather disappointed that the printable tick off list link doesn’t work – it’s just a button to subscribe.
Hi Immi, sorry you’re having trouble with the download! Once you’ve subscribed with your email, you receive login details that give you access to the resource library; home to all the printable checklists! 🙂
I am having the same issue. I have subscribed but I can’t access any of the ‘free resources’… Very sad.
Hi Ben, sorry to hear you’re having issues! I see you’re subscribed and received the login details via email. Please just let me know if still have any problems accessing the library! 🙂
Same issue here. I confirmed my email address signed in and it still takes me to the sign up everytime I click on resources.
Hi Sorrel, I’m sorry so hear you’re having trouble accessing the resource library. When you first signed up, the welcome email included your login details for the resource library – which is home to all the printable lists! I’ve sent you a follow up email with your login details too. 🙂
As a reader who tries to limit the number of books that I acquire to those that I intend to keep for years, there are two things that I consider paramount when purchasing a hardcover book: the quality of the paper and the type of binding. Neither the Penguin website nor any review of the cloth-bound classics series that I have read mentions either of these qualities. Does anyone know what type of binding the books in this series have, or what type of paper is used in their production? Thank you.
Hi Gustave, thanks so much for your comment, you’ve raised a great question! I’m not an expert on binding, so I’m hoping a fellow reader can help you out with your query here. 🙂
Hello
I don’t see the 6 foil covered Fitzgerald Penguin Classics listed?
Also, she designed 6 Trollope novels for the AU market?
She also designed larger volumes..1001 Tales of Aladdin and Stories of the Unknown… Poetry of Love… etc way before this series started?
Finally it looks like she might be doing foiled cover Le Carre novels too?
Hi Jeffrey, thanks for your comment! The above post is about only one of many series that Coralie Bickford-Smith has designed. You’re quite right, she has designed many more beautiful series in addition to these. You can see many of her covers in her portfolio. Some of those you’ve mentioned include:
F Scott Fitzgerald Penguin Classics by Coralie Bickford Smith (which I’m very lucky to own!)
The Beautiful and Damned – 9780141194073
This Side of Paradise – 9780141194097
The Last Tycoon – 9780141194080
Flappers and Philosophers – 9780141194103
The Great Gatsby – 9780141194059
Tender is the Night – 9780141194066
Tales Of The Jazz Age – 9780141197470
And some others you mention:
The Trollope Series are part of the Penguin English Library, which consists of over 100 titles.
Tales from 1001 Nights – 9780141191652
Penguin’s Poems for Love – 9781846141690
The Night Manager by John Le Carre – 9780241291252
Thank you for putting this list together! I own about half of this beautiful collection. Your list helped me create an Amazon wish list so I can purchase (or be gifted!) the rest.
Hi Rebekah! Thanks for commenting. I’m always so happy to meet another collector! I’m really glad the list was helpful, it helps me keep track of my own collection too. Wishing you the best of luck with your (hopefully expanding) collection! 🙂
Hello. Love love your website and this article is a particular favourite. I’m having difficulty accessing the free resources so I can print this list. I’ve subscribed but can’t seem to find anywhere to login with this info to access? Any help would be awesome.
Hi Soph! Thanks so much for your kinds words, I’m so happy to hear you like the site; you’ve made my day! I’ve just sent you an email to follow up with your login details, please just let me know if you have any further problems logging in. Happy Reading! 🙂
Hi Ash. Love love the website, particularly this article. Im having difficulty downloading the checklist. I have subscribed but can’t access the free resources nor find a login? Any help would be awesome.
Hi Soph, think you sent me two comments here! Have followed up via email, just let me know if you have any further troubles! 🙂
They need to finish the Divine Comedy (Purgatorio and Paradiso). Breaks my heart to only have 1/3 of it.
Hi Stefano, thanks for commenting. I have my fingers crossed for you! Who knows what might come next? 🙂
Yes, I completely agree that it is a real oversight not to have Purgatorio and Paradiso to complete the set, since Inferno was published in 2010. 10 years and still waiting. Boo!
Hi Dee, you’re certainly not alone! Fingers crossed, who knows what the future might hold? 🙂
I love this collection. I have most of them. Do you know if there are any new releases planned for 2020?
Hi Antonia, I love this collection too! I’ve just updated the list with a release I’d missed from last year. At this stage, I don’t know of any releases for 2020 just yet, but will add them to the list as soon as I do! 🙂
Thanks Ash for coming back to me. I would love to see some E.M Forster, Mrs Radcliffe and some more George Eliot included in this fabulous collection Happy reading
Hey Ash, great list – this has been so helpful in starting my collection. Wanted to give you a heads-up in case you hadn’t seen but I believe they have announced at least one release for 2020 now (Around The World In 80 Days) – not sure about any others, just noticed they had it on pre-order at Waterstones!
Hi Chris, so happy to hear it has been helpful! Thanks so much for letting me know about the new release, looks like we’ll be getting four new titles towards the end of the year. I’ve updated the post accordingly. Best of luck with your collection! 🙂
I could have sworn I saw Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin as a cloth-bound edition at a store once. I have a vague memory of it being decorated with a baby stroller pattern, some upside down others upright. Am I thinking of another cover?
Hi Chris, I’ve never seen that one before! I did a little research and haven’t been able to find it myself. Could it possibly be part of another series? Please do let us know if you unearth it! 🙂
Thank you so much for creating this list. It’s nice to know that I have all of them!! They’re the only thing I collect, and I love them!! One thing…what about the original Penguin Clothbound Series by Coralie? People might like to know about that as well:
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson: 9780713996418
Penguin’s Poems for Life: 9780713999617
Penguin’s Poems for Love: 9781846141690
Penguin’s Poems for Weddings: 9780141394695
Tales from 1,001 Nights: 9780141191652
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: 9780713999525
The Tibetan Book of the Dead: 9780713994148
Hi Alison, thanks so much for putting this list together and sharing it with us! I’ve added links to help others find them online. Coralie has designed so many beautiful covers over the years. I’m envious of your impressive collection, you must have such an incredible library! 🙂
Have just started collecting these… I hope to treat myself to a couple each month… would love some more sci-fi type titles such as Ray Bradbury, & also EM Forster ‘Room with a View’ would be wonderful.
Hi Jo! Wishing you all the best with your collection, I feel like that’s the perfect way to slowly build up your bookshelf 🙂
Just to let you know I’ve seen that 1984 and The Animal Farm are for pre-order on Waterstones for 7/1/2021! You probably already know this but thought I’d let you know 🙂 Love this btw
Hi Liv! Thanks so much for letting me know, I really appreciate it. So exciting! I’ve updated the list accordingly 🙂
I have all except the Quran. I can’t find it anywhere and have been actively looking for several years. Do you know where I can get it?
Hi Lindi, it’s a difficult title to find indeed! As that title was originally released in India, it might be worth contacting some local bookstores there. You could try my favorite bookstore in New Delhi – Full Circle Bookshop at Khan Market – which is sadly closing it’s doors and currently relocating to Meherchand Market. You could also try contacting Penguin India. Best of luck! 🙂
Hi
This is a fantastic list.
Do you have it available as a printable list with the titles, ISBN and year published?
If there isn’t one, would you be able to create one please?
Kind Regards
Felicia
Hi Felicia, thanks for your kind words. If you register via the free resources link, there is a printable which includes these titles. As the collection is ever-expanding and it is difficult to keep up, the list is based upon the original article! 🙂
Hello, and sorry if this has already been mentioned. Does anybody have tips or tricks to remove the price tags at the back so that it doesn’t manage the pattern? It’s so frustrating to have such beautiful books ruined by such a silly thing! However, newer editions seems to be coming with a paper band on the back instead of a price sticker.
Thank you for this list!
Valentina
Hi Valentina! This is such a good question! I’ve had quite a few of my books damaged in this way and I would love to know if anyone has any tips or tricks to avoid it. Fingers crossed the paper bands are continued with the newer editions!
Now penguin pub announced that new 12 titles has been added to this collection. Could you please add all the books with covers to your list ???
Hi Parisa, thanks so much for your comment! It’s a little delayed, but I’ve just added the new Penguin Clothbound Classics titles for 2022 and 2023 to the list. I only have a few titles for each year, am I missing some from the list of 12 titles you’ve mentioned? Would love if you could share anything I might have missed!