Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. This new collection brings together the famous poems that made his name as a defining figu
An eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs' Guardian
'Not only Lewis's most important book but one of the most important books ever produced in the United States' New Yorker
A vain, o
Saki is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England's 'Golden Afternoon' - the slow and peaceful years before the First World War. Although, like so many of his generation, he died tragically you
Including a previously-unpublished story 'The Bargain', Truman Capote's The Complete Stories is the first ever complete collection stories from one of the masters of American literature, and the auth
This volume brings together Freud's main contributions to the psychology of love. His illuminating discussions of the ways in which sexuality is always psychosexuality - that there is no sexuality wi
Shirley Jackson's masterpiece: the deliciously dark and funny story of Merricat, tomboy teenager, beloved sister - and possible lunatic.
'Her greatest book ... at once whimsical and harrowing, a m
A warm and witty novel in which a Faustian pact leads to an unconventional love triangle
Serial philanderer Jonathan Fitch is distraught when his girlfriend Serafina leaves him. In a desperate sta
'She understands Karma, she says: "What I do, I reap"'
Her name means sadness, yet Tristessa, a prostitute and morphine addict, lives without cares in her shabby room with a menagerie of pets and
Harry Goldfarb, heroin addict and son of lonely widow Sara, cares only about enjoying the good life with girlfriend Marion and best friend Tyrone C Love, and making the most of all the hash, poppers
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life'
Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will alway
'A masterpiece ... a moving image of post-war Poland, and the first breathing of one of the essential voices of the twentieth century... the master of literary reportage' The Times Literary Supplemen
Elie Wiesel's harrowing first-hand account of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, Night is translated by Marion Wiesel with a preface by Elie Wiesel in Penguin Modern Classics.
Born int
A story of sexual and spiritual awakening, Tropic of Capricorn shocked readers as much as Henry Miller's first novel, Tropic of Cancer. A mixture of fiction and autobiography, it is the story of Henr
Walter Mitty is an ordinary man living an ordinary life. But he has dreams - vivid, extraordinary day dreams - in which the life he leads is one of excitement and even adventure, in which he - a wear
'The most esteemed philosopher to have produced a general introduction to his discipline since Bertrand Russell' Independent
In these essays, one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth ce
Eugene Gant, born in 1900 to hard-drinking stone-cutter Oliver and entrepreneurial Eliza, grows up in small-town America. Both lonely outsider and passionate chronicler of American life, Eugene exper
'His first novel is a revelation ... the writing is vivid, serious and extraordinary ... wonderful' The Times
The Sea is My Brother is Jack Kerouac's very first novel, begun shortly after his tour
Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Ro
Andy Warhol kept these diaries faithfully from November 1976 right up to his final week, in February 1987. Written at the height of his fame and success, Warhol records the fun of an Academy Awards p
A philosophical exploration of the idea of 'rebellion' by one of the leading existentialist thinkers, Albert Camus' The Rebel looks at artistic and political rebels throughout history, from Epicurus
Folks, life is beautiful! Bring on the drinks, I'm sticking around till I'm ninety! Do you hear? A young boy grows up in a sleepy Czech community where little changes. His raucous, mischievous Uncle
A Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age - The New York Times
Stanislaw Lem's set of short stories, written over a period of twenty years, all feature the adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy and
A remarkable collection of dark, funny and haunting short stories from the inimitable author of 'The Lottery'.
An anxious devil, an elderly writer of poison pen letters and a mid-century Jack the
Steinbeck's first major critical and commercial success, Tortilla Flat is also his funniest novel.
Danny is a paisano, descended from the original Spanish settlers who arrived in Monterey, Califor
A chemist by training, Primo Levi became one of the supreme witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In these haunting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table, he ranges from young
Carson McCullers' prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely
Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he is separated from h
Holly Golightly, glittering socialite traveller, generally upwards, sometimes sideways and once in a while down. She's up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She's a shoplifter, a del
From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happie
In this thoughtful and moving novel, four men find themselves inextricably bound together by their past histories. The aged Judge Clane dreams of resurrecting the confederacy, while his grandson, Jes