In Henry IV, Part 1, the King is in a doubly ironic position. His rebellion against Richard II was successful, but now he himself is beset by rebels, led by the charismatic Harry Hotspur. The King&...
The Diary of a Nobody is so unassuming a work that even its author, George Grossmith, seemed unaware that he had produced a masterpiece. For more than a century this wonderfully comic portrayal of ...
Candide (1759) is a bright, colourful literary firework display of a novella. With sparkling wit and biting humour, Voltaire hits several targets with fierce and comic satire: organised religion, t...
These three wonderful comic novels drolly record the battle between Lucia and Elisabeth Mapp for social and cultural supremacy in the village of Tilling (based on Rye). Their constant skirmishes en...
Lucia is one of the great comic characters in English literature. Outrageously pretentious, hypocritical and snobbish, Queen Lucia, ‘as by right divine’ rules over the toy kingdom of &l...
Richard II is one of Shakespeare’s finest works: lucid, eloquent, and boldly structured. It can be seen as a tragedy, or a historical play, or a political drama, or as one part of a vast dram...
In 1915, Lawrence's frank representation of sexuality in The Rainbow caused a furore and the novel was seized by the police and banned almost as soon as it was published. Today it is recognised as ...
"I did have hallucinations, but did they harm anyone? Who did they harm, that's what I'd like to know!'From the supreme artist of the short story, three disturbing tales of superna...
'No true Democracy has ever existed, nor ever will exist.'In this selection from The Social Contract, Rousseau asserts that a state's only legitimate political authority comes from its ...
Throughout my life I have achieved many remarkable things. In Screw It, Let's Do It, I will share with you my ideas and the secrets of my success, but not simply because I hope they'll help you ach...
Jeśli szukasz podręcznika, który podpowie Ci, jak poprawnie pisać po angielsku i jak formułować w tym języku własne myśli – "Angielski. Wzory wypracowań i słownictwo" wydawni...
The history of Sun Tzu's book, The Art of War, spans more than two millennia in the East. It has been the primary vade mecum of Generals, Kings, and Emperors since China's Warring States period in...
The Secret Passageway is a tale of three ordinary children who discover an extraordinary world. This world is filled with strange people and even stranger animals. The sky is green and the grass...
The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus'A selection of Darwin's extraordinary adventures during the voyage of the BeagleIntroducing Little Black Cl...
'Oh, good God,' he kept saying with great relish. 'Good God...''Gooseberries' is accompanied here by 'The Kiss' and 'The Two Volodyas' - three exquisite depictions of love and loss in nineteenth-ce...
'Mind you, it was a pukka, respectable opium-house, and not one of those stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas that you can find all over the City.'Kipling first became famous for his pungent, harsh ...
'There sat the dog with eyes as big as mill wheels'Though criticised for their anarchic immorality when first published, Hans Christian Andersen's tales made him an international star, taken to the...
Three disturbing, mysterious and moving stories from Wells, science-fiction pioneer.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebr...
The story of an unsolved literary mystery that explores what James referred to as "troubled artistic consciousness"Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80...