http://www.penguin.co.uk Listing of Penguin Classics books http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140446814,00.html The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent, and is a major text of Hinduism. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140443622,00.html 'If history is deprived of the truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale' In writing his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire, the Greek statesman Polybius (c. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140447323,00.html Deeply affected by the turmoil of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era, many of the great German Romantics adopted the Kunstmarchen or 'literary fairytale' to express their fascination with mystery, mediaevalism and the darker side of human nature. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140440607,00.html 'Nero was already corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural' The Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus to the death of Nero in AD 68. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140447200,00.html Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills... Goethe was probably the last true 'Renaissance Man'. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140187977,00.html We are in Harlem, the black soul of New York City, in the era of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. The narrator of Baldwin's novel is Tish nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail accused of rape. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141183404,00.html 'My real writing was put aside when I set out in search of the erotic. These are my adventures in that world of prostitution' In her first volume of erotic writings, Delta of Venus, Anais Nin explored the nature of female sexuality. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140422955,00.html Although the date of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is uncertain, and we know nothing about the author, its composition is roughly contemporary with Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in the latter part of the fourteenth century. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140447590,00.html 'Anyone who does not hear the song of the nightingale knows none of the joys of this world' Marie de France ( fl. late twelfth century) is the earliest known French woman poet and her lais - stories in verse based on Breton tales of chivalry and romance - are among the finest of the genre. http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140435191,00.html In The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved (1892) and The Well-Beloved (1897), Hardy writes two different versions of a strange story set in the weird landscape of Portland.