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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

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John Polidori

‘Twilight, in these southern climates, is almost unknown; immediately the sun sets, night begins’ 
 
Danger lurks in the dead of night. Written during the infamous gathering that also produced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, John Polidori’s short story ‘The Vampyre’ travels across countries, twists and turns through treacherous forests, and reveals the perils of staying out after dark. It is accompanied here by two other classic tales of the vampire genre, by Karl Adolf von Waschmann and Bram Stroker.

The Vampyre

H G Wells

'A ghastly groan and a shudder....'

The Sea Raiders

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?' 
 
A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer. 
 
One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

White Nights

The Brothers Grimm

'Then she began to run, and she ran over the sharp stones and through the thorns, and the wild animals bounded past her ...' 
 
Four weird, dark and enchanting fairy-tales from the Brothers Grimm. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Jacob Ludwig Karl (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Karl (1786-1859) are the Brothers Grimm. Their Selected Tales are also available in Penguin Classics.

The Robber Bridegroom

Mary Kingsley

'While engaged on this hunt I felt the earth quiver under my feet, and heard a soft big soughing sound, and looking round saw I had dropped in on a hippo banquet...' 
 
Told with verve and self-mocking wit, the adventures of doughty female Victorian explorer Mary Kingsley describe stumbling upon five hippos by night, dodging elephants and fighting off a leopard with a stool. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Mary Kingsley (1862-1900). Kingsley's work is available in Penguin Classics in Travels in West Africa.

A Hippo Banquet

Kate Chopin

'At night, among the reeds on the bayou, Chicot could still hear the woman's wail, mingled now with the croaking of the frogs...' 
 
From one of the most daring writers of fin-de-siècle America, five stories of awakening that range from Louisiana's plantations and poverty-stricken bayous to its gilded cities. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Kate Chopin (1850-1904). The Awakening and Selected Stories and At Fault are available in Penguin Classics.

A Pair of Silk Stockings

Gustave Flaubert

'She decided she would teach him to speak and he was very soon able to say, 'Pretty boy!', 'Your servant, sir!' and 'Hail Mary!''

A Simple Heart

'I will go in, out of this dust and heat, out of this dry glitter of vanity, out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return.' 
 
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 celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
H. G. Wells (1866-1946). Wells's works available in Penguin Classics are Ann Veronica, The Country of the Blind and Other Selected Stories, The First Men in the Moon, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Kipps, Love and Mr Lewisham, A Modern Utopia, The New Machiavelli, The Shape of Things to Come, A Short History of the World, The Sleeper Awakes, The Time Machine, Tono-Bungay, The War in the Air and The War of the Worlds.

A Slip Under the Microscope

Leo Tolstoy

Although he feared death, he could not stop. 'If I stopped now, after coming all this way - well, they'd call me an idiot!'

How Much Land Does A Man Need?

Johann Peter Hebel

'The devil gave the woman a nudge: "Look at that belt full of money peeping out from under the butcher's shirt!"' 
 
Written for a local German journal and published in 1811, these fabulous, funny, jewel-like miniature tales describe con men, tricksters, disasters, murders, rascals and lovers, and include Franz Kafka's favourite story. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826). Hebel's The Treasure Chest is available in Penguin Classics.

How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher's Dog

Katherine Mansfield

'And again, as always, he had the feeling he was holding something that never was quite his - his. Something too delicate, too precious, that would fly away once he let go.' 
 
Three sharp and powerful short stories from Katherine Mansfield, one of the genre's all-time masters. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923). Mansfield's works available in Penguin Classics are The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield and The Garden Party and Other Stories.

Miss Brill

Honoré de Balzac

'This is as much a mystery as the Immaculate Conception, which of itself must make a doctor an unbeliever.'

The Atheist's Mass

Henry James

'Did she know and if she knew would she speak?' 
 
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 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Henry James (1843-1916). James's works available in Penguin Classics are The Portrait of a Lady, 
The Europeans, What Maisie Knew, The Awkward Age, The Figure in the Carpet and Other Stories, The Turn of The Screw, The Aspern Papers and Other Tales, The Wings of The Dove, Washington Square, The Tragic Muse, Daisy Miller, The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, Selected Tales, Roderick Hudson, The Princess Casamassima and The American.

The Figure in the Carpet

Rudyard Kipling

'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 and shocking stories of northwest India, where he grew up. This is just a small selection from his inexhaustibly contentious and various early work. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). Kipling's works available in Penguin Classics are Captains Courageous, Just So Stories, Kim, Plain Tales from the Hills, Selected Poems, The Jungle Books and The Man Who Would Be King: Selected Stories.

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows

Charles Dickens

'Desperate-minded villain!' 
 
Two of Dickens' hilarious early stories from Sketches by Boz: 'The Great Winglebury Duel' and 'Bloomsbury Christening' 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Charles Dickens (1812-1870). All Dickens' novels and other major works are available in Penguin Classics.

The Great Winglebury Duel

Ryunosuke Akutagawa

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.' 
 
Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927). Akutagawa's Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories is also available in Penguin Classics.

The Life of a Stupid Man

Herman Melville

'No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss.' 
 
Stories and poems by Herman Melville drawn from his years at sea 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Herman Melville (1819-1891). Melville's works available in Penguin Classics are Moby-Dick, Pierre, The Confidence-Man, Omoo, Redburn, Israel Potter and Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories.

The Maldive Shark

Nikolay Gogol

'Strangely enough, I mistook it for a gentleman at first. Fortunately I had my spectacles with me so I could see it was really a nose.'

The Nose

Edith Wharton

'If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature.' 
 
Two moving stories of love, loss, desire and divorce, from one of the great chroniclers of nineteenth-century New York life. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Edith Wharton (1862-1937). Wharton's works available in Penguin Classics are Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and The House of Mirth.

The Reckoning

Edgar Allan Poe

'Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was a groan of mortal terror ... the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul.' 
 
Stories about murder, mystery and madness, portraying the author's feverish imagination at its creative height. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Poe's works available in Penguin Classics are The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe and The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Hans Christian Andersen

'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 hearts of children and adults for their beauty, sorrow and strangeness.

The Tinderbox

Joseph Conrad

'It was as if the sea, breaking down the wall protecting all the homes of the town, had sent a wave over her head' 
 
One of Conrad's most powerful, gripping stories 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Secret Sharer and Other Stories, Typhoon and Other Stories and Under Western Eyes are available in Penguin Classics.

To-morrow

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

A Dance to the Music of Time

A Fairy Tale Revolution

A Frank Grasby Mystery

A Guide For the Curious

A Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea

A Jo Birmingham Thriller

A Jon Roscoe Thriller

A Ladybird Book

A Ladybird Magic Windows Book

A Look Back at

A Luke Carlton Thriller

A Max Mingus Thriller

A Michael Bennett Thriller

A Midge McGowan Mystery

A Mitchum Thriller

A Moneybunny Book

A Murder Most Unladylike Collection

A Murder Most Unladylike Mini Mystery

A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

A Nigel Strangeways Mystery

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