Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

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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

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

Charlotte Brontë

'Reader, if you're ready, so am I.' 
 
These witty vignettes, set in Charlotte Brontë's imaginary world of Angria, feature debauched aristocrats, high-society courtesans and the rakish, brooding hero Zamorna, and offer a fascinating insight into Brontë's early writing. 
 
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.

Stancliffe's Hotel

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?

Jane Austen

'She has many rare and charming qualities, but Sobriety is not one of them.'

The Beautifull Cassandra

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

Dante Alighieri

'Happiness beyond all words! A life of peace and love, entire and whole!' 
 
A collection of cantos from Paradiso, the most original and experimental part of the Divina Commedia. 
 
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.

Love That Moves the Sun and Other Stars

Aphra Behn

'We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues . . .' 
 
Spy, traveller and pioneering female writer Aphra Benn's story of an African prince sold into slavery is considered one of the earliest English novels

Oroonoko

Robert Louis Stevenson

'Is it me you love, friend? or the race that made me?' 
 
A gothic novella about love, torment and doomed aristocracy, set in the remote mountains of Spain. 
 
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. 
 
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Stevenson's works available in Penguin Classics are An Apology for Idlers, The Black Arrow, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, In the South Seas, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, Treasure Island and Selected Poems.

Olalla

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

' "She's an adventuress. Yes, an adventuress, but an end-of-the-century one. She doesn't travel for profit, but for pleasure." ' 
 
Offering an entertaining introduction to the fin-de-siècle, this selection from the notorious magazine The Yellow Book includes stories and poems by famous writers such as Arnold Bennett and John Buchan, brilliant pieces by lesser-known writers such as Ada Leverson and Ella D'Arcy, and illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. 
 
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.

The Yellow Book

Margery Kempe

'And then he, completely astonished at her words, left off his lewdness, saying to her as many a man had done before, "Either you are a truly good woman or else a truly wicked woman." ' 
 
Brave, outspoken and guaranteed to annoy people wherever she went - including exasperated fellow pilgrims in Jerusalem and her long-suffering husband - Margery Kempe was one of the most vivid and unforgettable voices of the Middle Ages. Whether travelling alone, getting herself arrested or having visions of marrying Jesus, Margery repeatedly defied feminine convention - and also managed to compose the first autobiography in English, despite being unable to read or write. 
 
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.

How To Be a Medieval Woman

George Eliot

'Why did she stand before me with the candle in her hand, with her cruel contemptuous eyes fixed on me, and the glittering serpent, like a familiar demon, on her breast?' 
 
In this dark novella of Victorian horror, George Eliot explores clairvoyance, fate and the possibility of life after death. 
 
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.

The Lifted Veil

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing' 
 
Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalized nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'I could see that she was still terribly afraid, but I didn't soften anything; instead, seeing that she was afraid I deliberately intensified it.' 
 
In this short story, Dostoyevsky masterfully depicts desperation, greed, manipulation and suicide. 
 
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. 
 
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881). Dostoyevsky's works available in Penguin Classics are Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Double, The Gambler and Other Stories, The Grand Inquisitor, Notes From The Underground, Netochka Nezvanova, The House of The Dead, The Brothers Karamazov and The Village of Stepanchikovo.

The Meek One

Longus

'This only they knew, that the kiss had destroyed him and the bath had destroyed her.' 
 
In this beautiful Ancient Greek tale, Daphnis and Chloe are the inexperienced goatherd and shepherd who must face pirates, rivals and the confusion of their own feelings to find true love. 
 
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.

Daphnis and Chloe

Leonid Andreyev

'It was like walking along the knife-edge of the highest possible mountain range, seeing life on one side and death on the other in the form of two deep, gorgeous and gleaming seascapes.' 
 
This astonishing novella from 1908, newly translated for Little Black Classics by War and Peace translator Anthony Briggs, probes the emotions and experiences of seven people condemned to death in Tsarist Russia. A powerful and subtle exploration of the morality of capital punishment, it was a bestseller at the time, and, in a strange quirk of history, influenced the conspirators in the cataclysmic assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. 
 
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.

Seven Hanged

Geoffrey Chaucer

'Those husbands that I had, 
Three of them were good and two were bad. 
The three that I call "good" were rich and old...'

The Wife of Bath

Sappho

'Yes, we did many things, then - all 
Beautiful ...' 
 
Lyrical, powerful poems about love, sexuality, sun-soaked Greece and the gods. 
 
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. 
 
Sappho (c.630-570 BCE). Sappho's Stung with Love is available in Penguin Classics.

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