Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics

170 books in this series
Book cover of The Garden Party And Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

The Garden Party And Other Stories

This selection of stories by Katherine Mansfield has been chosen by Claire Tomalin and emphasize the stronger, feminist side of her writing rather than the popular, more sentimental view. The 21 stories are presented in chronological order and include "Prelude", "The Garden Party" and "At the Bay".
Book cover of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age, but as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion, where the party never seems to end, he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby's origins and desires.
Book cover of The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

The Leopard

In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.

W. Somerset Maugham is the Introducer to this beautiful Everyman's Library edition.
Book cover of A Passage To India by E M Forster

A Passage To India

Adela and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, and feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced British community. Determined to explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal.
Book cover of A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist's 'eternal imagination'.

Joyce expertly encapsulates the development of individual consciousness and the role of the artist in society in what is considered one of his greatest works.
Book cover of Sons And Lovers by D H Lawrence

Sons And Lovers

Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It traces emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and his suffocating relationships with a demanding mother and two very different lovers, which exert complex influences on the development of his manhood.
Book cover of To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

To The Lighthouse

Mr and Mrs Ramsay and their eight children have always holidayed at their summer house in Skye, surrounded by family friends. But as time passes, bringing with it war and death, the summer home stands empty until one day, many years later, the family return to make the long-postponed visit to the lighthouse
Book cover of Not Without Laughter, The Ways of White Folks, The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

Not Without Laughter, The Ways of White Folks, The Weary Blues

One of the most important writers to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance, Langston
Hughes may be best known as a poet, but he was also a brilliant storyteller, blending
elements of blues and jazz, speech and song, into a triumphant and wholly original idiom.
Perhaps more than any other writer, Langston Hughes made the white America of the
1920s and 1930s aware of the Black culture thriving in its midst. Hughes's poetry and
fiction works are messages from that America, sharply etched vignettes of its daily life,
cruelly accurate portrayals of Black and white collisions.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper,
with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers,
European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Book cover of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Half of a Yellow Sun

With effortless grace, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates in her second novel a
seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to
establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s.
We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters:
Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor
full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has
abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm, and Richard, a
shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s wilful twin sister Kainene. These
characters are pulled apart and thrown together in ways none of them imagined
possible. Half of a Yellow Sun is an electrifying modern masterpiece about the ways in
which love complicates everything.