Little Clothbound Classics
55 books in this series
Passing
Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.
Clare Kendry, elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, is married to a white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage. When she reunites with childhood friend Irene, who has not hidden her origins, both women are forced to confront the secret fears they have buried within themselves. A taut exploration of race and gender, Passing is one of the Harlem Renaissance's greatest works.
'A tragic story rooted in inescapable facts of American life' The New York Times
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.
Clare Kendry, elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, is married to a white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage. When she reunites with childhood friend Irene, who has not hidden her origins, both women are forced to confront the secret fears they have buried within themselves. A taut exploration of race and gender, Passing is one of the Harlem Renaissance's greatest works.
'A tragic story rooted in inescapable facts of American life' The New York Times
The Prophet
In this inspirational, allegorical guide, Al Mustafa the prophet delivers spiritual yet practical homilies on the work of living: beauty, truth, possessions, sorrow, joy, death and more. Translated into more than fifty of languages and among the best-selling books of all time, The Prophet remains a wise and revitalising handbook for the soul.
The Queen Of Spades
A countess with a card trick; love letters filled with deception; a desperate man with a pistol.'The Queen of Spades', one of Pushkin's most popular and chilling stories, is accompanied here by the thrilling 'Dubrovsky' and unforgettable 'Tales of Belkin'.
Carmilla
Laura leads a secluded life in a castle buried deep in the Austrian forest, far away from the dangers of the outside world. That is until a horse and carriage crashes nearby one night, and she and her father take in a weary, young traveller – Carmilla. As mysterious as she is beguiling, Carmilla weaves her way into Laura’s heart. Life proves less lonely with a friend. But sinister things start happening as the girls become closer, and the forest isn’t the safe haven it once was.
Sheridan Le Fanu’s nineteenth-century gothic tale was the first vampire novella. It paved the way for a literary tradition of female and lesbian vampires, and, before Dracula, explored the boundaries of sex and death. Still as chillingly alluring today as it was when it was written in 1871-2, Carmilla now joins Penguin’s Little Clothbound Classics series.
Sheridan Le Fanu’s nineteenth-century gothic tale was the first vampire novella. It paved the way for a literary tradition of female and lesbian vampires, and, before Dracula, explored the boundaries of sex and death. Still as chillingly alluring today as it was when it was written in 1871-2, Carmilla now joins Penguin’s Little Clothbound Classics series.
The Raven
'Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.'
Uncanny and strange, Poe's writing defied convention, shocked readers, and confounded critics. This selection of his poetry and short stories demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which Poe probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The title poem, perhaps Poe's most famous work, follows a man's terrifying descent into madness after the loss of a lover, when he receives an unexpected visitor one bleak December night.
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.'
Uncanny and strange, Poe's writing defied convention, shocked readers, and confounded critics. This selection of his poetry and short stories demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which Poe probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The title poem, perhaps Poe's most famous work, follows a man's terrifying descent into madness after the loss of a lover, when he receives an unexpected visitor one bleak December night.
A Christmas Memory
Selected from across Capote's writing life, the stories in this volume range from nostalgic portraits of childhood to more unsettling works that reveal the darkness beneath the festive glitter. In the Deep South of Capote's youth, a young boy, Buddy, and his beloved maiden 'aunt' Sook forage for pecans and whisky to bake into fruitcakes, make kites – too broke to buy gifts – and rise before dawn to prepare feasts for a ragged assembly of guests; it is Sook who teaches Buddy the true meaning of goodwill. In other stories, an unlikely festive miracle, of sorts, occurs at a local drugstore; an eccentric young girl dreams of Hollywood; and a lonely woman has a troubling encounter in wintry New York. Brimming with feeling, these sparkling tales convey both the wonder and the chill of Christmas time.
Notes from Underground
'That sense of the meaninglessness of existence that runs through much of twentieth-century writing – from Conrad and Kafka, to Beckett and beyond – starts in Dostoyevsky's work' Malcolm Bradbury
Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the 'anthill' and his gradual withdrawal from society. A masterly tragi-comic study of human consciousness, translated by Ronald Wilks.
Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the 'anthill' and his gradual withdrawal from society. A masterly tragi-comic study of human consciousness, translated by Ronald Wilks.