Classics 2025

Canta'm, Musa, l'home, l'home de molts ardits, que va ser desviat una vegada i una altra del seu rumb, després d'haver saquejat les sagrades altures de Troia. Així comença la magnífica traducció de l'Odissea de Robert Fagles. Si la Ilíada és la gran epopeia bèl·lica del món, l'Odissea és la més grandiosa evocació literària del viatge de l'home comú al llarg de la vida. La confiança d'Odisseu en el seu enginy i la seva astúcia per sobreviure a les trobades amb forces divines i naturals, durant el seu viatge de deu anys de retorn a Ítaca després de la guerra de Troia, és alhora una història humana intemporal i una prova individual de resistència moral. En els mites i les llegendes que aquí es relaten de nou, Fagles ha captat l'energia i la poesia de l'original d'Homer en un llenguatge audaç i contemporani, i ens ha ofert una Odissea per llegir en veu alta, assaborir i estimar pel seu pur domini líric. La magnífica introducció i el comentari textual del reconegut hel·lenista Bernard Knox aporten noves perspectives i informació de context tant al lector general com a l'erudit, i intensifiquen la força de la traducció de Fagles. Aquesta és una Odissea que farà les delícies tant de l'especialista en clàssics com del gran públic, i captivarà una nova generació d'estudiants d'Homer. — Robert Fagles, guanyador de la Medalla PEN/Ralph Manheim de Traducció i d'un Premi de Literatura de l'American Academy of Arts and Letters el 1996, ens presenta el poema d'Homer més estimat i accessible en una esplèndida nova traducció en vers modern.

Ovid’s sensuous and witty poem, in an accessible translation by David Raeburn In Metamophoses, Ovid brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best\-known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light\-hearted, dramatic and yet playful, Metamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English\-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up\-to\-date translations by award\-winning translators.

Paní Bovaryová je debutový román francouzského spisovatele Gustava Flauberta, vydaný v roce 1856. Hrdinka žije nad poměry, aby unikla banalitě a prázdnotě provinčního života. Když román poprvé vycházel na pokračování v časopise La Revue de Paris mezi 1. říjnem 1856 a 15. prosincem 1856, veřejní žalobci jej napadli pro obscénnost. Následný soudní proces v lednu 1857 učinil příběh nechvalně proslulým. Po Flaubertově zproštění obžaloby 7. února 1857 se Paní Bovaryová stala bestsellerem, když v dubnu 1857 vyšla ve dvou svazcích. Román, stěžejní dílo literárního realismu, je dnes považován za Flaubertovo mistrovské dílo a za jedno z nejvlivnějších literárních děl v historii.

The tragedy of the Compson family features some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters—including Chaucer himself—are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales. If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.

The novel follows the adventures of an 18-year-old penniless Gascon, d'Artagnan, who comes to Paris to pursue a career in the Musketeers. He befriends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, musketeers serving King Louis XIII. These four men will oppose the Prime Minister, Cardinal Richelieu, and his agents, including the Count of Rochefort and the beautiful and mysterious Milady de Winter, in order to save the honor of the Queen of France, Anne of Austria. With its numerous sword fights and dramatic twists, The Three Musketeers is the quintessential swashbuckling novel, and its success was so great that Dumas himself adapted it for the theater and brought back the four heroes in the rest of the trilogy.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..." Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county's showpiece. Rebecca made it so - even a year after her death, Rebecca's influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter's shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow? A shadow that grows longer and darker as the brief summer fades, until, in a moment of climatic revelations, it threatens to eclipse Manderley and its inhabitants completely...

'He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp... his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter' Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward hyde; the hunt through fog\-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson's inventiveness within the Gothic tradition: 'Olalla', a tale of vampirism and tainted family blood, and 'The Body Snatcher', a gruesome fictionalization of the exploits of the notorious Burke and Hare. This edition contains a critical introduction by Robert Mighall, which discusses class, criminality and the significance of the story's London setting. It also includes an essay on the scientific contexts of the novel and the development of the idea of the Jekyll\-and\-Hyde personality.

Emma Woodhouse ist eine von Austens faszinierendsten und lebendigsten Figuren. Schön, verwöhnt, eitel und unbändig geistreich, organisiert Emma das Leben der Bewohner ihres verschlafenen kleinen Dorfes und spielt mit verheerender Wirkung Heiratsvermittlerin.

A story with no real beginning or end (it ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence), this "book of Doublends Jined" is as remarkable for its prose as for its circular structure. Written in a fantastic dream-language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most hilarious characters: the Irish barkeep Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Anna Livia Plurabelle. Joyce's final work, Finnegan's Wake is his masterpiece of the night as Ulysses is of the day. Supreme linguistic virtuosity conjures up the dark underground worlds of sexuality and dream. Joyce undermines traditional storytelling and all official forms of English and confronts the different kinds of betrayal - cultural, political and sexual - that he saw at the heart of Irish history. Dazzlingly inventive, with passages of great lyrical beauty and humour, Finnegans Wake remains one of the most remarkable works of the twentieth century.