Books published by publisher The Classic Book

Mark Twain’s tale of a boy’s picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft conveyed the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work has done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the ‘sivilizing’ Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series of adventures that draw him to feuding families and the trickery of the unscrupulous ‘Duke’ and ‘Daupin’. Beneath the exploits, however, are more serious undercurrents — of slavery, adult control and, above all, of Huck’s struggle between his instinctive goodness and the corrupt values of society, which threaten his deep and enduring frienship with Jim.All modern American literature comes from… “Huckleberry Finn”. It’s the best book we’ve had. —Ernest HemingwayProbably the most stupendous event of my whole life. —Henry Louis Mencken[Huck is] one of the permanent symbolic figures of fiction, not unworthy to take a place with Ulysses, Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet… —T. S. EliotThe mark of how good ‘Huckleberry Finn’ has to be is that one can compare it to a number of our best modern American novels and it stands up page for page, awkward here, sensational there — absolutely the equal of one of those rare incredible first novels that come along once or twice in a decade. —Norman MailerThe first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs. —William Faulkner

Considered lurid and shocking by mid-19th-century standards, Wuthering Heights was initially thought to be such a publishing risk that its author, Emily Brontë, was asked to pay some of the publication costs.Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine’s father. After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine’s brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.A fiend of a book — an incredible monster... The action is laid in hell, — only it seems places and people have English names there. —Dante Gabriel RossettiA monument of the most striking genius that nineteenth-century womanhood has given us. —Clement ShorterThe greatest work of fiction by any man or woman Europe has produced to date. —Anthony LudoviciThere is no “I” in ‘Wuthering Heights’. There are no governesses. There are no employers. There is love, but it is not the love of men and women. Emily was inspired by some more general conception. The impulse which urged her to create was not her own suffering or her own injuries. She looked out upon a world cleft into gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book. —Virginia Woolf

Hailed as one of the greatest novels of all time and a classic of world literature, War and Peace unfolds in the early nineteenth century during the turbulent years of the Napoleonic invasion of Russia. Tolstoy's epic ranges from stirring depictions of historical events to intimate portraits of family life, moving between public spectacles and private lives to offer a tale of both panoramic scope and closely observed detail.From the breathless excitement of 16-year-old Natasha Rostov's first ball, to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky's epiphany on the battlefield at Austerlitz, the novel abounds in memorable incidents, particularly those involving Pierre Bezukhov. A seeker after moral and spiritual truths, Pierre and his search for life's deeper meaning stand at the heart of this monumental book. A tale of strivers in a world fraught with conflict, social and political change, and spiritual confusion, Tolstoy's magnificent work continues to entertain, enlighten, and inspire readers around the world.

Through the story of the brilliant but conflicted young Raskolnikov and the murder he commits, Fyodor Dostoyevsky explores the theme of redemption through suffering. “Crime and Punishment” put Dostoyevsky at the forefront of Russian writers when it appeared in 1866 and is now one of the most famous and influential novels in world literature.The poverty-stricken Raskolnikov, a talented student, devises a theory about extraordinary men being above the law, since in their brilliance they think “new thoughts” and so contribute to society. He then sets out to prove his theory by murdering a vile, cynical old pawnbroker and her sister. The act brings Raskolnikov into contact with his own buried conscience and with two characters — the deeply religious Sonia, who has endured great suffering, and Porfiry, the intelligent and discerning official who is charged with investigating the murder — both of whom compel Raskolnikov to feel the split in his nature. Dostoyevsky provides readers with a suspenseful, penetrating psychological analysis that goes beyond the crime — which in the course of the novel demands drastic punishment — to reveal something about the human condition: The more we intellectualize, the more imprisoned we become.

Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Presented by the Online Stage.Frances Hodgson Burnett's heartwarming novel about an idealistic and impoverished American child who unexpectedly finds himself transplanted into the English aristocracy has long been considered a true classic of children's fiction.Young Cedric lives with his widowed mother in New York. His late father was a British earl who had been disowned by his father for marrying an American. As all of the earl of Dorincourt's sons have now died, he begrudgingly looks to Cedric as his sole heir. While the earl soon comes to love the endearing little Cedric, conflict arises when a strange woman appears on the scene and insists that her son is the true heir.

The archetypal Victorian melodrama, as heartfelt and moving today as when it was first published, Charles Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop is edited with notes and an introduction by Norman Page in Penguin Classics.Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant bestseller that captured the hearts of the nation, even as it was criticised for its sentimentality by figures such as Oscar Wilde. Yet alongside the story's pathos are some of Dickens's greatest comic and grotesque creations: the ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller, the mannish lawyer Sally Brass, the half-starved 'Marchioness' and the lustful, loathsome Quilp himself.This edition, based on the original text of 1841, contains an introduction by Norman Page discussing the various contrasting themes of the novel and its roots in Dickens's own personal tragedy, with prefaces to the 1841 and 1848 editions, a chronology, notes and original illustrations produced for the serial version.Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. His most famous books, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers, have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions.If you enjoyed The Old Curiosity Shop, you might like Dickens's Hard Times, also available in Penguin Classics.

Set in sixteenth-century England, Mark Twain’s classic “tale for young people of all ages” features two identical-looking boys—a prince and a pauper—who trade clothes and step into each other’s lives. While the urchin, Tom Canty, discovers luxury and power, Prince Edward, dressed in rags, roams his kingdom and experiences the cruelties inflicted on the poor by the Tudor monarchy.

Anthem by Ayn Rand As Ayn Rand's predecessor to her later works, Atlas Shrugged, and, The Fountainhead, Anthem is a dystopian novella set in a dark and frightening future. In the world of Anthem, individuality has ceased to exist. The main character, Equality 7-2521 reacts against the collectivist society and searches for a way to escape. Written and originally published more than a decade before George Orwell's 1984, Anthem is a thought-provoking look at what it means for society to adopt Socialist policies.

This fascinating account was written as the events of Lincoln's assassination unfolded, and contains insight into the chaos that surrounded it. Included are interesting details of Booth and his motives, the manhunt, as well as the speedy trial and execution of the conspirators, including the first ever woman executed by the federal government, Mary Surratt.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a short story by Washington Irving contained in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., written while he was living in Birmingham, England, and first published in 1820. With Irving's companion piece "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is among the earliest examples of American fiction still read today.