This is the second of a new two-volume edition of the works of Descartes in Penguin Classics. This volume is designed for...

A major writer and a leading figure in the public life of Rome, Seneca (c. 4BC-AD 65) ranks among the most eloquent and...

A new selection of post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gough's letters, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh put a human face on...

A slave who represented his masters in court and negotiations, Aesop relied on allegorical animal stories, collected here in The...

One of the central texts of the Middle Ages, The Golden Legend deeply influenced the imagery of poetry, painting and stained...

During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of...

Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be...

Aristotle's probing inquiry into some of the fundamental problems of philosophy, The Metaphysics is one of the classical Greek...

Before publishing the sensuous and scandalous poems of Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) had already earned respect...

Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, singlehandedly responsible for popularising the...

Set towards the end of the reign of Henry II of France, The Princesse de Cleves (1678) tells of the unspoken, unrequited love...

Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously...

Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist...

Unfinished at the time of Marx's death in 1883 and first published with a preface by Frederick Engels in 1894, the third volume...

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital...

'A groundbreaking work of economic analysis. It is also a literary masterpice' Francis Wheen, Guardian

One of the most...

The dazzling and exuberant moral stories of Rabelais (c. 1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene...

Turgenev's first major prose work is a series of twenty-five Sketches: the observations and anecdotes of the author during his...

In these two devastating late works, Nietzsche offers a powerful attack on the morality and the beliefs of his...

With the emergence of democracy in the city-state of Athens in the years around 460 BC, public speaking became an essential skill...

These short works, ranging from Tolstoy's earliest tales to the brilliant title story, are rich in the insights and passion that...

A key work in the German 'Sturm und Drang' movement, Johann Goethe's autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young...

Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto in the thirteenth century, Vasari traces the development of Italian art across three centuries...

This major collection demonstrates the extent to which Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an inspiration to the Americans in their...

In A Discourse on Inequality Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man’s natural happiness and...

Between 58 and 50BC Caesar conquered most of the area now covered by France, Belgium and Switzerland, and twice invaded Britain....

Probably written by a student of Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution is both a history and an analysis of Athens' political...

Few figures in intellectual history have proved as notorious and ambiguous as Niccolo Machiavelli. But while his treatise The...

Gerald of Wales was among the most dynamic and fascinating churchmen of the twelfth century. A member of one of the leading...

Raising questions that are as relevant to modern society as they were to the ancient world, Aristotle's The Politics remains...