Penguin Clothbound Classics presents beautiful gift-worthy hardcover editions of beloved classic literature. Each book has a minimal and unique cover design, and award-winning designer Coralie Bickford-Smith designs them. Coralie’s talent gives these books a modern, elegant look. When you see them at a book store, I am pretty sure you would want to buy the entire collection at that moment!
Moreover, Penguin Clothbound Classics are the literary classics; everyone should have them in their library. My first book from this collection was Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” After that, I started collecting these beautifully designed books.
What are the Best Books from Penguin Clothbound Classics?
For me, almost every book from this collection is the best! But if I need to make a top-five list, I would choose Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
Below, you will find almost fifty beautiful books from Penguin Clothbound Classics! Mostly, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, however, you can judge these books by their covers!
This magnificent new clothbound edition of Tolstoy’s epic novel about love, destiny, and self-destruction is available from Penguin Classics. It would appear that Anna Karenina has it all: beauty, wealth, popularity, and a son who everyone adores. However, she has the impression that her life is meaningless until she meets the impulsive officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair causes a scandal in society as well as in their family, and it quickly brings about feelings of jealousy and resentment. In contrast to this story of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man who is looking for contentment and meaning in his life. Levin is also a self-portrait of Tolstoy, as he is depicted in the story as someone searching for these things in his life. The PEN and Book of the Month Club Translation Prize were awarded to Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky in 2001 for their acclaimed and contemporary translation of the work. In this edition, their translation is accompanied by an introduction written by Richard Pevear as well as a preface written by John Bayley. “The new and brilliantly witty translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is an absolute necessity,” wrote Lisa Appignanesi for the Independent’s Books of the Year list. “Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English,” wrote James Wood in the New Yorker. “Their superb rendering allows us,” wrote Wood, “to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy’s “characters, acts, and situations.”
Chaucer is credited with creating one of the most important works in the canon of English literature with his collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories, and low farce known as The Canterbury Tales. The occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight’s account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath’s Arthurian legend to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook is a storytelling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life. This competition is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight’s account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath’s Nevill Coghill’s masterful and vivid translation of Chaucer’s Middle English into modern English verse is rendered with consummate skill to retain all of the vigor and poetry of Chaucer’s Middle English from the fourteenth century.
A stunning new clothbound edition of the infamous work of horror fiction written by Mary Shelley, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, who has won multiple awards for her work. These delightful and collectible Penguin editions have been bound in high-quality, colorful, and textured cloth, and foil stamping has been incorporated into the design. Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with the idea of creating life itself, so he scavenges graveyards for the materials to create a new being, which he then brings to life by shocking it with electricity. However, Frankenstein’s messed-up creation, after being shunned by its creator and denied the company of humans, decides to exact revenge on Frankenstein and everything he holds dear. This terrifying gothic tale, which was begun by Mary Shelley when she was just nineteen years old, would go on to become the most famous work of horror fiction in the world, and it continues to be a devastating investigation of the limits to which human creativity can be pushed. In addition, “A Fragment” by Lord Byron and “The Vampyre: A Tale” by John Polidori are included in this edition, as well as an introduction and notes. At the age of sixteen, Mary Shelley (1797-1851), whose parents were influential thinkers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, ran away with her poet father, Percy Shelley. Mary’s novel Frankenstein was based on her experiences. After those three years had passed, Shelley would go on to become famous for penning her masterpiece, Frankenstein, during a rainy summer on Lake Geneva. The years of her marriage were marred by the deaths of three of her four children, and in 1822, another tragedy occurred when Percy Shelley drowned in Italy. Her marriage was marred by tragedy from beginning to end. After her husband passed away, Mary Shelley returned to England and continued to travel and write until her own passing at 53.
These delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colorful, and tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. They are part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, which the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith designed. Bathsheba Everdene, a strong-willed and independent woman, has relocated to Weatherbury in order to take up a position as a farmer on the largest estate in the neighborhood. Her bold presence attracts three suitors who couldn’t be more dissimilar to one another: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier and seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each in their unique way disturbs her decisions and makes her life more difficult, ultimately resulting in a tragedy that jeopardizes the security of the entire community. Hardy’s novel’s swift passion and slow courtship are the first of his works to be set in Wessex. It is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes and unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.
The story of Moby-Dick is partly about an eerily compelling madman who wages an unholy war against a creature that is just as vast, dangerous, and unknowable as the ocean itself. Moby-Dick is more than just an adventure novel. It is also more than just an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend. Instead, it is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary that is populated with several of the most memorable and enduring characters in the history of literature. Moby-Dick is a profound and timeless investigation into personality, faith, and the nature of perception, and it is written with wonderful humor that has a redemptive message.
This edition includes the most up-to-date version of the Moby-Dick text, which is based on the Northwestern-Newberry edition. Additionally, it includes an introduction written by Andrew Delbanco as well as an explanatory commentary written by Tom Quirk.
Over the course of more than seventy years, Penguin has maintained its position as the preeminent publisher of works of canonical literature in the global English-speaking market. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works from all periods of history and across all genres and fields of study. Readers have faith that the series will provide them with authoritative texts that have been augmented by introductions and notes written by renowned academics and contemporary authors, in addition to translations that have been brought up to date by translators who have won awards.
Edmond Dantes is confined to the gloomy fortress of If because he was falsely accused of committing a crime for which he was not responsible. There, he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo, and he becomes determined not only to escape but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men who are responsible for his incarceration. He learns of the treasure while he is imprisoned on the island. In the 1840s, when it was first published in serial form, Alexandre Dumas’s epic story of suffering and retribution, which was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was an enormous popular success.
The lively English translation that Robin Buss did is both complete and unabridged, and it stays true to the style of the original work by Dumas. This edition consists of an introduction, notes explaining the text, and recommendations for additional reading.
Over the course of more than seventy years, Penguin has maintained its position as the preeminent publisher of works of canonical literature in the global English-speaking market. Penguin Classics has more than 1,700 titles and represents a global bookshelf of the most important and influential works from all time periods, literary traditions, academic fields, and other categories. Readers have faith that the series will provide authoritative texts that have been augmented by introductions and notes written by renowned academics and contemporary authors, in addition to translations that have been brought up to date by translators who have won awards.
Les Misérables, written by Victor Hugo and adapted into a major musical film by Tom Hooper, who won an Academy Award for directing The King’s Speech, also stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Anne Hathaway. Sacha Baron-Cohen, Amanda Seyfried, and Helena Bonham-Carter also appear in the film. Les Misérables is considered to be one of the greatest works of western literature. In Victor Hugo’s story about injustice, heroism, and love, the protagonist, Jean Valjean (played by Hugh Jackman), is an escaped convict who is determined to put his criminal past in the past. Hugo’s novel is set in nineteenth-century France. But his efforts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: first, by his own conscience, when, as a result of a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and second, by the persistent investigations of the tenacious Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). Valjean must remain free, but it is not just for himself that he must do so. He has made a solemn vow to protect the young daughter of Fantine (Anne Hathaway), who was forced into prostitution due to financial difficulties. Victor Hugo (1802–1855) is best known for his novels, particularly Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), also known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and Les Misérables (1862), which was adapted into one of the most successful musicals in the history of the genre. Hugo wrote volumes of criticism, Romantic costume dramas, satirical verse, and political journalism during his lifetime, but he is best known for his novels. “Every human life is here,” he said. The producer of the musical Les Misérables, Cameron Mackintosh, is “One of the top six books ever written in the history of the world.” Upton Sinclair referred to him as “a great writer” and called him “inventive, witty, sneaky, and innovative.” Author of the book “Possession,” A. S. Byatt
These exquisite and collectible editions are published as a part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series. Designed by the multi-award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, the series features editions that are bound in high-quality, colorful, and tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Catherine Morland, then young and naive, has her first taste of the pleasures that come with being a part of fashionable society during an exciting season in Bath. She is overjoyed with the new people she has met, particularly the vivacious Isabella, who, like Catherine, is a fan of gothic romance and horror, as well as the refined Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s enigmatic home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine’s imagination is stoked there by books filled with suspense and scandal, and she begins to concoct horrifying scenarios in which General Tilney is the perpetrator. This is the most upbeat and youthful of all of Jane Austen’s works, thanks to its lively comedy and unstoppable protagonist.
These exquisite and collectible editions are published as a part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series. Designed by the multi-award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, the series features editions that are bound in high-quality, colorful, and tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Fanny Price is removed from the impoverished environment of her parents’ home in Portsmouth and placed in the care of her wealthy cousins at Mansfield Park. She grows up acutely aware of her lowly status and relies solely on Edmund, her cousin, for support. When her uncle was away in Antigua, her aunt and uncle’s cousins, the Crawfords, moved into the neighborhood, bringing with them the glitz and glamour of London life and a taste for reckless flirtation. Many people consider Mansfield Park to be Jane Austen’s first mature work. It is also widely regarded as one of the author’s most profound works because of its understated heroine and nuanced examination of social position and moral integrity.
Persuasion
At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen’s last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.
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.
