Penguin Modern

Each little book in the Penguin Modern series offers a concentrated hit of its author’s work. In these pint-sized volumes, discover the ground-breaking writers who today define the radical spirit of Penguin Modern Classics.

Cover image for Of Dogs and Walls
Paperback

Of Dogs and Walls

Yuko Tsushima

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Though their house was new, the…

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Cover image for The Finger
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The Finger

William S. Burroughs

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘He felt a sudden deep pity…

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Cover image for Death the Barber
Paperback

Death the Barber

William Carlos Williams

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘The alphabet of the trees

is…

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Cover image for Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer
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Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer

Wendell Berry

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Do I wish to keep up…

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Cover image for The Duke in His Domain
Paperback

The Duke in His Domain

Truman Capote

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

Now Brando looked at people with…

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Cover image for Notes on Camp
Paperback

Notes on Camp

Susan Sontag

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘The ultimate Camp statement- it’s good…

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Cover image for Food
Paperback

Food

Gertrude Stein

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

Sadder than salad.

From apples to…

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Cover image for The Three Electroknights
Paperback

The Three Electroknights

Stanislaw Lem

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘What use to a being that…

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Cover image for The Missing Girl
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The Missing Girl

Shirley Jackson

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘ Of course, no one would…

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Cover image for Leaving the Yellow House
Paperback

Leaving the Yellow House

Saul Bellow

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

She had lived by delays; she…

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Cover image for The Survivor
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The Survivor

Primo Levi

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Back, away from here, drowned people…

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Cover image for Lance
Paperback

Lance

Vladimir Nabokov

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘The illegible signature of teetering disaster’

…

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Cover image for The Great Hunger
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The Great Hunger

Patrick Kavanagh

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘I have lived in important places…

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Cover image for Letter from Birmingham Jail
Paperback

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fifty new books, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

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Cover image for The Skeleton's Holiday
Paperback

The Skeleton’s Holiday

Leonora Carrington

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Ring for your maid, and when…

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Cover image for New York City in 1979
Paperback

New York City in 1979

Kathy Acker

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘INTENSE SEXUAL DESIRE IS THE GREATEST…

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Cover image for The Garden of Forking Paths
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The Garden of Forking Paths

Jorge Luis Borges

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Summer was drawing to a close…

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Cover image for The Vigilante
Paperback

The Vigilante

Mr John Steinbeck

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Everything was dead, everything unreal; the…

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Cover image for The Red Tenda of Bologna
Paperback

The Red Tenda of Bologna

John Berger

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘It’s an improbable city, Bologna -…

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Cover image for Dark Days
Paperback

Dark Days

James Baldwin

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

Drawing on his own experiences of…

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Cover image for Piers of the Homeless Night
Paperback

Piers of the Homeless Night

Jack Kerouac

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘See my hand up-tipped, learn the…

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Cover image for The Distance of the Moon
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The Distance of the Moon

Italo Calvino

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Time is a catastrophe, perpetual and…

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Cover image for Why Do You Wear a Cheap Watch?
Paperback

Why Do You Wear a Cheap Watch?

Hans Fallada

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘It was what we call in…

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Cover image for The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House
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The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House

Audre Lorde

From the self-described ‘black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet’, these soaring, urgent essays on the power of women, poetry and anger are filled with darkness and light.   

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Cover image for Notes on Nationalism
Paperback

Notes on Nationalism

George Orwell

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘The general uncertainty as to what…

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Cover image for Investigations of a Dog
Paperback

Investigations of a Dog

Franz Kafka

Fifty new books, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry.

‘If I think about it, and I have the…

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Cover image for I Have More Souls Than One
Paperback

I Have More Souls Than One

Fernando Pessoa

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘But no, she’s abstract, is a…

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Cover image for The Dialogue of Two Snails
Paperback

The Dialogue of Two Snails

Federico Garcia Lorca

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

My heart brims with billows and…

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Cover image for The Custard Heart
Paperback

The Custard Heart

Dorothy Parker

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘She felt a cozy solidarity with…

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Cover image for The Breakthrough
Paperback

The Breakthrough

Daphne Du Maurier

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

Dispatch the maimed, the old, the…

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Cover image for Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Lady
Paperback

Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Lady

Clarice Lispector

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘The morning became a long, drawn-out…

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Cover image for Africa's Tarnished Name
Paperback

Africa’s Tarnished Name

Chinua Achebe

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

He needed to hear Africa speak…

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Cover image for The Haunted Boy
Paperback

The Haunted Boy

Carson McCullers

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

His hand sought the adjacent flesh…

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Cover image for The Problem that Has No Name
Paperback

The Problem that Has No Name

Betty Friedan

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘What if she isn’t happy -…

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Cover image for Three Japanese Short Stories
Paperback

Three Japanese Short Stories

Ryunosuke Akutagawa,Kafu Nagai,Chiyo Uno

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Oh the cruelty of time, that…

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Cover image for The Veiled Woman
Paperback

The Veiled Woman

Anais Nin

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘What did she expect of him…

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Cover image for Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber
Paperback

Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber

Allen Ginsberg

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘Wives in the avocados, babies in…

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Cover image for Create Dangerously
Paperback

Create Dangerously

Albert Camus

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

‘To create today is to create…

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