Classic Literature
Upon the original publication of Beloved, John Leonard wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "I can't imagine American literature without it." Nearly two decades later, The New York Times chose Beloved as the best American novel of the previous fifty years. Toni Morrison's magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning work--first published in 1987--brought the wrenching experience of slavery into the literature of our time, enlarging our comprehension of America's original sin. Set in post-Civil War Ohio, it is the story of Sethe, an escaped slave who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has withstood savagery and not gone mad. Sethe, who now lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing apparition who calls herself Beloved. Sethe works at "beating back the past," but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly: in her memory; in Denver's fear of the world outside the house; in the sadness that consumes Baby Suggs; in the arrival of Paul D, a fellow former slave; and, most powerfully, in Beloved, whose childhood belongs to the hideous logic of slavery and who has now come from the "place over there" to claim retribution for what she lost and for what was taken from her. Sethe's struggle to keep Beloved from gaining possession of the present--and to throw off the long-dark legacy of the past--is at the center of this spellbinding novel. But it also moves beyond its particulars, combining imagination and the vision of legend with the unassailable truths of history.
A special 75th anniversary edition of Richard Wright's powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a new foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author's grandson.
When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that "if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy." Yet from 1975 to 1978, Black Boy was banned in schools throughout the United States for "obscenity" and "instigating hatred between the races."
Wright's once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him--whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he may his way north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end of Black Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to "hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo." Seventy-five year later, his words continue to reverberate. "To read Black Boy is to stare into the heart of darkness," John Edgar Wideman writes in his foreword. "Not the dark heart Conrad searched for in Congo jungles but the beating heart I bear."
One of the great American memoirs, Wright's account is a poignant record of struggle and endurance--a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.
--New York Times Book Review
The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series, now in a dazzling new series design Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books - 50 Covers competition Gold Medal Winner of the 3x3 Illustration Annual No. 14 This edition of Hamlet is edited with an introduction by series editor A. R. Braunmuller and was recently repackaged with cover art by Manuja Waldia. Waldia received a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators for the Pelican Shakespeare series. The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare's time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With stunning new covers, definitive texts, and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come. 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.
"One of the great strengths of this third edition is Hershel Parker's inclusion of commentary on Moby-Dick from its publication in 1851 right into the 21st century to answer why Moby-Dick--boisterous, beautiful, filled with soaring language, forever questioning, and nearly 200 years old--is more popular than ever." --MARY K. BERCAW EDWARDS, University of Connecticut
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018
"The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period."--Ann Patchett
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018
"The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period."--Ann Patchett
National Bestseller One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Dallas Morning News, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
Winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of an American Book Award Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Shortlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize "Powerful. . . . There There has so much jangling energy and brings so much news from a distinct corner of American life that it's a revelation." --The New York Times
Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
Winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of an American Book Award Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Shortlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize "Powerful. . . . There There has so much jangling energy and brings so much news from a distinct corner of American life that it's a revelation." --The New York Times
Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.