Penguin Classics -- The Original Series

Overall commenting on the last of those 3 links that is an excellent listing.

Some quick thoughts...

Of the Turgenev I would have started with The Shooting Party*
Of the Maupassant I would have chosen Bel-Amis*
Of the Diderot I would have selected Jacques The Fatalist*

*Since published.

Also a noticeable absence of any American authors (including Latin America) or Africa or in fact any of the English colonies. To be fair we're talking 1953 and they have rectified this to an extent since then but I would still like to see more African (they've published some more recently) and Latin American authors represented in the Black Classics series in particular. It may also be a case of not enough time having passed yet to be classed as 'Classic'. They did do a very good series on Borges but some time has passed there. I know they have their Modern classics but even there things are a little skewed I feel.

The ones I don't have/not familiar with at all include:
Cellini – Autobiography - George Bull
Longus – Daphnis and Chloe - Paul Turner
Hilton – The Ladder of Perfection - Leo Sherley-Price
Della Casa – Galateo - R S Pine-Coffin
Gower – Confessio Amantis - Terence Tiller
Joinville and Villehardouin – Chronicles of the Crusades
Sallust – The Jugurthine War/The Conspiracy of Cataline - S A Handford
Plautus – The Pot of Gold and Other Plays - E F Watling
The Upanishads - Juan Mascaró *A check reveals this is part of the Hindu Verdas and I know I have a Penguin Black of the Rig Vedas at least.
Castiglione – The Book of the Courtier - George Bull
Froissart - Chronicles - Geofrrey Brereton

Ones of particular interest (going by the titles) I have an idea on but don't own would include....
Anthology of Japanese Literature to the Nineteenth Century - Donald Keene
Diaz – The Conquest of New Spain - J M Cohen *May have this I will need to check?
Diderot – Rameau's Nephew/D'Alembert's Dream
Maupassant – A Woman's Life - H N P Sloman
Mediaeval English Verse - Brian Stone
Mediaeval Latin Lyrics
- Helen Waddell

Thanks for posting. This has just made my day....:)
 
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I don't own copies of very many of the books listed, although I have translations from other publishers of some of the Penguins I don't have.

Of the three cover styles shown, I much prefer the middle one (from the 1970s). I believe, Gollum, that your preference is for a fourth, most recent, style:
51SyqS89ogL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


That's certainly a dignified style. I guess I think the version I like most has dignity or a classy look but also looks inviting. The current style looks like something for books you might buy and like to see on your shelves and not get around to reading.
 
The ones I don't have/not familiar with at all include:

FWIW: the Diderot and Sallust (Penguin) and Longus (not Penguin) are in the Pile. The Plautus is okay but I got rid of it (though I probably shouldn't have) - I'd rather re-read the Greeks (or even Terence, though he's gone, too) indefinitely before reading it again. If you're into the Italian Renaissance, the Cellini is pretty interesting (just what it says - "here I am!") and the Castiglione (how to win friends and influence people and keep your head, Renaissance style) is even more so. I read some kind of Indian spiritual writings but I don't know what and couldn't say anything about it (incorrigible Westerner) and I don't know the other stuff either.

All I really have to say about Penguins in general is that they did a tremendous service bringing great classics out in affordable fashion but they often have translations that aren't the best and are sometimes annoyingly and stealthily edited or excessively rearranged or what have you. I have a great number of books on Penguin lists but many of them aren't actually Penguins. Of that list, I've probably only have/have read about a hundred, have about fifty, and only count about fifteen as Penguins (though more of them were - for instance, I have a Herodotus stuffed behind the shelf because it's been replaced with The Landmark Herodotus and, as I say, I got rid of the Plautus, etc.)

Extollager's post came up while typing - I like the black ones with the colored stripes at the top indicating type, preferably in the mass-market size - though that was the style they had when they started publishing more in trade paperback size - I think that's all they publish now. :( Which severely cuts in to their cheapness, which was really kind of the point of them.
 
@JSun: Thanks for posting those insights. The Cellini sounds good.

The current style looks like something for books you might buy and like to see on your shelves and not get around to reading.
I have to admit that was part of the initial attraction....:sneaky: but I am making inroads now into my rather large collection. Probably 200 plus Penguin Black Classics and counting.

The strength of the Penguin Black Classics line here for many years has been their affordability (always at a standard low cost):
Very good production values + comfortable size (MMPB) + great stories +informative introductions and ancillary notes + very good price = a winning combination.

Note: Unfortunately of late Penguin has made a decision to begin to bump up their price on the new Penguin black classics being published, which is a real shame....:(
 
...... they did a tremendous service bringing great classics out in affordable fashion but they often have translations that aren't the best
....

That is my impression as well. Certainly I have got on much better with Dostoevsky in the Pevear and Volokhonsky translations than in the Penguins, so there are several of the old Penguin Classics that I used to have that I didn't keep after P-V won me over. (Good thing I am resolved not to become a collector of Penguin Classics simply to have the editions whose look appeals to me.) Again, I read the Penguin Classics translation (Sayers) of Inferno and Purgatorio -- and these have great notes and I have kept the books largely for those -- but Mandelbaum's translation read better, so far as I am concerned, and I was able to read the whole Divine Comedy sequence, Paradiso too, in his rendering. On the other hand, the Penguin Classics translation (Brian Stone's) of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight remains a favorite, and I recently added Stone's other two books in PCs -- The Owl and the Nightingale, Cleanness, St. Erkenwald in one volume, and Medieval English Verse, with Sir Orfeo and Pearl (and many short poems). I expect that I'll like Stone's version of Sir Orfeo and of Pearl more than Tolkien's, the only translations I've read so far. I revere Tolkien and I appreciate what he set himself to do in his renderings, but I haven't found them highly readable....

And my understanding is that the Penguin Classic of Manzoni's The Betrothed is the one to have. My reading group read it years ago -- very fine book...
 
I have the PC Menzoni and Yes it is supposed to be excellent. Another in the TBR pile.

To clarify I also try to source the best translations e.g Dante outside of PC but in several cases they are the only easily affordable or recent or even available translations. The P-V Russian translations are often the best but the vast majority of PCs that I've purchased represent very good translations in so far as my 'ear' can judge. The Ancient' Greek and Roman texts or those from Asia and Africa I can't comment on but to date they've appeared to be very good.

The German translations that I can comment on to a degree are pretty good.

The same thing goes as far as sourcing 'best translations' with regards to the generally excellent NYRB classics series who are publishing a lot of first-class stuff that have either never been translated into English before or feature Titles that have not been in circulation for many years.

I should also add that Penguin have recently published their wonderful microclassics (re: extracts) celebrating their 80th Year. What I like about these is that they feature some authors I was not aware of and cost next to nothing. You can buy them to sample before committing further funds. Admittedly a clever marketing ploy although you obviously do not need to source the PC version of a larger (complete) work or collection that piques your interest...and Yes you could source samples via the Internet but I still prefer my reading matter in book form.
 
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I pass by those classical historical works (penguin) quite often and am aware of them but have never been that moved to buy any. I have Herodetus' Histories like most people but that's about it apart from more recent stuff like Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons and Diaz's account of the Spanish invasion of Mexico.

I have been after something by Plutarch in particular but moreso a collection of his Essays available from Penguin.
 
I have a new found interest in those classical historical works, any recommendation on specially good writing among those? I know Herodetus is often mentioned but anyone who read the Xenophon? Ceasar? I mean is Ceasar writing interesting writing to read? Not because its famous conquerer,politician. Im looking only from POV of historical writing fan.
 
TL; DR: Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Arrian, Caesar, Livy, Tacitus, all good. Probably Xenophon and Polybius, too.
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A convenient list of classic historical books in the Penguin series.

http://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/33912/#post-848764

From that list, I haven't read the Appian, Josephus, Sallust or Xenophon (the last two are in the Pile, the last in a non-Penguin edition).

I've read both Aristotles, Cicero, and Tacitus, but not in Penguin.

The Arrian is a Barnes & Noble hardcover, but is the same as the Penguin. The Caesars, Livys (Penguin has four volumes though the list only names one), Plutarchs (again, four volumes of Lives, despite naming two - and another one or two of other writings), Curtius, and Thucydides are all Penguins. That said, I've "upgraded" my Plutarch to an Encyclopedia Britannica Great Books edition just because it presents all of them (Penguin leaves out several) in the original parallel form (Penguin splits them, arranges them chronologically, and deletes the comparisons) and I've upgraded my Herodotus and Thucydides to Landmark editions, but I've kept the Penguin editions, too. While not a big fan of all Penguin translations, I like de Selincourt's histories and his Herodotus is neat. I love that book. And, while the deletions are fairly unconscionable and the arrangement is not at all to Plutarch's point, the Penguin arrangement does read like a biographical history, which has its own interest.

I have a new found interest in those classical historical works, any recommendation on specially good writing among those? I know Herodetus is often mentioned but anyone who read the Xenophon? Ceasar? I mean is Ceasar writing interesting writing to read? Not because its famous conquerer,politician. Im looking only from POV of historical writing fan.

There's no doubt that the Caesar takes on added interest because... it's freakin' Caesar, man! :) But, that aside, it's really good reading and, while he obviously has a political agenda, it reads like very sober, professional history. I'd definitely recommend them.

If you're interested in ancient history you simply can't do without Herodotus or Thucydides. Herodotus is readier with the colorful anecdote he picked up in his travels and some might find his way of telling things (digression nested in digression layers deep as he winds deeper and unwinds shallower - I picture a guy dancing around the Minotaur's lair with a very thin thread that yet never breaks) I - perhaps unsurprisingly, being a parenthetical guy - love it. He's supposed to be covering the Greco-Persian conflict but ranges far afield. Thucydides, covering the tragic Peloponesian (Athenian-Spartan) war, is a much more "no nonsense" kind of writer with a more analytical mind and probably writes the "better" history but he was writing on the heels of "the Father of History" whereas Herodotus, while he had now-lost predecessors, was still really blazing the trail. So, yeah, those two Greeks. (Probably Xenophon, too, but I suspect he's the third of the three and, either way, I somehow haven't managed to read him yet (in the pile) so can't say.)

Plutarch has an essential life of Alexander - Curtius is only for completeness, as Diodorus would be except I'm incomplete and haven't even read him. Arrian is the guy to read for Alexander, even beyond Plutarch, but Plutarch is also essential for everybody else he details.

Between the two, I'm slightly less interested in Roman history but that's still plenty interested. I'd say Livy was the pretty essential guy there - don't take it too literally because it probably doesn't work but you might say he's a kind of Roman Herodotus (if we're doing parallel lives here, too). I haven't read him - his Penguin edition is in the Pile, but I suspect Polybius would be the Roman Thucydides (except Polybius is actually a "Roman" Greek). But all I can say for sure is that Livy and Caesar are essential. Livy covered the whole history of Rome to his Augustan time and we've lost a bunch of it but still have the first five books, stuff on the Punic wars, and some other substantial parts. Polybius basically covers the Punic wars.

Tacitus' Germanica is fascinating for an anthropological look outside the Roman empire though it has propaganda purposes to try to make the Romans more virtuous in Tacitus' estimation by comparison. I suppose his history of the Julio-Claudian emperors and the one on the Year of the Four Emperors are also essential (along with Suetonius stuff) but it's awfully dreary and kind of tabloid like rather than really giving one a sense of life for the ordinary person in the Roman Empire. Rich people sleeping with and killing each other and so on. (I'm not being fair here, but it's along those lines.) Of course, for anyone with a special interest in Roman Britain, Tacitus' Agricola is right there with the Germanica though it's partly a paean to his father-in-law (if I recall correctly).

I think that's most of the majors if I haven't forgotten anybody. Hope that helps.

Oh, but one thing to add (because this isn't long enough) is that ancient history is really frustrating - we're missing entire authors and often chunks of even the authors we have left so there are all sorts of gaps and you don't get a lot of the Athenian empire at peace, you'd almost get the idea Athens was wiped off the face of the map c.400 when that's not remotely so, and you only get traces of an idea of the might of Thebes and the rise of Philip and so on. It just pole vaults you through major events of the Greco-Persian wars, the Peloponesian wars, the campaigns of Alexander, etc. You have to read the modern historians with their access to fragments, archaeology, inscriptions, coins, etc., to get a more balanced picture but then they're writing a couple thousand years after the fact and who knows what they're getting right and wrong. There's a great Alfred Bester story - I forget the name - about just how messed up historical perceptions can get over time. :)
 
Many years ago I wrote a short piece floating a possibility relating to Arthur Machen's "Great God Pan" and Josephus. I adduced evidence* for Josephus being a likely item in many Victorian home libraries (because of his picture of the New Testament world and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, his work seems to have been made widely available). Machen, of course, grew up in a a rectory. It seems likely to me that a supernatural voice(s) in Josephus, crying "Let us go hence!" before the final catastrophe, was transferred to Clarke's dream in the first chapter of Machen's story. There is a whole dimension of allusion and reference in our older authors that goes by us now because we haven't read what they read -- including, often, even the Bible.

*Specifically, I think there was something from John Buchan's book on Sir Walter Scott on Josephus being a common book even in households that didn't have lots of books. As a book relating to the Bible, his work was worthy reading material.
 
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It's an interesting list and order in the link. Xenophon way before Thucidydes, a strange choice of Turgenev before anything by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski, and unless I missed it, no Dickens in the first 200 titles. Lots of Balzac though, which is nice to see. The common conception of what is truly classic has doubtless changed quite a bit in the 60-70 years since these were published.

I do like the old black classics; I have picked up a few of the 1970's series and I think they may be my favourite edition. The current releases are pretty nice, but I did prefer the older, smaller format I think.
 
Penguin Classics bookmark outter fold.jpeg
Here's the outer appearance of that Penguin Classics "bookmark" that I mentioned, which unfolds to provide a list of the series books available as of about 1972.
 
Here's the whole "bookmark," unfolded. You should be able to see four images, including a quiz and its answers plus the book list. Penguin Classics bookmark quiz, list 1972 1 of 2.jpeg Penguin Classics bookmark quiz, list 1972 1 of 2.jpeg Penguin Classics ca 1972 list 2 of 2.jpeg Penguin Classics bookmark quiz, list 1972 2 of 2.jpeg
 

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The common conception of what is truly classic has doubtless changed quite a bit in the 60-70 years since these were published.

I'm unhappy about the way it seems books are being issued under the "Penguin Classics" label now that certainly haven't proven their worthiness over time. What does it mean when a book by a living author (just middle-aged) is issued in the series? I'm deliberately not mentioning who it is, because that is not the point; it seems to me an affront to the distinguished tradition of the Penguin Classics to cheapen "classic" thus. Surely it is not too much to ask that an author has died but his or her works have shown some staying power at least for a couple of decades or so. It looks to me like marketing pure and simple, the prostituting of the series name to sell copied -- in many cases, probably to people who already own the books but not the (formerly) prestigious series.

Again -- I'm not assuming that the work in question is (or isn't) good or even great. (From the one item I have read by this author, I would say definitely not great, but that is an irrelevance.) You just can't legitimately go identifying books published a few years ago, by living authors, as classic, as if they had proven themselves as Homer (the first Penguin Classic) or even Edgar Rice Burroughs (recent Penguin Classics) has done.

If Penguin's going to do this, then they might as well issue new books by their favored authors right off in the Classics series.

But let it be said, such behavior is not limited to Penguin. It is characteristic of my generation (the Baby Boomers), with their bloated sense of the value of their faves and their failure as regards the inheritance that previous generations entrusted to them, and their failure as regards the generations that will come after them, crushed beneath the burden of debt my generation is laying on them.
images
 
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I'm unhappy about the way it seems books are being issued under the "Penguin Classics" label now that certainly haven't proven their worthiness over time.
That would be like Disney Classics. Some of them were/are (Jungle Book etc) others never were and never will be, some even bombed at box office, or were never cinema releases.

The term is just being used now like "New improved formula" on detergent. On a side note how can a processed food be "Improved recipe" AND "Original"?
 
Just received a copy of an obscure entry in the Penguin Classics series recently, The Greek Alexander Romance -- is anyone here acquainted with it? I've read the first ten pages or so, win which the sorcerer Nectanebo, the last pharaoh of Egypt, deceives Olympias, wife of Philip of Macedonia, into accepting his embraces, during a time of her husbands absence, while she believes he is the god Ammon, reminding me of the much later sequence in Malory's Morte d'Arthur in which Merlin uses magic to convince Igraine that she is lying with her husband, when it's really Uther Pendragon. On another occasion Nectanebo shifts his shape to that of a serpent, etc. When Olympias is about to give birth, Nectanebo insists that she retain the unborn Alexander till the planets are right. Nectanebo had seen that his kingdom was about to be invaded by a huge army that was supported by Egypt's own gods, so he took off (with a bunch of gold) for Macedonia. A lot happens in these pages.
 

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