PENGUIN CLASSICS NEWSLETTER

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2007

Break Out the Books, It's Back to School...

Roll out the extra-long twin sheets and dust off the shower caddy, because soon class bells will be ringing! Will you be prepared for the new school year? Get a head start by decorating your dorm (or office!) with the top ten Penguin Classics:

The Odyssey by Homer

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

These favorite Classics are being taught in first-year literature courses in universities all across the country. The University of Virginia is assigning The Grapes of Wrath in "American Literature Since 1865," as is Texas A&M University, in "Major American Authors: John Steinbeck." Steinbeck's other powerhouse novel, Of Mice and Men, is included in San Diego State University's "English 220: Introduction to Literature," while Miller's Death of a Salesman makes its debut at Purdue University's course "The Tragic Vision." Austen's beloved Pride and Prejudice is represented in the University of Pennsylvania's "Jane Austen and the Romantic Novel," and Bucknell University features The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in "English 291: Survey of the Novel."

Whether you're burning the midnight oil or unpacking your sons or daughters into their new spacially-challenged rooms, a Penguin Classic is a loyal companion throughout the academic year!

At Penguin Classics, we love Leo Tolstoy, and as a sign of our devotion to the great nineteenth-century Russian writer, we've rolled out the most ambitious new translation program of any publisher in at least the last thirty years.
 
It began in 2001 with our thunderously acclaimed new translation of Anna Karenina.
Oprah Winfrey selected it for her book club, and with our edition introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Tolstoy's great romantic epic.
 
Then last year we published a stunning new translation of War and Peace, which was repeatedly singled out as the best translation into English of Tolstoy's masterpiece. London's Independent said, "Anthony Briggs's wonderful new translation will keep you enraptured. Read it, and weep and wonder, but read it." The Washington Times called it the "essential translation for its generation." And John Bayley effused that "Anthony Briggs has rendered not only the simplicity but also the subtlety of the book's scale and effect with a particular exactness and a vigorous precision not to be found, I think, in any previous translation."
 
Now, for the first time in Penguin Classics, we're publishing Tolstoy's great short novel based on his time spent in the Russian army--The Cossacks--together in one volume with The Sevastopol Sketches, his extraordinary stories set during the Crimean War. These new translations, by the translator of the Penguin Classics editions of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, bring to readers of English some of the most brilliant stories in our literature about the nature of war, and are the perfect way to work your way up to the mammoth War and Peace.
 
Look for more new Tolstoy translations from Penguin Classics in future seasons: The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories and The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
next year, and Childhood; Boyhood; Youth and Resurrection the following year, all leading up to the celebration in 2010 of the 100th anniversary of Tolstoy's death, by which point you may well be an expert in all things Tolstoy, courtesy of Penguin Classics.

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road

September 5, 2007, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's legendary novel On the Road, which has sold more than four million copies in America alone and continues to sell more than 100,000 copies a year in paperback for Penguin. To mark the anniversary, the landmark one-volume anthology of Kerouac's writing, The Portable Jack Kerouac, which was originally published in 1995, is coming out for the first time in Penguin Classics this September with a handsome new cover. Also available from Penguin Classics is the 1957 edition of On the Road and Kerouac's 1958 novel, The Dharma Bums, which made its debut in the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition series last year with an introduction by Ann Douglas and cover art by the graphic artist known as Jason.

Jane Austen Hits the Silver Screen (again!)

It's Janemania! This season begins a cinematic love affair with Jane Austen, from Becoming Jane to The Jane Austen Book Club, a star-studded Sony Pictures Classics film based on Karen Joy Fowler's bestselling book. Penguin Classics publishes the official Austen editions for The Jane Austen Book Club.  Enhance your movie-going experience, read the books, and join the club.

To help you get started, here are a few Austen favorites:

• Pride and Prejudice

• Emma

• Mansfield Park

• Persuasion

• Sense and Sensibility

• Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon

Or, for the ultimate Austen enthusiast:

The Complete Novels (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler)

Everybody's Talking About...Penguin Classics Deluxe Graphic Series!

From the Los Angeles Times to Creative Review, the UK's premiere art and design magazine, the Penguin Classics Deluxe graphic series has been praised this year for featuring exciting new covers by some of the best contemporary illustrators at work today. Bookslut blogged, "In bringing younger readers to these books and making classic works 'cool,' Penguin's covers score big points for artistic innovation and philanthropy alike." The Penguin Classics Deluxe graphic series was also tapped by AIGA for their 50 Books / 50 covers competition. This fall we've got more for graphic art fans, starting with Richard Pevear's acclaimed translation of The Three Musketeers, dressed in a witty and collector-worthy graphic cover (with flaps!) by illustrator Tom Gauld.