Winner of the Booker Prize—a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a playwright as he composes his memoirs Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years. None of his plans work out, and his memoir evolves into a riveting chronicle of the strange events and unexpected visitors-some real, some spectral-that disrupt his world and shake his oversized ego to its very core. 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.

A motley assortment of characters seek peace and salvation in this early masterpiece by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of sequestered nuns. A new bell is being installed when suddenly the old bell, a legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. And then things begin to change. Meanwhile the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean. Originally published in 1958, this funny, sad, and moving novel is about religion, sex, and the fight between good and evil. 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.

A New York TimesNotable Book: An “ingeniously plotted” tale of tragedy, comedy, and small-town gossip (The New York Times Book Review). The quiet English town of Ennistone is known for its peaceful, relaxing spa—a haven of restoration, rejuvenation, and calm. Until the night George McCaffrey’s car plunges into the cold waters of the canal, carrying with it his wife, Stella. And until the village’s most celebrated son, famed philosopher John Robert Rozanov, returns home, upending the lives of everyone with whom he comes in contact. Stirred up by talk of murder and morality, obsession and lust, religion and righteousness, the residents of Ennistone begin to spiral out of control, searching for answers and redemption for the sins of their peers—and discovering more about themselves than they ever wanted to know. With breakneck plotting and intricately flawed characters, The Philosopher’s Pupil is a darkly humorous novel from the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea, The Sea, masterfully exploring the human condition and the inherent blend of comedy and tragedy therein.

A novel about the frightfulness and ruthlessness of being in love, from the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea, The Sea Martin Lynch-Gibson believes he can possess both a beautiful wife and a delightful lover. But when his wife, Antonia, suddenly leaves him for her psychoanalyst, Martin is plunged into an intensive emotional reeducation. He attempts to behave beautifully and sensibly. Then he meets a woman whose demonic splendor at first repels him and later arouses a consuming and monstrous passion. As his Medusa informs him, “this is nothing to do with happiness.” A Severed Head was adapted for a successful stage production in 1963 and was later made into a film starring Claire Bloom, Lee Remick, Richard Attenborough, and Ian Holm.

Iris Murdoch's debut—a comic novel about work and love, wealth and fame Jake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Bellfounder, silent philosopher. Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. He resumes acquaintance with the formidable Hugo, whose ‘philosophy’ he once presumptuously dared to interpret. These meetings involve Jake and his eccentric servant-companion, Finn, in a series of adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog and a political riot on a film set of ancient Rome. Jake, fascinated, longs to learn Hugo’s secret. Perhaps Hugo’s secret is Hugo himself? Admonished, enlightened, Jake hopes at last to become a real writer.

Guilt, secrets, and lies haunt two men whose lives are bound by a long-ago tragedy in this “riveting” novel by the author of The Sea, The Sea (Los Angeles Times). Twenty years ago, Hilary Burde’s story was one of remarkable success and enviable courage. Having brought himself out of a troubled childhood with only his intellect and wit, he was one of the most promising scholars at Oxford, a student with a rare talent for linguistics and an unquenchable drive. Until the accident. Now, forty-one and a decidedly ordinary failure, Hilary finds his quietly angry routine shattered when his old professor reappears in his life—a man whose own demons are tied to Hilary’s and the tragedy from years ago. As the two men begin to circle each other once again, digging up old wrongs and seeking forgiveness for long-buried ills, they find themselves on a path that will either grant them both redemption or destroy them both forever. Haunting and emotional, A Word Child is an intimate look at the madness of regret by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of Under the Net and A Severed Head.

A family struggles for redemption after a funeral brings dark secrets to the surface in this novel from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea, The Sea. For the first time in years, Edmund Narraway has returned to his childhood home—for the funeral of his mother. The visit rekindles feelings of affection and nostalgia—but also triggers a resurgence of the tensions that caused him to leave in the first place. As Edmund once again becomes entangled in his family’s web of corrosive secrets, his homecoming tips a precariously balanced dynamic into sudden chaos, in this compelling story of reunion and coming apart from Iris Murdoch, “one of the most significant novelists of her generation” (The Guardian).

Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch has also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy.Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

A brilliant mythical drama about well-meaning people trapped in a war of spiritual forces Marian Taylor, who has come as a “companion” to a lovely woman in a remote castle, becomes aware that her employer is a prisoner, not only of her obsessions, but of an unforgiving husband. Hannah, the Unicorn, seemingly an image of persecuted virtue, fascinates those who surround her, some of whom plan to rescue her from her dream of redemptive suffering. But is she an innocent victim, a guilty woman, a mad woman, or a witch? Is her spiritual life really some evil enchantment? If she is forcibly liberated will she die? The ordinary, sensible people survive, and are never sure whether they have understood.

“A Shakespearean comedy of misaligned lovers” set in the modern English countryside by a Man Booker Prize winner (Publishers Weekly). Hugh Peronett’s life is tinged with regret: the regret of never following his passions and losing the one woman he loved. Twenty-five years ago, he ended an affair with Emma Sands, a detective novelist who had stolen his heart, to be with his wife, Fanny. Now, Fanny is gone, and both Hugh and his grown son, Randall, find themselves at a crossroads of passion and righteousness. As Hugh, Emma, Randall, Randall’s wife, Randall’s mistress, and several others are caught in a dance of romance and rejection in bucolic rural England, they will discover the true meanings of love, companionship, and desire. From the acclaimed author of The Sea, The Sea, An Unofficial Rose is a novel of wit, sorrow and an unparalleled psychological insight.