Penguin Classics just last year published Robert Burton's 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' in a hardback edition at over 1300 pages and are scheduled publish the same in one of their Deluxe Classic Paperback editions next summer! I can't wait!
Great to see this “tag” picking up steam. The Erasmus and Luther duel of ideas is fantastic! I found a copy on a used bookstore in Saint Paul and have loved how incisive their arguments are. Cheers, Jack
My suggestions for the Penguin Classic line: the complete Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity by Richard Hooker, North‘s Plutarch, Quiet Flows the Don by Sholokov, the complete Summa Theologiae, the Complete Prose Tristan (medieval romance) in a new translation, The Romance of the Rose, Wace’s De Brut, Lawman’s Brut, almost of Thomas Mann’s novels and stories, the Tyndale Bible, to make a few.
Hi Steve, Penguin publication recently printed a complete unabridged version of Mahabharata and Ramayana translated by Bibek Debroy. I believe it is only available in India. Regards, Vinay A
I would also add that despite printing all of Arthur Miller (whose works, presumably, are still under copyright), Penguin Classics completely omits Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, George S. Kaufman, Lorraine Hansberry, Neil Simon, August Wilson, Lillian Hellman, Edward Albee, and many other 20th century American playwrights.
Brilliant, and I ended up buying life and fate. Penguin Galaxy series Dune Penguin modern Ginsberg There is a Penguin Classic of A Room of Ones Own and Three Guineas Unfortunately the cover art will have you rolling your eyes...
I would LOVE to see a Penguin Classic of, well, ANYthing by Guy Davenport -- especially the essays, though there's no reason we couldn't have a split volume: the best of the essays, the best of the stories, and a smattering of his correspondence / poems.
... but Penguin did publish Dune! - in the Penguin Galaxy collection with introductions by Neil Gaiman. unfortunately thick books don't work well in hardbacks with glued spines.
Great video...I agree about the Russians: I just read House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky and the line between nonfiction and fiction was blurry (and I loved it!). My vote for a Penguin Classic: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. All 4 or 5 books, a forward by maybe Neil Gaiman, and some illustrations by Mike Mignola too! I think that series should be treated as one book and is a masterpiece of fantasy/science fiction that deserves more attention!
I don’t think Dune or LOTR will make it in until their copyright ends because there’s no way their current publishers would be willing to give up their rights to those massive best sellers.
Always kind of interesting which books make penguin classic lines in the UK as opposed to here. Great video, Steve. Always want more Penguin Classics (and agree with all your choices). I must admit though that I've never of the Ollivant book. I looked it up and found that NYRB has done an edition of it in their childrens line. It looks like that NYRB version has kind of been rewritten by Lydia Davis. Not sure what to think about that but seems pretty interesting.
For a fun exercise here is My small but eclectic of possible penguin Classics: 1-OBLOMOV. I. Goncharov 2-DIALOGUE COVERING THE TWO CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS GALILEO 3-ARISTOPHANES COMPLETE PLAYS 4-THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE Blasco Ibáñez, 5-THE SEA OF FERTILITY Y.MISHIMA 6-POETIC GEMS W.MCGONAGALL 7-LOST HORIZON J.HILTON 8-JULIETTE MARQUIS DE SADE 9- THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS J. SUSANN 10- MARY POPPINS and his secuels AS i said before a fun exercise😆
I think Stevie Smith's 3 novels would make a good penguin classics edition, as Novel of Yellow Paper is worthy enough of a penguin reprint. All of her novels were short and I can imagine penguin arranging them into one volume like they did for Firbank's first few novels, with Vainglory leading the set. I would also like to see a collection of Christine Brooke-Rose's experimental novels as she is still pretty much criminally out of print.
I never understood what the cut-off for penguin classics is supposed to be - do they have to be pre-WW2? (leaving aside the Morrissey biography, obviously…)
Rights issues notwithstanding, I would guess Penguin looks at some of those books and sees well-made, easily available editions already selling well (Bury My Heart, Gone with the Wind, Howl, etc.) and thinks, well, where's the profit line? My votes? Birdy by William Wharton and Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F. Saint. Decidedly less elevated picks than many of your own!
Steve, "Dance to the Music of Time" in two volumes get my vote. I have the Folio Society, but would pre-order a Penguin. Shortly after I would order a John Evelyn annotated version. Penguin should do some market research on UA-cam. I would order almost all of the other books, the exceptions being books that I have good, hardbacks of already. I really want "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table" and the Livy. I know cat-lovers who would queue in a thunderstorm for copies of "I am a cat", not me as I'm a dog person, but I would read it.
@@battybibliophile-ClareI have the complete plays and sonnets of Shakespeare as a set. We don’t need a cumbersome single volume. The single volumes each have wonderful introductions, which you would never get in a single volume edition.
Penguin did once publish Powell’s novels. The idea of putting more than one of the Dance to the Music of Time series in one book is not a good one. It makes the book unwieldy and annoying. I can see the wonderful 12 volume edition here on my shelf and enjoy the fabulous Marc Boxer covers that so brilliantly sum up the essence of each book. These would be lost in a multi book volume.
@@MrToryhere I have the Arden Shakespeare in one play per volume set, but also A facsimile Furst Folio, the Riverside, and an Everyman set. You see I study Shakespeare continually, so different editions are a boon. I read other authors, but am always reading a play. This year I'm reading Shakespeare's works in chronological order.
SHAKESPEARE APOCRYPHA ANYONE. i would vote for the Shakespeare Apocrypha. I've read a half dozen of the individual plays, For example MERLIN, EDWARD III, TWO NOBLE KINSMEN and several others. I don't think there is much doubt that Shakespeare had a hand or a thumb in the ones I have read. Since we are so interested in Shakespeare why do we exclude works which though not his best works still contain elements of his genius _ If a lost sonnet of his were rediscovered there would be tons of articles about it. And it is very hard to obtain a modern reprint even of individual plays. i WOULD LIKE THE COMPLETE APPCRYPHA. And while on the subject of apocryphas how about Biblical Apocrypha _
@@saintdonoghue A scary amount of people argue the Earth is flat or that Bigfoot isn't an alien with shape shifting and cloaking capabilities. It doesn't mean that we have to give them the time of day!
Yes - I briefly thought about him & all his endless books, then I remembered just how thoroughly BAD they are, and I couldn't bring myself to include them!
I don't understand why the poems of Fernando Pessoa are a Penguin Classic and his The Book of Disquiet is a Penguin Modern? 🤨 I would love it in a black spine please. Just as the books of Erich Fromm. They would stand perfectly next to Montaigne in my book room.
Hard to believe I read the Gulag Archipelago when I was a teenager. Where did my brain go? Thanks for reminding me of some great books.
Penguin Classics just last year published Robert Burton's 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' in a hardback edition at over 1300 pages and are scheduled publish the same in one of their Deluxe Classic Paperback editions next summer! I can't wait!
Great to see this “tag” picking up steam. The Erasmus and Luther duel of ideas is fantastic! I found a copy on a used bookstore in Saint Paul and have loved how incisive their arguments are.
Cheers, Jack
My suggestions for the Penguin Classic line: the complete Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity by Richard Hooker, North‘s Plutarch, Quiet Flows the Don by Sholokov, the complete Summa Theologiae, the Complete Prose Tristan (medieval romance) in a new translation, The Romance of the Rose, Wace’s De Brut, Lawman’s Brut, almost of Thomas Mann’s novels and stories, the Tyndale Bible, to make a few.
Hi, Steve. Penguin did publish Dune in hardcover form under the Penguin Galaxy line.
Yes, but as noted, this video is about ordinary black-spine Penguin Classics!
Gone With the Wind - the book you don't want to sit with you at the lunch table! Perfect description.
I love how long you rattled on with this. All I can say is yes, yes, yes and yes!
Hah! Believe it or not, I was trying to control myself!
Hi Steve,
Penguin publication recently printed a complete unabridged version of Mahabharata and Ramayana translated by Bibek Debroy. I believe it is only available in India.
Regards,
Vinay A
I would also add that despite printing all of Arthur Miller (whose works, presumably, are still under copyright), Penguin Classics completely omits Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, George S. Kaufman, Lorraine Hansberry, Neil Simon, August Wilson, Lillian Hellman, Edward Albee, and many other 20th century American playwrights.
Great video! I agree with your choices. Always enjoy hearing your thoughts on books. Thank you
Good to hear Drunzo get a mention.
Brilliant, and I ended up buying life and fate.
Penguin Galaxy series
Dune
Penguin modern
Ginsberg
There is a Penguin Classic of
A Room of Ones Own and Three Guineas
Unfortunately the cover art will have you rolling your eyes...
The Poems of Marianne Moore was issued as a black spine Penguin Classic in 2005.
Interesting selection I’ll be sure to check these out.
I personally would like to see stoner by John Williams get a penguin classic. I would throw butchers crossing in too. My personal favorite author.
I would LOVE to see a Penguin Classic of, well, ANYthing by Guy Davenport -- especially the essays, though there's no reason we couldn't have a split volume: the best of the essays, the best of the stories, and a smattering of his correspondence / poems.
Guy Davenport! Good Lord, what a thought! Fantastic!
... but Penguin did publish Dune! - in the Penguin Galaxy collection with introductions by Neil Gaiman. unfortunately thick books don't work well in hardbacks with glued spines.
Yes indeed, but as mentioned in the title of this video and all throughout the video, this is about standard paperback Penguin Classics!
Great video...I agree about the Russians: I just read House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky and the line between nonfiction and fiction was blurry (and I loved it!).
My vote for a Penguin Classic: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. All 4 or 5 books, a forward by maybe Neil Gaiman, and some illustrations by Mike Mignola too! I think that series should be treated as one book and is a masterpiece of fantasy/science fiction that deserves more attention!
I wonder if anyone at Penguin Books is taking notice of these videos...
Everyone at Penguin and everywhere else should be hanging on my every stray utterance, of course!
I hope so.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee!
Voinovich, yes! Seeing that my copy of Moscow 2042 got water damage a Penguin Classic would be great!
Please, sir. I want some more.
But ... but this was 50 minutes long, for Pete's sake!
penguin does do soseki's botchan, kusamakura, and sanshiro as well.. but yeah they should also do i am a cat if they can..
I don’t think Dune or LOTR will make it in until their copyright ends because there’s no way their current publishers would be willing to give up their rights to those massive best sellers.
A Room of One's Own is in the black spine Classics.
Please go on))))
Yes yes for Anne Sexton! Her Transformations will never leave me.
Always kind of interesting which books make penguin classic lines in the UK as opposed to here. Great video, Steve. Always want more Penguin Classics (and agree with all your choices). I must admit though that I've never of the Ollivant book. I looked it up and found that NYRB has done an edition of it in their childrens line. It looks like that NYRB version has kind of been rewritten by Lydia Davis. Not sure what to think about that but seems pretty interesting.
I myself am instantly sure what to think of the words "rewritten by Lydia Davis" ...
For a fun exercise here is My small but eclectic of possible penguin Classics:
1-OBLOMOV. I. Goncharov
2-DIALOGUE COVERING THE TWO CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS GALILEO
3-ARISTOPHANES COMPLETE PLAYS
4-THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE Blasco Ibáñez,
5-THE SEA OF FERTILITY Y.MISHIMA
6-POETIC GEMS W.MCGONAGALL
7-LOST HORIZON J.HILTON
8-JULIETTE MARQUIS DE SADE
9- THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS J. SUSANN
10- MARY POPPINS and his secuels
AS i said before a fun exercise😆
I think Stevie Smith's 3 novels would make a good penguin classics edition, as Novel of Yellow Paper is worthy enough of a penguin reprint. All of her novels were short and I can imagine penguin arranging them into one volume like they did for Firbank's first few novels, with Vainglory leading the set. I would also like to see a collection of Christine Brooke-Rose's experimental novels as she is still pretty much criminally out of print.
And i agree penguin classics of Auden, Marianne Moore, Anne Sexton, WB Yeats etc. would be lush.
I never understood what the cut-off for penguin classics is supposed to be - do they have to be pre-WW2? (leaving aside the Morrissey biography, obviously…)
There’s no year cut off. They have plenty of books from the second half of the century
Rights issues notwithstanding, I would guess Penguin looks at some of those books and sees well-made, easily available editions already selling well (Bury My Heart, Gone with the Wind, Howl, etc.) and thinks, well, where's the profit line? My votes? Birdy by William Wharton and Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F. Saint. Decidedly less elevated picks than many of your own!
Birdy!!! Oh my, bless you!
Steve, "Dance to the Music of Time" in two volumes get my vote. I have the Folio Society, but would pre-order a Penguin. Shortly after I would order a John Evelyn annotated version. Penguin should do some market research on UA-cam. I would order almost all of the other books, the exceptions being books that I have good, hardbacks of already. I really want "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table" and the Livy. I know cat-lovers who would queue in a thunderstorm for copies of "I am a cat", not me as I'm a dog person, but I would read it.
The absence of a Complete Shakespeare in Penguin is a disgrace.
@@battybibliophile-ClareI have the complete plays and sonnets of Shakespeare as a set. We don’t need a cumbersome single volume. The single volumes each have wonderful introductions, which you would never get in a single volume edition.
Penguin did once publish Powell’s novels. The idea of putting more than one of the Dance to the Music of Time series in one book is not a good one. It makes the book unwieldy and annoying. I can see the wonderful 12 volume edition here on my shelf and enjoy the fabulous Marc Boxer covers that so brilliantly sum up the essence of each book. These would be lost in a multi book volume.
@@MrToryhere I have the Arden Shakespeare in one play per volume set, but also A facsimile Furst Folio, the Riverside, and an Everyman set. You see I study Shakespeare continually, so different editions are a boon. I read other authors, but am always reading a play. This year I'm reading Shakespeare's works in chronological order.
SHAKESPEARE APOCRYPHA ANYONE. i would vote for the Shakespeare Apocrypha. I've read a half dozen of the individual plays, For example MERLIN, EDWARD III, TWO NOBLE KINSMEN and several others. I don't think there is much doubt that Shakespeare had a hand or a thumb in the ones I have read. Since we are so interested in Shakespeare why do we exclude works which though not his best works still contain elements of his genius _ If a lost sonnet of his were rediscovered there would be tons of articles about it. And it is very hard to obtain a modern reprint even of individual plays. i WOULD LIKE THE COMPLETE APPCRYPHA. And while on the subject of apocryphas how about Biblical Apocrypha _
I'm shocked that Allen Ginsberg made your list. What's next David Foster Wallace?
There's an argument for "An Infinite Jest," right? I wouldn't like it, but there's certainly an argument for it -
@@saintdonoghue A scary amount of people argue the Earth is flat or that Bigfoot isn't an alien with shape shifting and cloaking capabilities. It doesn't mean that we have to give them the time of day!
I loved anything by Albert Payson Terhune when I was a child. I recently found one truly hard to read. Sigh.
Yes - I briefly thought about him & all his endless books, then I remembered just how thoroughly BAD they are, and I couldn't bring myself to include them!
I don't understand why the poems of Fernando Pessoa are a Penguin Classic and his The Book of Disquiet is a Penguin Modern? 🤨 I would love it in a black spine please.
Just as the books of Erich Fromm. They would stand perfectly next to Montaigne in my book room.
You review books and jabber away at length, but no one reads these weird books.
Weird books such as A room of one's own? Or Dune?