Penguin English Library

The Penguin English Library is an imprint of Penguin Books. The series was first created in 1963 as a 'sister series' to the Penguin Classics series, providing critical editions of English classics; at that point in time, the Classics label was reserved for works translated into English (for example, Juvenal's Sixteen Satires). The English Library was merged into the Classics stable in the mid 1980s, and all titles hitherto published in the Library were reissued as Classics.

The imprint was resurrected in 2012 for a new series of titles. The present English Library no longer seeks to provide critical editions; the focus is now 'on the beauty and elegance of the book'.

History

1963 to 1986

The Penguin English Library aimed to publish 'a comprehensive range of the literary masterpieces which have appeared in the English language since the 15th century'. All texts in the Library were published with an introduction and explanatory notes written and compiled by an editor; some with a bibliography as well. Editors were also required to provide 'authoritative texts', using their own judgement in printing one, or in some cases creating their own. The series was recognisable chiefly by its distinctive orange spine.

Most, if not all, titles were reprinted as Penguin Classics following the merger of the two imprints in the mid 1980s. Some of these editions were superseded in the 1990s or later, while some continue to be reprinted today as Classics. Additionally, the introductions to some titles survive in present-day Penguin Classics as appendices – for example, Tony Tanner's introduction to Mansfield Park.

2012 to present

The imprint was resurrected in name, though not so much in spirit, in 2012. Texts published in the series no longer include critical apparatus; they instead feature an essay by a notable literary figure, usually excerpted from prior work - for example, the essays of Harold Bloom, V. S. Pritchett and John Sutherland have been featured. A portrait or photograph of the author remains printed on the inside of the front cover. The focus is now on cover art, with each title designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

List of English Library titles

This is an incomplete list of the titles in the Penguin English Library:

1963 to 1986

All titles listed below come with a select bibliography and/or are no longer in print, unless stated.

Author	Editor	Title	Series no.	Notes
Matthew Arnold	P. J. Keating	Selected Prose	Unknown	Still in print as a Penguin Classic titled Culture and Anarchy and Other Selected Prose (2015).
Jane Austen	Ronald Blythe	Emma	Unknown
Jane Austen	Margaret Drabble	Lady Susan/The Watsons/Sanditon	Unknown
Jane Austen	Tony Tanner	Mansfield Park	Unknown	Tanner's introduction to the novel is reprinted as an appendix in the 2003 Penguin Classics edition.
Jane Austen	Anne Henry Ehrenpreis	Northanger Abbey	Unknown	Does not include a bibliography.
Charlotte Brontë	Q. D. Leavis	Jane Eyre	Unknown
Charlotte Brontë	Andrew and Judith Hook	Jane Eyre	Unknown
Emily Brontë	David Daiches	Wuthering Heights	1
Edmund Burke	Conor Cruise O'Brien	Reflections on the Revolution in France	Unknown	Still in print as a Penguin Classic.
John Bunyan	Roger Sharrock	The Pilgrim's Progress	4	Reprinted with revisions as a Penguin Classic in 1987. Superseded by a new edition.
Wilkie Collins	J. I. M. Stewart	The Moonstone	Unknown
Wilkie Collins	Julian Symons	The Woman in White	Unknown
Daniel Defoe	Angus Ross	Robinson Crusoe	Unknown
Daniel Defoe	Pat Rogers	A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain	Unknown
Charles Dickens	Gordon Spence	Barnaby Rudge	Unknown
Charles Dickens	Angus Calder (introduction)	Great Expectations	3
Charles Dickens	Angus Wilson (introduction) Peter Fairclough	Oliver Twist	17
Charles Dickens	Angus Wilson (introduction) Arthur J. Cox	The Mystery of Edwin Drood	Unknown
Benjamin Disraeli	Thom Braun	Coningsby	Unknown
Benjamin Disraeli	Thom Braun (text and notes) Rab Butler (introduction)	Sybil; or, The Two Nations	Unknown
George Eliot	Unknown	Adam Bede	121
George Eliot	Unknown	Daniel Deronda	20
George Eliot	Unknown	Felix Holt	84
George Eliot	W. J. Harvey	Middlemarch	2
George Eliot	Andrew Sanders	Romola	Unknown
George Eliot	David Lodge	Scenes of Clerical Life	87
George Eliot	Q. D. Leavis	Silas Marner	30
Henry Fielding	R. F. Brissenden	Joseph Andrews	Unknown
Henry Fielding	R. P. C. Mutter	Tom Jones	Unknown
Elizabeth Gaskell	Alan Shelston	Life of Charlotte Brontë	Unknown
Elizabeth Gaskell	Frank Glover Smith	Wives and Daughters	Unknown
Thomas Hardy	C. H. Sisson	Jude the Obscure	Unknown
Thomas Hardy	Martin Seymour-Smith	The Mayor of Casterbridge	Unknown
Thomas Hardy	George Woodcock	The Return of the Native	Unknown
Thomas Hardy	A. Alvarez (introduction) David Skilton (editor)	Tess of the D'Urbervilles	Unknown
Nathaniel Hawthorne	Thomas E. Connolly (introduction and notes)	The Scarlet Letter and Selected Tales	Unknown	The text of The Scarlet Letter is that of the authoritative Centenary Works edition, published by Ohio State University Press. Connolly's notes and the text are still included in the updated Penguin Classics edition.
Henry James	Anthony Curtis	The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw	Unknown	Still in print as a Penguin Classic.
Christopher Marlowe	J. B. Steane	The Complete Plays	Unknown
Herman Melville	Harold Beaver	Moby-Dick	Unknown
John Milton	C. A. Patrides	Selected Prose	Unknown
Thomas Nashe	J. B. Steane	The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works	Unknown	Still in print as a Penguin Classic.
Thomas Love Peacock	Raymond Wright	Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle	45	Does not include a bibliography per se, but an editorial note is appended to the introduction, giving a brief list of editions and criticism. Still in print as a Penguin Classic.
Tobias Smollett	Angus Ross	Humphry Clinker	21
Laurence Sterne	A. Alvarez (introduction)	A Sentimental Journey	Unknown
Laurence Sterne	Christopher Ricks (introduction) Graham Petrie	Tristram Shandy	Unknown	Ricks's introductory essay is reprinted in the current Penguin Classics edition.
Jonathan Swift	Michael Foot (introduction) Peter Dixon and John Chalker (notes)	Gulliver's Travels	Unknown
William Makepeace Thackeray	J. I. M. Stewart	Vanity Fair	35
Edward John Trelawny	David Wright	Records of Shelley, Byron and The Author	Unknown
Oscar Wilde	Hesketh Pearson	De Profundis and Other Writings	Unknown
Richard Steele and Joseph Addison	Angus Ross	Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator	Unknown
Multiple	Peter Happé	English Mystery Plays	Unknown
Cyril Tourneur John Webster Thomas Middleton	Gāmini Salgādo	Three Jacobean Tragedies (The Revenger's Tragedy/The White Devil/The Changeling)	Unknown	Authorship of The Revenger's Tragedy (which was published anonymously) was then attributed to Tourneur; today it is generally thought to have been written by Middleton.
Sir George Etherege William Wycherley William Congreve	Gāmini Salgādo	Three Restoration Comedies (The Man of Mode/The Country Wife/Love for Love)	27	Still in print as a Penguin Classic.
Horace Walpole/William Beckford/Mary Shelley	Mario Praz (introduction)	Three Gothic Novels (The Castle of Otranto/Vathek/Frankenstein)	36	Still in print as a Penguin Classic. The text of Frankenstein is that of the revised 1832 edition. The cover art is a detail from J. H. Fuseli's 1781 oil painting The Nightmare, and the detail was retained when the book was first reprinted as a Penguin Classic in 1986. However, reprints from 2003 onwards feature the detail of a photograph by Sir Simon Marsden instead.

2012 to present

Author	Title	Essayist	Essay	Notes
Jane Austen	Persuasion	Elizabeth Bowen	Unknown
Emily Brontë	Wuthering Heights	Virginia Woolf	Wuthering Heights
G. K. Chesterton	The Man Who Was Thursday	Unknown	Unknown
Wilkie Collins	The Moonstone	T. S. Eliot	The Moonstone
Daniel Defoe	Robinson Crusoe	David Blewett	The Island and the World	The essay is taken from a chapter in Blewett's Defoe's Art of Fiction: Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, and Roxana (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979).
Henry Fielding	Tom Jones	R. P. C. Mutter	Tom Jones	The essay is a reprint of Mutter's introduction to the original Penguin English Library edition (see above).
Elizabeth Gaskell	North and South	V. S. Pritchett	The South Goes North	The essay is from Sir Victor's 1942 collection of essays, In My Good Books.
Nathaniel Hawthorne	The Scarlet Letter	D. H. Lawrence	Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter	The essay is from Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature.
Mary Shelley	Frankenstein	Paul Cantor	The Nightmare of Romantic Idealism	The text is that of the 1985 Penguin Classics edition, edited by Maurice Hindle, i. e. the 1832 text. The essay is taken from a chapter in Cantor's book, Creature and Creator: Myth-Making and English Romanticism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
Laurence Sterne	Tristram Shandy	V. S. Pritchett	Tristram Shandy
Bram Stoker	Dracula	John Sutherland	Why Does the Count Come to England?	The essay is taken from Sutherland's Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Great Puzzles in Nineteenth Century Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Mark Twain	The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Harold Bloom	Unknown
Oscar Wilde	The Picture of Dorian Gray	Peter Ackroyd	-	The essay is a reprint of Ackroyd's introduction to the first Penguin Classics edition.