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. 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 Some of these editions were superseded in the 1990s or later, while some continue to be reprinted today as Classics.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All titles listed below are assumed to have lists of further reading appended and/or are no longer in print having been superseded by new editions, unless stated.| Author | Editor | Title | Series no. | Notes |
| Matthew Arnold | P. J. Keating | Selected Prose | 58 | Still in print as a Penguin Classic titled Culture and Anarchy and Other Selected Prose. |
| John Aubrey | Oliver Lawson Dick | Aubrey's Brief Lives | 79 | |
| Jane Austen | Ronald Blythe | Emma | 10 | |
| Jane Austen | Margaret Drabble | Lady Susan/The Watsons/Sanditon | 102 | |
| Jane Austen | Tony Tanner | Mansfield Park | 16 | Tanner's introduction to the novel is reprinted as an appendix in the 2003 Penguin Classics edition. |
| Jane Austen | Anne Henry Ehrenpreis | Northanger Abbey | 74 | Does not include a bibliography. |
| Jane Austen | D. W. Harding | Persuasion | 5 | |
| Jane Austen | Tony Tanner | Pride and Prejudice | 72 | |
| Jane Austen | Tony Tanner | Sense and Sensibility | 47 | |
| James Boswell | Christopher Hibbert | The Life of Samuel Johnson | 116 | |
| Charlotte Brontë | Q. D. Leavis | Jane Eyre | 11 | |
| Charlotte Brontë | Andrew and Judith Hook | Shirley | 95 | |
| Charlotte Brontë | Tony Tanner Mark Lilly | Villette | 118 | |
| Emily Brontë | David Daiches | Wuthering Heights | 1 | |
| Thomas Browne | C. A. Patrides | The Major Works | 109 | |
| 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. |
| Samuel Butler | Peter Mudford | Erewhon | 57 | |
| Samuel Butler | Richard Hoggart James Cochrane | The Way of All Flesh | 12 | |
| Lord Byron | Peter Gunn | Selected Prose | 80 | |
| Thomas Carlyle | Alan Shelston | Selected Writings | 65 | |
| Marcus Clarke | Stephen Murray-Smith | His Natural Life | 51 | |
| William Cobbett | George Woodcock | Rural Rides | 23 | |
| Wilkie Collins | J. I. M. Stewart | The Moonstone | 14 | |
| Wilkie Collins | Julian Symons | The Woman in White | 96 | |
| Daniel Defoe | Anthony Burgess Christopher Bristow | A Journal of the Plague Year | 15 | |
| Daniel Defoe | Pat Rogers | A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain | 66 | |
| Daniel Defoe | Juliet Mitchell | Moll Flanders | 107 | |
| Daniel Defoe | Angus Ross | Robinson Crusoe | 7 | |
| Thomas De Quincey | Alethea Hayter | Confessions of an English Opium Eater | 61 | |
| Thomas De Quincey | David Wright | Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets | 56 | |
| Charles Dickens | George Woodcock | A Tale of Two Cities | 54 | |
| Charles Dickens | John S. Whitley Arnold Goldman | American Notes for General Circulation | 77 | |
| Charles Dickens | Gordon Spence | Barnaby Rudge | 90 | |
| Charles Dickens | J. Hillis Miller Norman Page | Bleak House | 63 | |
| Charles Dickens | Trevor Blount | David Copperfield | 8 | |
| Charles Dickens | Raymond Williams Peter Fairclough | Dombey and Son | 48 | |
| Charles Dickens | Angus Calder | Great Expectations | 3 | |
| Charles Dickens | David Craig | Hard Times | 42 | |
| Charles Dickens | John Holloway | Little Dorrit | 25 | |
| Charles Dickens | P. N. Furbank | Martin Chuzzlewit | 31 | |
| Charles Dickens | Michael Slater | Nicholas Nickleby | 113 | |
| Charles Dickens | Angus Wilson Peter Fairclough | Oliver Twist | 17 | |
| Charles Dickens | Stephen Gill | Our Mutual Friend | 60 | |
| Charles Dickens | Deborah A. Thomas | Selected Short Fiction | 103 | |
| Charles Dickens | Michael Slater | The Christmas Books, Volume 1 | 68 | |
| Charles Dickens | Michael Slater | The Christmas Books, Volume 2 | 69 | |
| Charles Dickens | Angus Wilson Arthur J. Cox | The Mystery of Edwin Drood | 92 | |
| Charles Dickens | Malcolm Andrews Angus Easson | The Old Curiosity Shop | 75 | |
| Charles Dickens | Robert Patten | The Pickwick Papers | 78 | |
| Benjamin Disraeli | Thom Braun | Coningsby | 192 | |
| Benjamin Disraeli | Thom Braun Rab Butler | Sybil; or, The Two Nations | 134 | |
| George Eliot | Unknown | Adam Bede | 121 | |
| George Eliot | Barbara Hardy | Daniel Deronda | 20 | |
| George Eliot | Peter Coveney | Felix Holt | 84 | |
| George Eliot | W. J. Harvey | Middlemarch | 2 | |
| George Eliot | A. S. Byatt | Mill on the Floss | 120 | |
| George Eliot | Andrew Sanders | Romola | 139 | |
| George Eliot | David Lodge | Scenes of Clerical Life | 87 | |
| George Eliot | Q. D. Leavis | Silas Marner | 30 | |
| Henry Fielding | R. F. Brissenden | Joseph Andrews | 114 | |
| Henry Fielding | R. P. C. Mutter | Tom Jones | 9 | |
| John Ford | Stephen Gill | Three Plays | 59 | |
| Elizabeth Gaskell | Peter Keating | Cranford/Cousin Phillis | 104 | |
| Elizabeth Gaskell | Stephen Gill | Mary Barton | 53 | |
| Elizabeth Gaskell | Dorothy Collin Martin Dodsworth | North and South | 55 | |
| Elizabeth Gaskell | Alan Shelston | The Life of Charlotte Brontë | 99 | |
| Elizabeth Gaskell | Frank Glover Smith | Wives and Daughters | 46 | |
| George Gissing | Bernard Bergonzi | New Grub Street | 32 | |
| Richard Hakluyt | Jack Beeching | Voyages and Discoveries | 73 | |
| Thomas Hardy | C. H. Sisson | Jude the Obscure | 131 | |
| Thomas Hardy | Susan Hill | The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales | 124 | |
| Thomas Hardy | Ronald Blythe | Far from the Madding Crowd | 126 | |
| Thomas Hardy | Martin Seymour-Smith | The Mayor of Casterbridge | 125 | |
| Thomas Hardy | George Woodcock | The Return of the Native | 122 | |
| Thomas Hardy | A. Alvarez David Skilton | Tess of the D'Urbervilles | 135 | |
| Thomas Hardy | David Wright | Under the Greenwood Tree | 123 | |
| William Hazlitt | Ronald Blythe | Selected Writings | 50 | |
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | Thomas E. Connolly | The Scarlet Letter and Selected Tales | 52 | 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, which has excised the tales and replaced his introduction with one by Nina Baym. |
| Henry James | Anthony Curtis | The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw | Unknown | Still in print as a Penguin Classic. |
| Samuel Johnson | Patrick Cruttwell | Selected Writings | 33 | |
| Samuel Johnson | D. J. Enright | The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia | 108 | |
| Ben Jonson | Michael Jamieson | Three Comedies | 13 | |
| Thomas Malory | John Lawlor Janet Cowen | Le Morte d'Arthur, Volume 1 | 43 | |
| Thomas Malory | John Lawlor Janet Cowen | Le Morte d'Arthur, Volume 2 | 44 | |
| Christopher Marlowe | J. B. Steane | The Complete Plays | 37 | |
| Charles Maturin | Alethea Hayter | Melmoth the Wanderer | 110 | |
| Herman Melville | Harold Beaver | Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories | 29 | |
| Herman Melville | Harold Beaver | Moby-Dick | 82 | |
| Herman Melville | Harold Beaver | Redburn | 105 | |
| Herman Melville | George Woodcock | Typee | 70 | |
| George Meredith | George Woodcock | The Egoist | 34 | |
| John Milton | C. A. Patrides | Selected Prose | 91 | |
| William Morris | Asa Briggs | News from Nowhere and Selected Writings and Designs | 115 | |
| Thomas Nashe | J. B. Steane | The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works | 67 | 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. |
| Edgar Allan Poe | David Galloway | Selected Writings | 28 | |
| Edgar Allan Poe | Harold Beaver | The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket | 97 | |
| Edgar Allan Poe | Harold Beaver | The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe | 106 | |
| Walter Scott | A. N. Wilson | Ivanhoe | 143 | |
| Walter Scott | Angus Calder | Old Mortality | 98 | |
| Walter Scott | The Heart of Mid-Lothian | 129 | ||
| Walter Scott | Andrew Hook | Waverley | 71 | |
| Philip Sidney | Maurice Evans | Arcadia | 111 | |
| Tobias Smollett | Angus Ross | Humphry Clinker | 21 | |
| Laurence Sterne | A. Alvarez | A Sentimental Journey | 26 | |
| Laurence Sterne | Christopher Ricks Graham Petrie | Tristram Shandy | 19 | Ricks's introductory essay is reprinted in the current Penguin Classics edition. |
| Robert Louis Stevenson | Jenni Calder | Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories | 117 | |
| Jonathan Swift | Michael Foot Peter Dixon and John Chalker | Gulliver's Travels | 22 | |
| William Makepeace Thackeray | John Sutherland Michael Greenfield | The History of Henry Esmond | 49 | |
| William Makepeace Thackeray | J. I. M. Stewart Donald Hawes | The History of Pendennis | 76 | |
| William Makepeace Thackeray | J. I. M. Stewart | Vanity Fair | 35 | |
| Edward John Trelawny | David Wright | Records of Shelley, Byron and The Author | 88 | |
| Anthony Trollope | Stephen Wall | Can You Forgive Her? | 86 | |
| Anthony Trollope | John Sutherland | Phineas Finn | 85 | |
| Anthony Trollope | John Sutherland Stephen Gill | The Eustace Diamonds | 41 | |
| Anthony Trollope | Laurence Lerner Peter Fairclough | The Last Chronicle of Barset | 24 | |
| Anthony Trollope | John William Ward Robert Mason | North America | 38 | |
| Mark Twain | Justin Kaplan | A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | 64 | |
| Mark Twain | Malcolm Bradbury | Pudd'nhead Wilson | 40 | |
| Mark Twain | Peter Coveney | The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | 18 | |
| John Webster | D. C. Gunby | Three Plays | 81 | |
| Gilbert White | Richard Mabey | The Natural History of Selborne | 112 | |
| Oscar Wilde | Hesketh Pearson | De Profundis and Other Writings | 89 | |
| Richard Steele and Joseph Addison | Angus Ross | Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator | 130 | |
| Gāmini Salgādo | Cony-Catchers and Bawdy Baskets | 83 | ||
| Peter Happé | Four Morality Plays | 119 | ||
| Peter Happé | English Mystery Plays | 93 | ||
| Keith Sturgess | Three Elizabethan Domestic Tragedies | 39 | ||
| Peter Happé | Tudor Interludes | 62 | ||
| Cyril Tourneur John Webster Thomas Middleton | Gāmini Salgādo | Three Jacobean Tragedies | 6 | Authorship of The Revenger's Tragedy 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 | 27 | Still in print as a Penguin Classic. |
| John Marston Thomas Middleton Ben Jonson Philip Massinger | Gāmini Salgādo | Four Jacobean City Comedies | 101 | |
| Horace Walpole William Beckford Mary Shelley | Mario Praz | Three Gothic Novels | 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. |