The classic ghost story from Penelope Lively, one of the modern greats of British fiction for adults and children alike.

James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage – with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees that are perfect for climbing – and stuff is happening. Stuff that is normally the kind of thing he does. But it's not him who's writing strange things on shopping lists and fences. It's not him who smashes bottles and pours tea in the Vicar's lap. It's a ghost – honestly. Thomas Kempe the 17th century apothecary has returned and he wants James to be his apprentice. No one else believes in ghosts. It's up to James to get rid of him. Or he'll have no pocket money or pudding ever again.

An iconic ghost story for children, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is adored by generations of readers.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize and Shortlisted for the Golden Man Booker Prize The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history; lies alone in a London hospital bed. Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world. Instead, Moon Tiger is her own history, the life of a strong, independent woman, with its often contentious relations with family and friends. At its center -- forever frozen in time, the still point of her turning world -- is the cruelly truncated affair with Tom, a British tank commander whom Claudia knew as a reporter in Egypt during World War II.

Maria is always getting lost in the secret world of her imagination… A ghostly mystery and winner of the Whitbread Award,republished in the Collins Modern Classics range. Maria likes to be alone with her thoughts. She talks to animals and objects, and generally prefers them to people. But whilst on holiday she begins to hear things that aren’t there – a swing creaking, a dog barking – and when she sees a Victorian embroidered picture, Maria feels a strange connection with the ten-year-old, Harriet, who stitched it. But what happened to her? As Maria becomes more lost in Harriet’s world, she grows convinced that something tragic occurred… Perfect for fans of ghostly mysteries like ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’.

Matthew Halland is an architect, intimately involved with the new face of the city, while haunted by earlier times of destruction and loss in its history. Although he is divorced and lonely, Matthew has a rich and moving relationship with his daughter Jane. She offers a fresh perspective on love, loss, and even the city of London.
Matthew becomes entangled with an array of fascinating characters, from Rutter, a corrupt real estate developer whose mafia-like ways disgust him, to Sarah Bridges, a romantic ray of hope who enters his life. Mathew's relationships with Jane, Sarah, and Rutter allow his mind to rove freely as the past, present, and future interweave and he strives to look ahead and forge new beginnings of his own..
In Lively's most ambitious novel, she has created a wonderfully rich and audacious confrontation with the mystery of London.

Penelope Lively is one of England's greatest living writers, whom The New York Times Book Review has called blessed with the gift of being able to render matters of great import with a breath, a barely audible sigh, a touch. The result is wonderful writing. Judgment Day takes us into the life of Clare Paling, who has just moved with her family to Laddenham, a seemingly drowsy village enlivened by sideshows of adultery and gossip. An avowed agnostic, Clare is nonetheless caught up in the restoration of the church, even inciting the villagers to put on a pageant that re-creates the church's dark past. With flawless precision, Lively brings the village and its inhabitants to life as an unpardonable death reminds them all that the world is a very uncertain place. Penelope Lively exhibits an almost Hardyesque concern with fate and its mysterious workings.... A stimulating novel. -- William Boyd, The Times Literary Supplement A beautiful and brilliant novel. -- Auberon Waugh Marvelous observation, wit, control and zest. -- The Observer (U.K.)

Booker-Prize winning author Penelope Lively is that rare writer who goes from strength to strength in book after perfectly assured book. In Passing On, she applies her distinctive insight and consummate artistry to the subtle story of a domineering and manipulative mother's legacy to her children. With their mother's death, Helen and Edward, both middle-aged and both unmarried, are left to face the ramifications of their mother's hold on their lives for all of these years. Helen and Edward slowly learn to accept what has been lost in their own lives and embrace what can yet be retrieved. The richest and most rewarding of her novels. - The Washington Post Book World

Stella Brentwood, a former anthropologist, has retired to a small Somerset village. She tries to adjust to her new surroundings and sinister neighbours whilst assessing the relationships and explorations which have defined the spiderweb of her life.

In A House Unlocked, Whitbread Award- and Booker Prize-winning Penelope Lively takes us on a journey of her familial country house in England that her grandparents bought in 1923. As her narrative shifts from room to room, object to object, she paints a moving portrait of an era of rapid change -- and of the family that changed with the times. As she charts the course of the domestic tensions of class and community among her relatives, she brings to life the effects of the horrors of the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust through portraits of the refugees who came to live with them. A fascinating, intimate social history of its times, A House Unlocked is an eloquent meditation on place and time, memory and history, and above all a tribute to the meaning of home.

'Wonderful. A manifesto of horticultural delight' Literary Review 'Beautiful. Perfect for literary garden lovers' Good Housekeeping 'Rich and unusual, a book to treasure. Few recent gardening books come anywhere close to its style, intelligence and depth' Observer 'The two central activities in my life - alongside writing - have been reading and gardening.' Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This book is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own, and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. It is also a wise, engaging and far-ranging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice in Wonderland, and of writers and their gardens, from Virginia Woolf to Philip Larkin. 'Exquisite and original' Daily Telegraph 'A gentle survey of the garden's place in Western culture, which morphs into a personal meditation on time, memory and a life well lived' i 'Scholarly bedtime reading' The Times, Books of the Year

Winner of the Booker Prize, Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger is the tale of a historian confronting her own, personal history, unearthing the passions and pains that have defined her life. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Anthony Thwaite. Claudia Hampton, a beautiful, famous writer, lies dying in hospital. But, as the nurses tend to her with quiet condescension, she is plotting her greatest work: 'a history of the world ... and in the process, my own'. Gradually she re-creates the rich mosaic of her life and times, conjuring up those she has known. There is Gordon, her adored brother; Jasper, the charming, untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool, conventional daughter; and Tom, her one great love, both found and lost in wartime Egypt. Penelope Lively's Booker Prize-winning novel weaves an exquisite mesh of memories, flashbacks and shifting voices, in a haunting story of loss and desire. Penelope Lively (b. 1933) was born in Cairo. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, City of the Mind, Cleopatra's Sister and Heat Wave, and many are published by Penguin. If you enjoyed Moon Tiger, you might like L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'It's a fine, intelligent piece of work, the kind that Leaves its traces in the air long after you've put it away' Anne Tyler 'Funny, thoughtful ... a perfect example of the Lively art' Mark Lawson, Independent

Published in Penguin Modern Classics, Penelope Lively's Heat Wave is a moving portrayal of a fragile family damaged and defined by adultery, and the lengths to which a mother will go to protect the ones she loves. Pauline is spending the summer at World's End, a cottage somewhere in the middle of England. This year the adjoining cottage is occupied by her daughter Teresa and baby grandson Luke; and, of course, Maurice, the man Teresa married. As the hot months unfold, Maurice grows ever more involved in the book he is writing - and with his female copy editor - and Pauline can only watch in dismay and anger as her daughter repeats her own mistakes in love. The heat and tension will lead to a violent, startling climax. Penelope Lively (b. 1933) was born in Cairo. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, City of the Mind, Cleopatra's Sister and Heat Wave, and many are published by Penguin. If you enjoyed Heat Wave, you might like Lively's Moon Tiger, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Extraordinarily good, intelligent and perceptive ... very moving' Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black '[Heat Wave is] short, but the emotions are so intense and the writing so good that it punches well above its weight' Independent

Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world . . . and in the process, my own'. And it is her story from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak, to put across their point of view. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love, found and lost in wartime Egypt.

Penelope Lively's Booker Prize winning classic, Moon Tiger is a haunting story of loss and desire, published here as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world . . . and in the process, my own'. And it is her story from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak, to put across their point of view. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love, found and lost in wartime Egypt. 'Leaves its traces in the air long after you've put it away' Anne Tyler 'A complex tapestry of great subtlety. Lively writes so well, savouring the words as she goes' Daily Telegraph 'Very clever: evocative, thought-provoking and hangs on the mind long after it is finished' Literary Review

Claudia Hampton is a popular historian, a strong, beautiful and difficult woman. Now in her seventies, she is plotting her greatest work - a history of the world. She looks back over her life growing up between the wars and remembers the people who have shared its triumphs and tragedies. There is Gordon, her adored brother; Jasper, the charming, untrustworthy lover and father of her daughter, and Tom, her one great love, both found and lost during the El Alamein campaign when she worked as a war correspondent. Against a background of world events, Claudia's own remarkable story provokes a sharp combination of sadness, shock and amusement. Simon Reade's adaptation is introduced by Penelope Lively herself. Compelling, moving and eloquent, one of the great novels of the 20th century is brought to the stage for the first time. Winner of the 1987 Booker Prize, Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger is a haunting story of loss and desire.

Including new and never-before-published stories and forgotten treasures: the definitive selection of short stories from one of our greatest living writers, curated by the author herself 'Lively has the gift, rare and wonderful, of being able to peel back the layers one by one and set them before us, translucent and gleaming' Sunday Telegraph 'Superb...The writing is as good as it gets' The Times Wry, compassionate and glittering with wit, Penelope Lively's stories get beneath the everyday to the beating heart of human experience. In intimate tales of growing up and growing old, chance encounters and life-long relationships, Lively explores with keen insight the ways that individuals can become tangled in history, and small acts ripple through the generations. From new and never-before-published stories to forgotten treasures, Metamorphosis showcases the very best from a literary master. 'Lively has guts and style. You are in the hands of a master' Daily Mail

In celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of its original publication, Carol Shields's Pulitzer Prize?winning novel is now available in a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
ONE OF THE MOST successful and acclaimed novels of our time, this fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett is a subtle but affecting portrait of an everywoman reflecting on an unconventional life. What transforms this seemingly ordinary tale is the richness of Daisy's vividly described inner life?from her earliest memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death.

'This is the city, in which everything is simultaneous. There is no yesterday, nor tomorrow, merely weather, and decay, and construction'

In London's changing heartland architect Matthew Halland is constantly aware of the past and the present blending together. It stirs memories of his boyhood, the early years of his daughter Jane and the failed marriage that he has almost put behind him. Here too is the London of prehistory, of Georgian elegance, of the Blitz. But Matthew is occupied with constructing and new future for London in Docklands, and with it he begins to forge new beginnings of his own.

A domineering old woman dies in a Cotswold village. Her death "releases" her two middle-aged unmarried children - a spinster librarian and a nature-loving schoolmaster - to make their lives.

Ann Linton leaves her family in Berkshire and sets up camp in her father's house when he is taken into a nursing home in distant Lichfield. As she shares his last weeks she meets David Fielding, and the love they share brings her feelings into sharp focus.

Clare Paling - clever, inquisitive, sceptical - has had to move to the drowsy village of Laddenham because of her highly successful husband's job. She is well-educated, attractive, has a nice house and wonderful children, but finds it hard to fit in to the small, closed community, with its interesting sideshows of adultery, gossip and carefully adhered-to pecking orders.

It takes her involvement in the church's fourth centenary pageant and an unpardonable death to remind Clare, who had almost forgotten, that however hard you try to make sense of it, the world is a very uncertain place.

"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

No.40 Norham Gardens, Oxford, is the home of Clare Mayfield, her two aged aunts and two lodgers. The house is a huge Victorian monstrosity, with rooms all full of old furniture, old papers, old clothes, memorabilia - it is like a living museum. Clare discovers in a junk room the vividly painted shield which her great-grandfather, an eminent anthropologist, had brought back from New Guinea. She becomes obsessed with its past and determined to find out more about its strange tribal origins. Dreams begin to haunt her - dreams of another country, another culture, another time, and of shadowy people whom she feels are watching her. Who are they, and what do they want?

'DO NOT OPEN - DESTROY.' The words on the envelope he has found are written in Kath's hand, but Glyn ignores his wife's instruction and breaks the seal. His life unwinds. For he finds a photograph showing Kath holding hands with another man. Unable to forget this long-ago act of betrayal he recklessly excavates the past, seeking out who knew what, tearing apart other lives as he tries to dig up the roots of his wife's infidelity. But what is the truth about Kath? What is the truth about their love? And can it survive this? 'Remarkable' Sunday Telegraph

A poignant and bittersweet memoir from the distinguished British fiction writer Penelope Lively, "Oleander, Jacaranda" evokes the author' s unusual childhood growing up English in Egypt during the 1930s and 1940s. Filled with the birds, animals and planets of the Nile landscape that the author knew as a child, "Oleander, Jacaranda" follows the young Penelope from a visit to a "fellaheen" village to an afternoon at the elegant Gezira Sporting Club, one milieu as exotic to her as the other. Lively' s memoir offers us the rare opportunity to accompany a gifted writer on a journey of exploration into the mysterious world of her own childhood.

A respected literary biographer, Mark is working on the life of Gilbert Strong - a writer about whom he thinks he knows everything. Happily married, and apparently dedicated to a life of letters, he nevertheless falls in love with Strong's granddaughter Carrie, a vague and unsophisticated young woman more interested in bedding plants than books or passion. As Mark's obsessions develop over a hot, complicated summer, he begins to understand that nothing is ever what it seems; not Gilbert Strong, and certainly not himself. According to Mark is a witty and moving look at love, literature and the dangers of middle-aged folly.