Everyman’s Library

Our expanded new edition now also includes the complete version of Wilde's moving letter from prison, De Profundis, and his teasing parable about Shakespeare, "The Portrait of Mr. W. H", as well as the essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism.
buff.ly/g3tgqqH

The writings gathered in our Everyman's Library volume support Wilde's belief that entertainment provides the best kind of edification. They include the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the riotous plays The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

While one result of this experience was the extraordinary work The Ballad of Reading Gaol, the hard labour Wilde was forced to undertake had a permanent impact on his health, both physical and mental. After his release in 1897, he went into self-imposed exile on the Continent, dying in Paris in 1900

His success was short-lived. In 1891, Wilde fell in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. Then, in 1895, at the height of his fame, Wilde brought a libel action against Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde lost and, two trials later, was sentenced to two years' in prison for gross indecency

Oscar Wilde's reputation as a modern and original talent was established by his fiction, then confirmed by the phenomenal success of his stage comedies, all huge hits in London's West End. buff.ly/g3tgqqH
#pride #pridemonth #queerlit #queerclassics #modernclassics #wewerealwayshere

Legendary American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has entertained us for more than half a century. Now, editor Peter Gethers has selected lyrics from shows including Gypsy, Company, Follies, and Into the Woods to create pocket-sized treasury of the best of Sondheim.
buff.ly/oK51yxF

Long before Todd Haynes’ adaptation of Carol, which Patricia Highsmith published under a pseudonym, her extraordinary anti-hero Tom Ripley had become a queer icon. Suave, agreeable, and completely amoral, Ripley stops at nothing to achieve the opulent life he was denied as a child.

buff.ly/nRgB8vG

On World Refugee Day, we reach for Border Lines, a poetry collection edited by Mihaela Moscaliuc and Michael Waters. These poems from around the world give voice to the trials, hopes, rewards and losses of migration and challenge us to reexamine society from a new perspective.

buff.ly/IxpYp8T

Love Speaks Its Name is a glorious celebration of gay and lesbian love poetry. From Michelangelo’s ‘‘Love Misinterpreted’’ to Muriel Rukeyser’s ‘‘Looking at Each Other,’’ these poems take on both desire and love in all its tender or taunting variety. www.penguin.co.uk/books/371433...
#pride

Happy Fathers Day, dads! Wishing you a very hip hop happy day of reading and relaxation

Orlando, Virginia Woolf's most unusual, joyous novel, was inspired by her affair with the dashing Vita Sackville West. It explores Woolf’s lived and observed experiences of gender fluidity and sexual liberation with a playful openness that both moves and delights.
www.penguin.co.uk/books/457490...

What ho! Dearest publishers, only a few days remain to submit entries for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.

Act swiftly to ensure your books are considered: entries close Friday 13 June
www.wodehouseprize.com/howtoenter

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin is widely regarded as a landmark in gay literature.
Set in 1950s Paris, a young American finds himself caught between his repressed desires and social expectations when he becomes involved with a bartender named Giovanni...
www.penguin.co.uk/books/433444...

This Pride month, and every month, we’re proud to publish some of literature’s best-loved and most acclaimed queer writers.
Who are your favourite LGBTQIA+ authors?

#pride #queerclassics #wewerealwayshere #queerlit #queerhistory

Elizabeth Bowen was born on this day in Dublin in 1899.

The Collected Stories features 79 stories written over the course of four decades and, in his introduction to this edition, John Banville calls her ‘the supreme genius of her time’.

buff.ly/i0gj6Xc

This week, we've published River Stories, edited by Henry Hughes.
From The Wind in the Willows to Huckleberry Finn, Alice Munro's ‘The Found Boat’ and Zadie Smith's ‘The Lazy River,’ these are testament to the power of rivers in the human imagination.
buff.ly/Nztc1zp

Explore nature from the comfort of your home, through the poems and stories of some of our greatest writers. These poetry and story collections transport the reader to far-off seas, along rushing torrents and through peaceful woodland, into blooming gardens filled with the hum of bees...

Planning a Father’s Day present? Treat them to a beautiful Everyman’s Library book – from Hip Hops to daring detectives and stories about exploring the natural world, we’ve got something for every dad...

Looking back to our evening last Tuesday, celebrating the publication of African Stories at The Africa Centre. We were thrilled to hear Sir Ben in conversation with legendary publisher Margaret Busby. Thank you to The Africa Centre for hosting this wonderful event!

Happy publication centenary to Virginia Woolf's luminous Mrs Dalloway. We're deeply proud to publish Contemporary Classics editions of Mrs Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, Orlando, introduced by Jeanette Winterson, and A Room of One's Own, introduced by Merve Emre.

A photograph of a hardback book, with the title English Romantic Poets, from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series.

'All good poetry is the spontaneous poetry of powerful feelings' -William Wordsworth

We’re wishing our followers a happy St George’s Day, courtesy of a host of English Romantic poets: Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Clare, Shelley and more.

#pocketpoets #everymanslibrary #romanticpoets #stgeorgesday

For Earth Day 2025, we’re celebrating our rivers. In River Stories (5 June), tales by Harriet Beecher Stowe, E.M. Forster, Zora Neale Hurston, Cormac McCarthy, Elif Shafak and more, are testament to the enduring power of rivers in the human imagination.
uk.bookshop.org/a/1353/97818...

#earthday