Penguin to add 46 books to Little Black Classics series

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first ever Penguin Classic this year, Penguin is to launch a further 46 titles in the Little Black Classics series in March, including authors and works new to the Penguin Classics list.

The 46 new volumes contain more texts from Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare as well as introducing "intriguing, lesser known books" such as The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura.

The list features works from "pioneering female authors", including How to be a Medieval Woman by Margery Kempe, the creator of the first autobiography; one of the earliest English novels, Oroonoko, by spy and traveller Aphra Behn; and The Suffragettes, a new collection of speeches, pamphlets and letters from the "women who changed the world".

Following the popularity of horror stories in the list last year, this new batch will include Sheridan Le Fanu's Green Tea, "one of the greatest Victorian ghost stories ever written"; and the gothic tale of E T A Hoffmann's The Sandman, whose eye-stealing character inspired Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.

The new Little Black Classics also feature Jane Austen's early novella Lady Susan, the basis of the upcoming Whit Stillman film "Love and Friendship"; and fin-de-siècle stories, poems and illustrations from the notorious Victorian magazine The Yellow Book.

"Chosen to surprise, provoke and delight readers, the new Little Black Classics celebrate some of the best world literature and the rich, varied authors published by Penguin Classics," the publisher said.

The 46 new Little Black Classics will be published 3rd March 2016 priced at £1-£2 each.

Launched in February 2015, the Little Black Classics series has now sold more than 2.2 million copies worldwide, Penguin said.