Penguin Classics to offer non-fiction 'Pocketbook' series

Penguin is to release a new non-fiction series of classics for the “discerning reader”.

The first 10 books in the Penguin Classics’ Pocketbooks series will be released on 6th November, and include Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Friedrich Neitzche’s Beyond Good and Evil, and Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents.

Each book will cost £10, and have been designed by Penguin Press senior designer Coralie Bickford-Smith.

They are described as “timeless yet urgent works of philosophical, political and psychological thought in tactile, pocket-sized form”.

Other books in the series are Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer, Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard, Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Art of War by Sun-Tzu, The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli and Tim Parks.

Bickford-Smith said: “This series is an exciting departure from classic fiction, which has provided me with the chance to delve ever deeper into the intricacies of pattern design. From the colour to the format, the grid to the mark-making, I was absorbed completely.

“To work on such a varied collection, which includes everything from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One's Own to Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War, there were points in the process which had me creatively stuck. But some great advice came from the pages of the books themselves. Through designing these pocket hardbacks, I have found that along with my design skills, my philosophical approach to design has evolved as well.”

Earlier this month, Penguin announced its Little Black Classics range of 80p short works, to be published next year.