Little Black Classics Box Set (Penguin Little Black Classics)

To clarify, this item contains one copy of each book in Penguin's Little Black Classics collection (http://www.littleblackclassics.com) curated to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. That's 80 unique titles, each weighing in at roughly 64 pages. It isn't a box set (just the books), but the collection is brought together by it's minimalistic cover design. The books themselves are good quality, especially considering their intended price tag of 80p each.Content-wise, there is a mixture of short stories, poetry and non-fiction. Some are excerpts from larger pieces. Here is the list in full:1. Boccaccio - Mrs Rosie and the Priest2. Gerard Manley Hopkins - As Kingfishers Catch Fire3. Anon - The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue4. Thomas de Quincey - On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts5. Friedrich Nietzsche - Aphorisms on Love and Hate6. John Ruskin - Traffic7. Pu Songling - Wailing Ghosts8. Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal9. Anon - Three Tang Dynasty Poets10. Walt Whitman - Alone on the Beach at Night11. Kenko - A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees12. Baltasar Gracian - How to Use Your Enemies13. John Keats - The Eve of St Agnes14. Thomas Hardy - Woman Much Missed15. Guy de Maupassant - Femme Fatale16. Marco Polo - Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls17. Suetonius - Caligula18. Apollonius of Rhodes - Jason and Medea19. Robert Louis Stevenson - Olalla20. Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto21. Petronius - Trimalchio’s Feast22. Johann Peter Hebel - How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog23. Hans Christian Andersen - The Tinder Box24. Rudyard Kipling - The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows25. Dante - Circles of Hell26. Henry Mayhew - Of Street Piemen27. Hafez - The nightingales Are Drunk28. Geoffrey Chaucer - The Wife of Bath29. Michel de Montaigne - How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing30. Thomas Nashe - The Terrors of the Night31. Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart32. Mary Kingsley - A Hippo Banquet33. Jane Austen - The Beautifull Cassandra34. Anton Chekhov - Gooseberries35. Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Well, They Are Gone, and Here Must I Remain36. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings37. Charles Dickens - The Great Winglebury Duel38. Herman Melville - The Maldive Shark39. Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurse’s Story40. Nikolai Leskov - The Steel Flea41. Honore de Balzac - The Atheist’s Mass42. Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wall-Paper43. CP Cavafy - Remember, Body...44. Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Meek One45. Gustave Flaubert - A Simple Heart46. Nikolai Gogol - The Nose47. Samuel Pepys - The Great Fire of London48. Edith Wharton - The Reckoning49. Henry James - The Figure in the Carpet50. Wilfred Owen - Anthem for Doomed Youth51. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - My Dearest Father52. Plato - Socrates’ Defence53. Christina Rossetti - Goblin Market54. Anon - Sindbad the Sailor55. Sophocles - Antigone56. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa - The Life of a Stupid Man57. Leo Tolstoy - How Much Land Does a Man Need?58. Giorgio Vasari - Leonardo da Vinci59. Oscar Wilde - Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime60. Shen Fu - The Old Man of the Moon61. Aesop - The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon62. Matsuo Bashō - Lips Too Chilled63. Emily Bronte - The Night Is Darkening Round Me64. Joseph Conrad - To-morrow65. Richard Hakluyt - The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe66. Kate Chopin - A Pair of Silk Stockings67. Charles Darwin - It Was Snowing Butterflies68. Brothers Grimm - The Robber Bridegroom69. Catullus - I Hate and I Love70. Homer Circe and the Cyclops71. DH Lawrence - Il Duro72. Katherine Mansfield - Miss Brill73. Ovid - The Fall of Icarus74. Sappho - Come Close75. Ivan Turgenev - Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands76. Virgil - O Cruel Alexis77. HG Wells - A Slip under the Microscope78. Herodotus - The Madness of Cambyses79. Anon - Speaking of Śiva80. Anon - The Dhammapada

I love this box set. There is a great selection of classics that have a nice simple black cover - a must but for any book lover like me. When reading this I found myself a new favourite philosopher and a new favourite poet. The set includes a wide range of books from a selection of poems to a biography of Caligula.The only improvement I would suggest is that the box is too tight, but if you but it on its back with the spines of the books facing the ceiling you can yet them out easier. With that said I love the design of the books and the box - they really met with my expectations.

I was hesitant on whether to buy this for quite a while-although it's a reasonable price for 80 books it's still quite expensive, the various negative reviews about missing books, and the non-level penguin spines... but I am so glad I did there are so many books in there that I am so excited to read! A really special gift for any booklover and I can confirm it was definitely worth it despite my reservations. This is the first product I've ever reviewed I think that conveys how happy I am with this beautiful set!

Arrived in perfect condition. No problems.

The media could not be loaded. I recently got this set and haven’t read any of the books yet so i’m not sure about the actual printing and if there’s anything wrong with it, however it is a nice set of books, the box was in pretty good condition (for how a box should be), the blue boom in some of the images is a A5 notebook so you can see the comparison, the books were surprisingly small however the font of it is a fairly normal size so don’t worry about that. Overall the books and the set are really nice, the only shock was the size. Also the books are pretty thin, but they are short stories. I’m incredibly excited to read !!(the books aren’t perfectly aligned but i dont really have an issue with it because it doesn’t affect my reading but you decide if it will bother you (the set is still pretty 🤷)

Really happy with my purchase

I bought this as a gift and it came in perfect condition, the books include lots of classics (as the title may suggest) including not just novels but also collections of poetry. 80 little books will keep a reader occupied for a good amount of time. The fonts aren't too small, but if someone does have trouble with smaller text then reading glasses will be required. Otherwise, this is a very well presented and well priced gift for anyone, and will look good on a shelf too.

A great collection and arrived in perfect condition. I saw in other reviews issues regarding the positioning of the Penguin mark but it is not particularly noticeable to me - it may be an irritant to some but I wouldn’t let it discourage you from purchasing this valuable set!