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If you feel that some of your Penguin Classics are looking the worse for wear, here is the perfect opportunity to spruce up your shelves with this highly collectible batch of smartly presented reissues, collectively described as Victorian Bestsellers. The common denominator here is, of course, sensation - and everything from Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford (which coined the immortal phrase — as its opening line – 'It was a dark and stormy night') to more widely recognised Victorian classics (such as Wilkie Collins' two finest books, The Moonstone and The Woman in White) are reissued in beautifully designed, matt-cover editions. Many of these now celebrated books were the targets of thundering disapproval from the clergy of the day, as they were clearly invitations to moral depravity. Modern readers may find them less outrageous, but it is interesting to note just how much of a charge most of these remarkable novels still possess — if you allow yourself to fall under the spell of their beguiling prose. It's a masterstroke on Penguin's part to reissue literary classics alongside far less respectable fare — and readers inclined to stay on the slopes of Mount Parnassus should take the trips to the lower levels that this collection invites — they will find themselves handsomely rewarded.

Paul Clifford Bulwer-Lytton /A String Of Pearls Thomas Prest and other titles

Penguin Victorian Bestsellers