Classics: 1st Edition

The first generation of Penguin Classics arose in 1946 with E.V. Rieu’s translation of the Odyssey, and he became the editor of the series until his death in 1964. With the exception of a few early titles in 1946, as shown on the left, the entirety of this edition were designed by Jan Tschichold and maintained until 1963. The colors of the books reflected the original language of the work; there were seventeen colors in all. Numbers in the Penguin Classics series are prefixed with an “L”.

#	Title	Author	Year
L1	Odyssey	Homer	1946
L2	Boule de Suif	Maupassant	1946
L3	Theban Plays	Sophocles	1947
L4	Candide	Voltaire	1947
L5	On Britain and Germany	Tacitus	1948
L6	Divine Comedy I: Hell	Dante	1949
L7	Persian Expedition	Xenephon	1949
L8	Pastoral Poems	Virgil	1949
L9	On the Eve	Tergenev	1950
L10	Don Quixote	Cervantes	1950
L11	The Golden Ass	Apuleius	1950
L12	Faust (1)	Goethe	1949
L13	Manon Lescaut	Abbe Prevost	1950
L14	Iliad	Homer	1950
L15	Madame Bovary	Flaubert	1951
L16	Three Plays	Ibsen	1950
L17	Old Goriot	Balzac	1951
L18	Nature of the Universe	Lucretius	1951
L19	Three Plays	Chekov	1951
L20	Miss Harriet	Maupassant	1951
L21	Conquest of Gaul	Caesar	1951
L22	Canterbury Tales	Chaucer	1951
L23	Crime and Punishment	Dostoyevsky	1951
L24	Symposium	Plato	1951
L25	Three Musketeers	Dumas	1952
L26	Lusiads	Camoens	1952
L27	Imitation of Christ	Thomas a Kempis	1952
L28	Electra	Sophocles	1953
L29	Medieval Latin Lyrics	Various	1952
L30	Scarlet and Black	Stendhal	1953
L31	Alcestis	Euripides	1953
L32	Four Gospels	Various	1952
L33	Confessions of Rousseau	Rousseau	1953
L34	Histories	Heroditus	1954
L35	Devils	Dostoyevsky	1953
L36	Five Plays	Moliere	1953
L37	Last days of Socrates	Plato	1954
L38	Seagull	Ibsen H.	1954
L39	Pelopennesian Wars	Thucidides	1954
L40	Oblamov	Goncharov	1954
L41	Anna Karenina	Tolstoy	1954
L42	History of the Church	Bede	1955
L43	Fables	Aesop	1954
L44	Bacchae	Euripides	1954
L45	Germinal	Zola	1954
L46	Purgatory	Dante	1955
L47	Gargantua & Pantagruel	Rabelais	1955
L48	Republic	Plato	1955
L49	Autobiography	Cellini	1956
L50	Eugenie Grandet	Balzac	1955
L51	Aeneid	Virgil	1956
L52	Koran	N.J.Dawood	1956
L53	Master Builder	Ibsen	1958
L54	Idiot	Dostoyevsky	1955
L55	Ethics	Aristotle	1955
L56	Acts of the Apostles	Saint Luke	1957
L57	Travels	Marco Polo	1958
L58	Metamorphosis	Ovid	1955
L59	Daphnis and Chloe	Longus	1956
L60	On Imperial Rome	Tacitus	1956
L61	Charterhouse of Parma	Stendhal	1958
L62	War and Peace (I)	Tolstoy	1957
L63	War and Peace (II)	Tolstoy	1957
L64	1001 Nights	Tr. N.J.Dawood	1955
L65	Mountain Inn	Maupassant	1955
L66	Pharsalia	Lucan	1956
L67	Oresteian Trilogy	Aeschylus	1956
L68	Plato Protagras	Plato	1956
L69	Fairy Tales	Perrault	1957
L70	Beowulf	Anon	1957
L71	Aladdin	Anon	1957
L72	Twelve Caesars	Suetonius	1957
L73	Life of St. Theresa	Anon	1957
L74	Ladder of Perfection	Hilton	1957
L75	Song of Roland	Anon	1957
L76	Two Satyr Plays Cyclops and Ichneutai	Sophocles & Euripides	1957
L77	Galateo	Della Casa	1958
L78	Brothers Karamazov (I)	Dostoyevsky	1958
L79	Brothers Karamazov (II)	Dostoyevsky	1958
L80	Domestic Peace	Balzac	1958
L81	Alexander	Arrian	1958
L82	Three Plays	Strindberg	1958
L83	Essays	Montagne	1958
L84	Fall of the Roman Empire	Plutarch	1958
L85	Voyage of Argo	Appolonius	1959
L86	Against Nature	Huysmans	1959
L87	Piers the Ploughman	Langland	1959
L88	Buddhist Scriptures	Edward Conze	1959
L89	Misanthrope	Moliere	1959
L90	The Jewish War	Josephus	1959
L91	Little Flowers of St. Francis	St. Francis	1959
L92	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight	Anon	1959
L93	Faust (II)	Goethe	1959
L94	Gorgias	Plato	1960
L95	Maxims	Rochefocauld	1959
L96	Chekov Plays	Chekov	1959
L97	Discourse on Method	Descartes	1960
L98	Tristan	von Strasburg	1960
L99	Selected Works	Cicero	1960
L100	Epic of Gilgamesh	Anon	1960
L101	Poems	St. John of the Cross	1960
L102	Rise and Fall of Athens	Plutarch	1960
L103	Njal’s Saga	Anon	1960
L104	Early History of Rome	Livy	1960
L105	The Divine Comedy III-Paradise	Dante	1962
L106	Three Tales	Flaubert	1961
L107	Prince	Machiavelli	1960
L108	Cloud of Unknowing	Anon	1961
L109	The Cossacks	Tolstoy	1960
L110	The Pensees	Blaise Pascal	1961
L111	Monkey	Wu Cheng-en	1961
L112	Prometheus and Other Plays	Aeschylus	1961
L113	Dead Souls	Nikolai Gogol	1961
L114	Confessions	St. Augustine	1961
L115	Bel-Ami	Maupassant G.de	1961
L116	Les Liaisons Dangereuses	Laclos	1961
L117	Satirical Sketches	Lucian	1961
L118	Thus Spake Zarathustra	Friedrich Nietzsche	1961
L119	Queen of Spades	Pushkin	1962
L120	Therese Raquin	Emile Zola	1962
L121	Bagavad Gita	Anon	1962
L125	Politics	Aristotle	1962