‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…’

In Paradise Lost Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties - blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution - Paradise Lost's apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to 'justify the ways of God to men', or exposes the cruelty of Christianity.

Author : John Milton

Edition : Penguin Clothbound Classic, Hardback, 512 pages

ISBN : 9780141394633

Weight: 632g
Dimensions: 204 x 138 x 44mm

'You will hear it for yourself, and it will surely fill you with wonder.'

A sparkling new translation of one of the greatest travel books ever written: Marco Polo's seminal account of his journeys in the east, in a collectible clothbound edition.

Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book. His account of his travels offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad: unfamiliar religions, customs and societies; the spices and silks of the East; the precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts of faraway lands. Evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy, Marco's book revolutionized western ideas about the then unknown East and is still one of the greatest travel accounts of all time.

Author : Marco Polo

Edition : Penguin Clothbound Classic, Hardback, 480 pages

ISBN : 9780141198774

Published : 26th February 2015

Weight: 599g
Dimensions: 204 x 138 x 33mm

The misadventures of Lemuel Gulliver certainly are extraordinary. First he is shipwrecked in a strange land, and finds himself a prisoner of the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput. Then he washes up in Brobdingnag, where the people are giants of extraordinary proportions. Further exploits see him stranded with the scientists and philosophers of Laputa, and meeting a race of talking horses who rule over bestial humans.

One of the finest satires in the English language, Gulliver's Travels delights in the mockery of everything from government to religion and - despite the passing of nearly three centuries - remains just as funny and relevant today.

This gorgeous Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels features the beautiful artwork of the celebrated English illustrator Arthur Rackham, and an afterword by author and critic, Henry Hitchings.

Author : Johnathon Swift

Edition : Collectors Library, Hardback, 408 pages

ISBN : 9781509843213

Weight: 226g
Dimensions: 157 x 101 x 26mm

'Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world.'

In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab is an eerily compelling madman who focuses his distilled hatred and suffering (and that of generations before him) into the pursuit of a creature as vast, dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. More than just a novel of adventure, this is a haunting social commentary populated with some of the most enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith and the nature of perception.

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.

Why Novel North Recommends

'Reading Moby Dick, you feel as though you've accomplished something more than reading a classic, you feel as though you yourself have been transported, that you've embarked on an epic voyage and returned changed because of it.  An experience which stays with you.

It’s an incredible feat. Profound and humorous. Epic in scale and uncompromising in detail. An adventure classic.’

Author : Herman Melville 

Edition : Penguin Clothbound Classic, Hardback, 720 pages

ISBN : 9780141199603

Weight: 845g
Dimensions: 204 x 138 x 46mm