For only 8,000 bucks, you can now get all 1,082 Penguin Classics via Amazon. Ultraclassy literary spokesmodel Jane Austen (see above) sez: "Zowie! Such a deal!"

from: Classic novels make a comeback with publishers
source: The Orlando Sentinel, 2 June 2003
via: HighBeam™ Research

An amoral drifter meets a sultry beauty with an inconvenient husband. Two sisters cope with cads as they seek true love. A scientist's experiments at creating human life succeed beyond his wildest expectations.

These aren't the latest noir novel, chick-lit offering or horror tale. They are the plots of three well-known classics _ ``The Postman Always Rings Twice'' by James M. Cain, ``Sense and Sensibility'' by Jane Austen and ``Frankenstein'' by Mary Shelley.

This summer, publishers are pushing the old along with the new. Penguin Classics recently reissued its famous paperback line with handsome new covers featuring period paintings, such as the one adorning Austen's first novel. Knopf's Everyman's Library is adding a Cain omnibus and a collection of Evelyn Waugh's travel writing to its hardcover classics series. And bookseller giant Barnes & Noble has just launched its ambitious Barnes & Noble Classics publishing program with 15 titles, including Shelley's seminal tale of man and monster.

"I think people tend to associate reading classics more as homework left over from school days rather than discovering -- or rediscovering -- a book that has actually stood the test of time," says Nicholas Latimer, vice president and director of publicity for Knopf. [more...]