The novels that became instant classics

In the mid-20th century Penguin found a new way to promote outstanding writers such as Waugh, Greene, Orwell and Woolf

From magazine issue: 15 January 2022

Thornton Wilder, whose The Ides of March was one of the first titles to be published by Penguin Modern Classics. [Getty Images]

issue 15 January 2022

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John Self

The novels that became instant classics
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In the world of books, a modern classic is an altogether more slippery thing than a classic: it must walk a line between freshness and durability; reflect the current age but hope to outlast it. For individual publishers, given many 20th-century writers are still in copyright, a modern classics list will necessarily be partial.