February 2016 | Nate Pedersen

Penguin Classics Offering Bargain Sets to UK Schools

Penguin_Classics.jpgIn a response to a plea from UK schools minister Nick Gibb to introduce secondary school children to literature "free from the constraints and analysis of public exams," Penguin will be offering a set of 100 Penguin Classics to schools across Britain for £100. Penguin followed the lead of Scholastic, here, who recently launched a plan to sell 26 classic novels to schools for £1.50 per copy.


"I want every secondary school to have a stock of classics such as Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre so that whole classes across the country can enjoy them together," said Gibbs in his public plea last November.


In addition to standard classics such as Gulliver's Travels and Madame Bovary, the Penguin Classics sets will include various sacred texts from world religions, as well as writings in Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic.


Penguin described the responsibility to select just 100 texts as "crushing" but added the "fun bit was trying to spread it as widely as possible."