To celebrate its 60th anniversary circa 1995, Penguin Books released several boxed sets of "Penguin 60s", miniature books about sixty pages in length. The books were also sold individually.

The main set, with black spines, (ISBN 0140952721, ISBN 978-0-14-095272-8) contained 60 "classic" works. The UK set with orange spines (ISBN 0140951792 / ISBN 978-0-14-095179-0) focused on 20th century or contemporary writers and contained 60 books. A similar set of 60 orange spine books was released for the US market with 13 books in common with the UK set. Smaller, ten item sets focusing on biography/autobiography, travel and cookery were also issued. A children's set (ISBN 0140953361) was released, consisting of 30 volumes.

Further books in the series were planned but appear to have been cancelled. Thirty Obituaries of Wisden selected by Matthew Engel (ISBN 0146002482, ISBN 978-0-14-600248-9) was published but did not appear in any of the other sets of books. Ten orange spine books were released as a limited edition boxed set sold through Blackwell's bookshops in the UK (ISBN 0140954139) with Stephen King's Umney's Last Case the only title appearing in the US orange spine editions. The other nine titles in the Blackwells set were unique titles that did not appear in the other sets (Surprised by Summer by David Lodge, Postcards from Summer by Peter Mayle, Lizzie Borden by Angela Carter, The Girl Who Loved Graveyards by P.D. James, Expulsion from Paradise by Howard Jacobson, Meeting Bilal by Esther Freud, The Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz by Will Self, The Pocket Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins and Scenes from the Dwarf by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor). Another 19 titles appear to have been planned as they are listed at the back of the biography and travel editions but do not appear to have been published.

The American orange spine set and British orange spine set only had 13 books that were in common. They are:

  1. Hans Christian AndersenThe Emperor's New Clothes
  2. Anton ChekovThe Black Monk and Peasants
  3. Roald DahlLamb to the Slaughter and Other Stories
  4. Sir Arthur Conan DoyleThe Man with the Twisted Lip and The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
  5. Graham GreeneUnder the Garden
  6. Rudyard KiplingBaa, Baa, Black Sheep and The Gardener
  7. Gabriel García MárquezBon Voyage, Mr President and Other Stories
  8. Herman MelvilleBartleby and The Lightning-rod Man
  9. Michel De MontaigneFour Essays
  10. John MortimerRumpole and the Younger Generation
  11. Edgar Allan PoeThe Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories
  12. Edith WhartonMadame de Treymes
  13. Oscar WildeThe Happy Prince and Other Stories

Series

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Black set (60)

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(ISBN 0140882677)

 
With the traditional Penguin spine colour: Now Remember by Nabokov (next to a Penguin of regular format, Nabokov's Transparent Things)
  1. Jane AustenThe history of England
  2. Apollonius of RhodesJason and the Argonauts
  3. AristophanesLysistrata
  4. BalzacThe Atheist's Mass
  5. BoccaccioTen Tales from the Decameron
  6. Beowulf and Grendel
  7. Buddha's Teachings
  8. James BoswellMeeting Dr Johnson
  9. Matsuo BashōHaiku
  10. Thomas CarlyleOn Great Men
  11. Charlotte Perkins GilmanThe Yellow Wallpaper
  12. Charlotte BrontëMina Laury
  13. Cao XueqinDream of the Red Chamber
  14. Miguel de CervantesThe Jealous Extremaduran
  15. CastiglioneEtiquette for Renaissance Gentlemen
  16. Joseph ConradThe Secret Sharer
  17. Charles DarwinThe Galapagos Islands
  18. DostoyevskyThe Gentle Spirit
  19. Bernal Díaz del CastilloThe Betrayal of Montezuma
  20. Frederick DouglassThe Education of Frederick Douglass
  21. DanteThe First Three Circles of Hell
  22. De QuinceyThe pleasures and pains of opium
  23. Daniel DefoeA Visitation of the Plague
  24. Benjamin FranklinThe Means and Manner of Obtaining Virtue
  25. Flaubert- A Simple Heart
  26. GibbonReflections of the Fall of Rome
  27. Gilgamesh and Enkidu
  28. GoetheLetters from Italy
  29. George EliotThe Lifted Veil
  30. Henry David ThoreauCivil Disobedience
  31. Henry JamesThe Lessons of the Master
  32. HomerThe Rage of Achilles
  33. HomerThe Voyages of Odysseus
  34. Franz KafkaThe Judgement and In the Penal Colony
  35. Krishna's Dialogue on the Soul
  36. Kate ChopinThe Kiss
  37. Heinrich von KleistThe Marquise of O
  38. LivyHannibal's Crossing of the Alps
  39. MachiavelliThe Art of War
  40. Thomas MaloryThe Death of King Arthur
  41. MaupassantBoule de Suif
  42. NietzscheZarathustra's Discourses
  43. OvidOrpheus in the Underworld
  44. Edgar Allan PoeThe Murders in the Rue Morgue
  45. PlatoPhaedrus
  46. RimbaudA Season in Hell
  47. Jean-Jacques RousseauMeditations of a Solitary Walker
  48. Saint AugustineConfessions of a Sinner
  49. Robert Louis StevensonDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  50. Thomas à KempisCounsels on the Spiritual Life
  51. Two Viking Romances
  52. TolstoyThe Death of Ivan Ilyich
  53. Tales of Cú Chulainn
  54. TurgenevThree Sketches from a Hunter Diary
  55. Mark TwainThe Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
  56. TacitusNero and the Burning of Rome
  57. VasariLives of Three Renaissance Artists
  58. Edith WhartonSouls Belated
  59. Oscar WildeThe Portrait of Mr W. H.
  60. Walt WhitmanSong of Myself

Orange set (UK titles)

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(ISBN 0140951792)

  1. Martin AmisGod's Dice
  2. Hans Christian AndersenThe Emperor's New Clothes
  3. Marcus AureliusMeditations
  4. James BaldwinSonny's Blues
  5. Ambrose BierceAn Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
  6. Dirk Bogarde – from Le Pigeonnier
  7. William BoydKilling Lizards
  8. Poppy Z BriteHis Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood
  9. Italo CalvinoTen Italian Folktales
  10. Albert CamusSummer
  11. Truman CapoteFirst and Last
  12. Raymond ChandlerGoldfish
  13. Anton ChekhovThe Black Monk
  14. Roald DahlLamb to the Slaughter
  15. Elizabeth DavidI'll be with you in the Squeezing of a Lemon
  16. The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
  17. Karen BlixenThe Dreaming Child
  18. Arthur Conan DoyleThe Man with the Twisted Lip
  19. Dick FrancisRacing Classics
  20. Sigmund FreudFive Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
  21. Kahlil GibranProphet, Madman, Wanderer
  22. Stephen Jay GouldAdam's Navel
  23. Alasdair GrayFive Letters from an Eastern Empire
  24. Graham GreeneUnder the Garden
  25. James HerriotSeven Yorkshire Tales
  26. Patricia HighsmithLittle Tales of Misogyny
  27. M. R. James and R. L. StevensonThe Haunted Dolls House
  28. Rudyard KiplingBaa Baa Black Sheep
  29. Penelope LivelyA Long Night at Abu Simbel
  30. Katherine MansfieldThe Escape
  31. Gabriel García MárquezBon Voyage, Mr President
  32. Patrick McGrathThe Angel
  33. Herman MelvilleBartleby
  34. Spike MilliganGunner Milligan, 954024
  35. Michel de MontaigneFour Essays
  36. Jan Morris – from The Four Corners
  37. John MortimerRumpole and the Younger Generation
  38. R. K. NarayanTales from Malgudi
  39. Anaïs NinA Model
  40. Frank O'ConnorThe Genius
  41. George OrwellPages from a Scullion's Diary
  42. Camille PagliaSex and Violence, or Nature and Art
  43. Sara ParetskyA Taste of Life
  44. Edgar Allan PoeThe Pit and the Pendulum
  45. Miss ReadVillage Christmas
  46. Jean RhysLet Them Call It Jazz
  47. Damon RunyonThe Snatching of Bookie Bob
  48. SakiThe Secret Sin of Septimus Brope
  49. Will SelfScale
  50. Georges SimenonDeath of a Nobody
  51. Muriel SparkThe Portobello Road
  52. Robert Louis StevensonThe Pavilion on the Links
  53. Paul TherouxDown the Yangtze
  54. William TrevorMatilda's England
  55. Mark TullyRam Chander's Story
  56. John UpdikeFriends from Philadelphia
  57. Eudora WeltyWhy I Live at the P. O.
  58. Edith WhartonMadame de Treymes
  59. Oscar WildeThe Happy Prince
  60. Virginia WoolfKilling the Angel in the House

Orange set (US Titles)

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  1. Louisa May AlcottAn Old Fashioned Thanksgiving
  2. Hans Christian AndersenThe Emperor's New Clothes
  3. J. M. BarriePeter Pan in Kensington Gardens
  4. William BlakeSongs of Innocence and Experience
  5. Geoffrey ChaucerThe Wife of Bath and Other Canterbury Tales
  6. Anton ChekovThe Black Monk and Peasants
  7. Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems
  8. ColetteGigi
  9. Joseph ConradYouth: A Narrative
  10. Roald DahlLamb to the Slaughter and Other Stories
  11. Robertson DaviesA Gathering of Ghost Stories
  12. Fydor DostoevskyThe Grand Inquisitor
  13. Sir Arthur Conan DoyleThe Man with the Twisted Lip and The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
  14. Ralph Waldo EmersonNature
  15. Omer Englebert – The Lives of the Saints
  16. Fannie Merritt FarmerSelections from the Original 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cookbook
  17. Edward FitzgeraldThe Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
  18. Robert FrostThe Road Not Taken and Other Poems
  19. Gabriel García MárquezBon Voyage, Mr President and Other Stories
  20. Nikolai GogolThe Overcoat and The Nose
  21. Graham GreeneUnder the Garden
  22. Jacob And Wilhelm GrimmGrimms' Fairy Tales
  23. Nathaniel HawthorneYoung Goodman Brown and Other Stories
  24. O. HenryThe Gift of the Magi and Other Stories
  25. Washington IrvingRip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  26. Henry JamesDaisy Miller: A Comedy
  27. V. S. Vernon Jones – Aesop's Fables
  28. James JoyceThe Dead
  29. Garrison KeillorTruckstop and Other Lake Wobegon Stories
  30. Jack KerouacSan Francisco Blues
  31. Stephen KingUmney's Last Case
  32. Rudyard KiplingBaa, Baa, Black Sheep and The Gardener
  33. Lao TzuTao Te Ching
  34. D. H. LawrenceLove Among the Haystacks
  35. Abraham LincolnThe Gettysburg Address and Other Speeches
  36. Jack LondonTo Build a Fire and Other Stories
  37. Herman MelvilleBartleby and The Lightning-rod Man
  38. A. A. MilneWinnie-the-Pooh and his Friends
  39. Michel De MontaigneFour Essays
  40. John MortimerRumpole and the Younger Generation
  41. Thomas PaineThe Crisis
  42. Dorothy ParkerBig Blonde and other stories
  43. Edgar Allan PoeThe Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories
  44. Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Pierce and Robert Louis Stevenson- Three Tales of Horror
  45. Franklin D. RooseveltFireside Chats
  46. William ShakespeareSixty Sonnets
  47. John SteinbeckThe Chrysanthemums and Other Stories
  48. Peter StraubBlue Rose
  49. Paul TherouxThe Greenest Island
  50. Henry David ThoreauWalking
  51. John ThornBaseball: Our Game
  52. Leo TolstoyMaster and Man
  53. Mark TwainThe Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Stories (5 stories)
  54. H.G. WellsThe Time Machine
  55. Edith WhartonMadame de Treymes
  56. Oscar WildeThe Happy Prince and Other Stories
  57. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States
  58. Mother GooseMother Goose
  59. The Revelation of St. John the Divine: Holy Bible KJV
  60. Teachings of Jesus : Holy Bible KJV

Biography set (10)

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(ISBN 0140953531)

  1. Richard EllmannThe Trial of Oscar Wilde
  2. Laurie LeeThe War in Spain
  3. Dirk BogardeComing of Age
  4. Anthony BurgessChildhood
  5. Vladimir NabokovNow Remember
  6. Marianne FaithfullYear One
  7. Barry HumphriesLess is More Please
  8. Lytton StracheyFlorence Nightingale
  9. Katharine HepburnLittle Me
  10. Blake MorrisonCamp Cuba

Cookery set (10)

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(ISBN 0140953485)

  1. Keith FloydHot and Spicy Floyd
  2. Rick SteinFresh from the Sea
  3. Margaret VisserMore than Meets the Eye
  4. Elizabeth DavidPeperonata and other Italian Dishes
  5. Nigel Slater30-Minute Suppers
  6. Helge RubinsteinChocolate Parfait
  7. Jane GrigsonPuddings
  8. Sophie GrigsonFrom Sophie's Table
  9. Claudia RodenFul Medames and other Vegetarian Dishes
  10. Lindsey BarehamThe Little Book of Big Soups

Travel set (10)

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(ISBN 0140953507)

  1. Jan MorrisScenes from Havian Life
  2. Gavin YoungSomething of Samoa
  3. Colin ThubronSmarkand
  4. Paul TherouxSlow Trains to Simla
  5. Mark ShandElephant Tales
  6. Redmond O'HanlonA River in Borneo
  7. Alexander FraterWhere the Dawn Comes Up Like Thunder
  8. Patrick Leigh FermorLoose as the Wind
  9. Karen BlixenFrom the Ngong Hills
  10. Mark TullyBeyond Purdah

Children's set (30)

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(ISBN 0140953361)

  1. Roger Lancelyn GreenRobin Hood and his Merry Men
  2. King Arthurs Court
  3. Four Great Greek Myths
  4. Classic Nonsense Verse
  5. Alf ProysenMrs Pepperpot Turns Detective
  6. Philip RidleyThe Hooligan's Shampoo
  7. N J DawoodAli Baba & The Forty Thieves
  8. Paul JenningsThree Quirky Tails
  9. Mark TwainTom Sawyer's Pirate Adventure
  10. Allan AhlbergThe Night Train
  11. Joan AikenDead Man's Lane
  12. Astrid LindgrenThe Amazing Pippi Longstocking
  13. Tove JanssonMoomintrolls and Friends
  14. Lewis CarrollTailes from Alice in Wonderland
  15. Margaret MahyThe Midnight Story
  16. Philippa PearceAt the river Gates
  17. Dick King-SmithThe Clockwork Mouse
  18. Sir Arthur Conan DoyleSherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band
  19. Anne FineKeep it in the Family
  20. Michael RosenSmacking my lips
  21. Brothers GrimmTom Thumb
  22. Jon ScieszkaThe Great Time Warp Adventure
  23. Roald DahlThe Great Mouse Plot
  24. The Pied Piper of Hamelin
  25. Classic Ghost Stories
  26. L. M. MontgomeryAnne at Green Gables
  27. Hans Christian AndersenThe Little Mermaid
  28. Terry JonesThe Dragon on the Roof
  29. Rudyard KiplingTales from The Jungle Book
  30. Penelope LivelyLost Dog