It has been suggested that Penguin Modern Poets, Penguin Great Ideas be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Some early Penguin editions ( details)

Penguin Crime ( details)

Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a pack of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in train stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products are its paperbacks. The first Penguin paperbacks were published in 1935, but at first only as an imprint of Bodley Head with the books originally distributed from a church crypt. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... Penguin Modern Poets was a series of 25 poetry books published by Penguin Books in the 1960s and 1970s, each containing work by three contemporary poets (mostly but not exclusively British and American). ... Penguin Great Ideas is a series of books published by Penguin. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1920x2560, 1218 KB)Some early Penguin editions: James M. Cain: Serenade Frederick Kohner: Gidget Ivy Compton-Burnett: A House and Its Head Nancy Mitford (ed. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1920x2560, 1218 KB)Some early Penguin editions: James M. Cain: Serenade Frederick Kohner: Gidget Ivy Compton-Burnett: A House and Its Head Nancy Mitford (ed. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1920x2560, 1218 KB)Some early Penguin editions: James M. Cain: Serenade Frederick Kohner: Gidget Ivy Compton-Burnett: A House and Its Head Nancy Mitford (ed. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 549 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1736 × 1895 pixel, file size: 646 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)Some early Penguin Crime paperbacks: C. S. Forester: Plain Murder Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Stuttering Bishop Margery Allingham: Flowers for the Judge Cyril... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 549 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1736 × 1895 pixel, file size: 646 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)Some early Penguin Crime paperbacks: C. S. Forester: Plain Murder Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Stuttering Bishop Margery Allingham: Flowers for the Judge Cyril... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 549 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1736 × 1895 pixel, file size: 646 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)Some early Penguin Crime paperbacks: C. S. Forester: Plain Murder Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Stuttering Bishop Margery Allingham: Flowers for the Judge Cyril... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Sir Allen Lane (21 September 1902–7 July 1970) (born Allen Lane Williams), was a British publisher who founded Penguin Books bringing high quality, paperback fiction and non-fiction to a mass market. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... In the publishing industry, an imprint is a brand name under which a work is published. ... Bodley Head has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House. ... Crypt is also a commonly used name of water trumpets, aquatic plants. ...

Today Penguin Books is a division of the world-wide Penguin Group and is owned by Pearson PLC. Its counterpart in the United States is Penguin Group (USA). Penguin is the lead publisher for the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and India. Penguin Group is the second largest trade book publisher in the world. ... Pearson plc LSE: PSON;NYSE: PSO is a London-based media conglomerate. ... Penguin Group (USA) is the U.S. division of the international trade book publisher, Penguin Group, a division of Pearson. ...

History

The publication of literature in paperback, then associated mainly with poor quality, lurid fiction, did not appear viable to Bodley Head and the deliberately cheap price of 6d. made profitability seem unlikely. This helped Allen Lane purchase publication rights cheaply for some works, from other publishers convinced of the short term prospects of the business. The purchase of 63,000 books by Woolworth paid for the project outright, confirmed its worth and allowed Lane to establish Penguin as a separate business in 1936. By March 1936, ten months after the company's launch on 30 July 1935, one million Penguin books had been printed. £sd (pronounced, and sometimes written, LSD) was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the United Kingdom, and in most of its Empire and colonies. ... The publication right is a copyright granted to the publisher who first publishes a previously unpublished work after that works original copyright has expired. ... // About Woolworths Group plc is a general merchandise business in the United Kingdom. ... is the 211th day of the year (212th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

From the outset, design was essential to success of the Penguin brand. Eschewing the illustrated gaudiness of other paperback publishers, Penguin opted for the simple appearance of three horizontal bands, the upper and lower of which were colour coded according to which series the title belonged to; this is sometimes referred to as the horizontal grid. In the central white panel, the author and title were printed in Eric Gill's sans serif and in the upper band was a cartouche with the legend "Penguin Books". The inital design was created by the then twenty-one-year-old office junior Edward Young, who also drew the first version of the Penguin logo. Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (February 22, 1882–November 17, 1940) was a British sculptor, typographer and engraver. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oblong enclosure with a vertical line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

The colour schemes included: orange and white for general fiction, green and white for crime fiction, red and white for travel and adventure, blue and white for biographies; and the rarer purple and white for essays and belles lettres and grey and white for world affairs. Lane actively resisted the introduction of cover images for several years. Some recent publications of literature from that time have duplicated the original look. Essay, a short work that treats of a topic from an authors personal point of view, often taking into account subjective experiences and personal reflections upon them. ... Belles lettres are works of writing that are appreciated for their visual appearance (such as the calligraphy employed), as much as or more so than their actual content. ...

Lane expanded the business in 1937 with the publication of George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism under the Pelican Books imprint, an imprint designed to educate the reading public rather than entertain. The war years continued the company's success with a healthy sales of titles, meaning that Penguin suffered less from the paper rationing which afflicted other publishers. Aircraft Recognition by Saville-Sneath, RA, was a best seller. In 1945 Penguin began what would become one of its most important branches, the Penguin Classics, with a translation of Homer's Odyssey by E. V. Rieu. Between 1947 and 1949, the Swiss typographer Jan Tschichold redesigned 500 Penguin books, and left Penguin with a set of influential rules of design principles brought together as the Penguin Composition Rules, a four page booklet of typographic instructions for editors and compositors. Tschichold's work included the woodcut illustrated covers of the classics series (also known as the medallion series), and with Hans Schmoller, his eventual successor at Penguin, the vertical grid covers that became the standard for penguin fiction throughout the 1950s. By this time the paperback industry in the UK had begun to grow, and Penguin found itself in competition with then-fledgling Pan Books. George Bernard Shaw (born 26 July 1856, Dublin, Ireland died November 2, 1950, Hertfordshire, England) was an Irish writer. ... The Intelligent Womans Guide to Socialism and Capitalism is a short book with a deliberately cute title, written by the famous Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. ... Homer (Greek: , ) was an early Greek poet and aoidos (rhapsode) traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ... Beginning of the Odyssey The Odyssey (Greek Οδύσσεια (Odússeia) ) is one of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to the Ionian poet Homer. ... Dr. E.V. Rieu— in full Emile Victor Rieu (1887–1972)— is best known for his lucid translations of Homer, as editor of Penguin Classics, and for a modern translation of the Gospels, which evolved from his role as editor of a projected Penguin translation of the Bible. ... Titlepage for Typographische Gestaltung written and designed by Jan Tschichold using City Medium and Bodoni. ... 1961 Pan Books edition of Ian Flemings James Bond novel Goldfinger is an example of the type of publication for which Pan Books became popular. ...

By 1960, a number of forces were in play which were to shape the direction of the company, the publication list and its graphic design. On 20 April 1961, Penguin became a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange; consequently, Allen Lane had a diminished role at the firm though he was to continue as Managing Director. New techniques such as phototypesetting and offset-litho printing were to replace hot metal and letterpress printing, dramatically reducing cost and permitting the printing of images and text on the same paper stock, thus paving the way for the introduction of photography and novel approaches to graphic design on paperback covers. In May 1960, Tony Godwin was appointed as editorial advisor, rapidly rising to Chief Editor from which position he sought to broaden the range of Penguin's list and keep up with new developments in graphic design. To this end, he hired Germano Facetti in January 1961, who was to decisively alter the appearance of the Penguin brand. Beginning with the crime series, Facetti canvassed the opinion of a number of designers including Romek Marber for a new look to the Penguin cover. It was Marber's suggestion of what came to be called the Marber grid along with the retention of traditional Penguin colour coding that was to replace the previous three horizontal bars design and set the pattern for the design of the company's paperbacks for the next twenty years. Facetti rolled out the new treatment across the Penguin line starting with crime, the orange fiction series, then Pelicans, Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Specials, and Penguin Classics, giving an overall visual unity to the company's list. A somewhat different approach was taken to the Peregrine, Penguin Poets, Penguin Modern Poets, and Penguin Plays series. There were over a hundred different series published in total. April 20 is the 110th day of the year (111th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Phototypesetting is a method of setting type with light (photo). ... Offset lithography printing process Offset printing is a widely used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or offset) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. ... Letterpress printing is the oldest printing technique, in which a raised surface is inked and then pressed against a smooth substance to obtain an image in reverse. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Penguin Crime series cover using the Marber grid Romek Marber,(1925- ) was a Polish freelance designer noted for his work with Penguin books. ... Species Pelecanus occidentalis Pelecanus thagus Pelecanus erythrorhynchos Pelecanus onocrotalus Pelecanus crispus Pelecanus rufescens Pelecanus philippensis Pelecanus conspicillatus A pelican is any of several very large water birds with a distinctive pouch under the beak belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae. ...

By the end of the 1960s, Penguin was in financial trouble. Ultimately, the company was bought out by Pearson Longman on 21 August 1970, some six weeks after the death of Allen Lane. A new emphasis on profitability emerged and, with the departure of Facetti in 1972, the defining era of Penguin book design came to an end. Longman is a firm of English publishers. ... is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Just as Lane well judged the public's appetite for paperbacks in the 1930s, his decision to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence in 1960 boosted Penguin's notoriety. The novel was at the time unpublished in Britain and the predicted obscenity trial not only marked Penguin as a fearless publisher, it also helped drive the sale of at least 3.5 million copies. Penguin's victory in the case heralded the end to the censorship of books in Britain, although censorship of the written word was only finally defeated after the Inside Linda Lovelace trial of 1978. Other controversial titles published by Penguin include Spycatcher and The Satanic Verses. In the same tradition of courting controversy, Penguin published Deborah Lipstadt's book Denying the Holocaust which accused David Irving of Holocaust denial. Irving sued Lipstadt and Penguin for libel in 1998 but lost in a widely publicized trial. Lady Chatterleys Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence written in 1928. ... David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was a very important and controversial English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. ... Obscenity in Latin obscenus, meaning foul, repulsive, detestable, (possibly derived from ob caenum, literally from filth). The term is most often used in a legal context to describe expressions (words, images, actions) that offend the prevalent sexual morality of the time. ... Censorship is defined as the removal and withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body. ... Spycatcher cover Spycatcher is a book by the former MI5 secret service operative and Assistant Director Peter Wright. ... The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdies fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. ... David Irving at The National Archives, 2003 David John Cawdell Irving (born March 24, 1938) is a British writer specializing in the military history of World War II. He is the author of 30 books, including The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitlers War (1977), Uprising! (1981), Churchills War... Richard Harwoods Did Six Million Really Die? Holocaust denial is the claim that the mainstream historical version of the Holocaust is either highly exaggerated or completely falsified. ... David Irving at The National Archives, 2003 David John Cawdell Irving (born March 24, 1938) is a British writer specializing in the military history of World War II. He is the author of 30 books, including The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitlers War (1977), Uprising! (1981), Churchills War...

First titles

The first twenty books published by Penguin under the Bodley Head imprint were:^{[citation needed]}

• Ariel: a Shelley Romance — André Maurois
• A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
• Poet's Pub — Eric Linklater
• Madame Claire — Susan Ertz
• The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club — Dorothy Sayers
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles — Agatha Christie
• Twenty-Five — Beverley Nichols
• William — E.H. Young
• Gone to Earth — Mary Webb
• Carnival — Compton Mackenzie
• South Wind — Norman Douglas
• The Purple Land — W.H. Hudson
• Patrol — Philip MacDonald
• The Thin Man — Dashiell Hammett
• Four Frightened People — E. Arnot Robertson
• The Edwardians — Vita Sackville-West
• The Informer — Liam O'Flaherty
• Debonair — G.B. Stern
• The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg — Louis Bromfield
• Erewhon — Samuel Butler

André Maurois, or Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, (July 26, 1885 – October 9, 1967) was a French author and man of letters. ... A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway in 1929. ... Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... Eric Robert Russell Linklater (1899-1974) was a Scottish writer, known for more than 20 novels, also short stories, travel writing and autobiography, and military history. ... Susan Ertz (1894 - April 11, 1985) was a British fiction writer and novelist. ... The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is a 1928 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fourth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 – Witham, 17 December 1957) was a British author, translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist. ... The Mysterious Affair at Styles (written in 1916 and published in 1920) is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890—12 January 1976), also known as Dame Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... John Beverley Nichols (born September 9, 1898 in Bower Ashton, Bristol, died September 15, 1983 in Kingston, London), was an English writer, playwright, actor, novelist and composer. ... Emily Hilda Young (March 21, 1880 - August 8, 1949) was an English novelist. ... This is an article about an album by David Sylvian. ... Mary Webb (March 25, 1881 - October 8, 1927), was an English romantic novelist of the early 20th century, whose novels are set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside which she knew and loved well. ... Sir (Edward Montague) Compton Mackenzie, (1883–1972), was an Scottish novelist. ... George Norman Douglas (December 8, 1868 - February 7, 1952) was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind. ... The Purple Land is a novel set in nineteenth century Uruguay by William Henry Hudson, first published in 1885 under the title The Purple Land that England Lost. ... William Henry Hudson (August 4, 1841 - August 18, 1922) was an Argentinan-British author, naturalist and ornithologist. ... Philip MacDonald, November 5, 1900, London — December 10, 1980, Woodland Hills, California, was a British thriller writer. ... The Thin Man (1934) is a hardboiled detective novel by Dashiell Hammett. ... Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. ... Four Frightened People is a 1934 film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall and Mary Boland. ... Eileen Arbuthnot Robertson (1903-1961) was a British novelist and film critic. ... Vita Sackville-West Vita Sackville-West (March 9, 1892 – June 2, 1962) was an English poet, novelist and gardener. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Gladys Bronwyn Stern or GB Stern, 1890–1973, born Gladys Bertha Stern in London, England, wrote many novels, short stories, plays, memoirs, biographies and literary criticism. ... Louis Bromfield, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933 Louis Bromfield (December 27, 1896 – March 18, 1956) is one of Mansfield, Ohios most famous natives, a man who became internationally renowned both as a prize-winning author and as an innovative conservationist and scientific farmer. ... It has been suggested that Erehwon be merged into this article or section. ... Samuel Butler Samuel Butler (December 4, 1835 - June 18, 1902) was a British writer best known for his satire Erewhon. ...

Penguin Classics

Penguin Classics editions

The imprint publishes hundreds of classics from the Greeks and Romans to Victorian Literature to modern classics. Originally, red and yellow marks on the spines of the books determined type. In 2002, Penguin announced it was redesigning its entire catalogue, merging the original Classics list (known in the trade as "Black Classics"with what had been the old Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics list, though the existing silver covers for the latter have so far been retained for most of the titles. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

The redesign – featuring a colourful painting on the cover, with black background and orange lettering – was well received. However, the quality of the paperbacks themselves seemed to decrease: the spines were more likely to fold and bend. The paperbacks are also printed on non-acid-free pulp paper which, by some accounts, tends to yellow and brown within a couple of years.[1]

The text page design was also overhauled to follow a more closely prescribed template, allowing for faster copyediting and typesetting, but reducing the options for individual design variations suggested by a text's structure or historical context (for example, in the choice of text typeface). Prior to 2002 the text page typography of each book in the Classics series had been overseen by a team of in-house designers; this department was closed in 2003 as part of the production costs rationalisation of the Classics list, and any design work is now done by editors and outside suppliers. For the origin and evolution of fonts, see History of western typography. ...

Other imprints

Other imprints of Penguin Books include Puffin Books, for children's literature and Allen Lane, for original academic non-fiction. They have also acquired Ladybird Books, Michael Joseph, Dorling Kindersley, and the Rough Guides. Former Penguin imprints include ROC, for science fiction and fantasy, Penguin Special for political works, as well as Peregrine Books. Jane Frank: illustration from Thomas Yoseloffs The Further Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel (1957). ... Ladybird Books is a London-based publishing company that produces childrens books. ... Dorling Kindersley (DK) is an international publishing company specialising in reference books for adults and children. ... Rough Guides Ltd is a large travel guidebook and reference publisher, owned by Pearson PLC. Their travel titles cover more than 200 destinations, and are distributed worldwide through the Penguin Group. ... Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Smaug in his lair: an illustration for the fantasy The Hobbit Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. ...

Trademark disputes

Penguin Books has been in some disputes over names and trademarks. In 1986, it pushed Penguin Software to give up its name. More recently, it published a book katie.com which caused problems for the unrelated user of that domain, and then tried to acquire the domain. Penguin Software was a video game publisher from Geneva, Illinois that produced games for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers. ... Katie. ...

See also

• Penguin Modern Poets
• The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection
• Penguin Great Ideas

Penguin Modern Poets was a series of 25 poetry books published by Penguin Books in the 1960s and 1970s, each containing work by three contemporary poets (mostly but not exclusively British and American). ... The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection was the complete collection of books published by Penguin classics, a division of Penguin Books as of 2005. ... Penguin Great Ideas is a series of books published by Penguin. ...

Further reading

• Penguin Books, Fifty Penguin Years 1985. ISBN 0-14-008589-0
• Phil Baines, Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 2005. ISBN 0-7139-9839-3
• Gerald Cinnamon, "Hans Schmoller, Typographer", The Monotype Recorder (New Series), 6 April 1987)
• Jeremy Lewis, Life and Times of Allen Lane (Penguin Special) 2005. ISBN 0-670-91485-1
• Tim Graham, Penguin in Print - A Bibliography, 2003. Penguin Collector's Society.

is the 96th day of the year (97th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ...

External links

• Official web sites
• Penguin India
• Penguin UK
• Company history at Penguin UK
• Penguin Classics Online
• Penguin Group (Australia)
• Penguin Group (Canada)
• Penguin Group (USA)
• Penguin Group (New Zealand)
• Puffin Books
• Other
• The first 3000 titles
• More than 3000 tiles
• Penguin Collectors Society
• Further Penguin links
• Essay on the history of Penguin Books
• Foley Collection - articles and extensive lists
• Photographs of the covers of about seventy Pelican books
• Blog about Pelican book cover design...
• ...Penguin books...
• ...and Penguin poets.