Penguin Books

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Penguin Books Limited
legal form Private Limited Company
founding 1935
Seat London , UK
management Markus Franz-Joseph Dohle
Number of employees 535
sales 194.56 million GBP
approx. 217.37 million EUR
Branch publishing company
Website www.penguin.com
As of December 31, 2017

Front cover of a penguin book with the typical penguin signet
The 80 Little Black Classics , released in 2015 for the publisher's 80th birthday

Penguin Books is an international publisher that has been part of the Penguin Random House publishing group since July 2013 . Its subsidiary in the United States operates as Penguin Group (USA) LLC .

The non-fiction division of Penguin includes Dorling Kindersley and the travel guides Rough Guides .

Penguin publisher had a huge impact on British society and beyond. In 1960, he was charged with his immoral paperback copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover and won the trial, ending a long systematic censorship. In the late 1980s it was Penguin publishing house that published The Satanic Verses in the original English.

history

Penguin Books goes back to The Bodley Head publisher , which was launched in the 1880s and later taken over by Allen Lane . Together with his brothers Richard and John Lane, he created a series of paperback books with the aim of offering high quality literature at affordable prices to a wide audience. The first title under the Penguin brand with an orange cover was published while Lane was at The Bodley Head , later both name and color were an important part of the brand. The company's first logo was based on a drawing of a penguin in the London Zoo , and later Penguin Books achieved great fame in English-speaking countries .

The first ten books Allan Lane published under the new name in 1935 included works by Agatha Christie , André Maurois , Compton Mackenzie , Dorothy L. Sayers and Ernest Hemingway . Significant for the development of Penguin Books after World War II was the introduction of Penguin Classics , a series of works from the canon of literature . It began with a translation of the Odyssey by the Greek poet Homer . In 1961, Penguin Books began trading on the London Stock Exchange , and the IPO was many times oversubscribed. However, the company got into economic difficulties in the following years, which finally led to the takeover by the Pearson Group in August 1970 , shortly after the death of the publisher's founder Allan Lane.

Penguin book series (selection)

Imprints

At Penguin Books (UK) a. the following imprints connected:

  • Allen Lane
  • Dorling Kindersley
  • Fig Tree
  • Hamish Hamilton
  • Michael Joseph
  • Ladybird
  • Pelican Books
  • Puffin
  • Rough guides
  • Viking
  • Frederick Warne (Flower Fairies, Peter Rabbit, Spot)

At Penguin Group (USA) a. the following imprints connected:

Publishing notices and directories

For the first time in the spring of 1936 a 32-page publisher's magazine appeared under the title “List of books to be published at Bodley head in spring 1936”, which was accompanied by an advertisement for 40 new Penguin titles. This was followed at Christmas of the same year, now under the title “Penguins Progress”, which will also be used in the future, a narrow brochure listing the current Penguin production. This was followed by seven further editions up to the spring of 1940 (“First War Number”), when the publishing house had to be discontinued due to the war. An edition planned for Christmas 1940 no longer reached the booksellers and subscribers. It was not until the summer of 1946 that “Penguins Progress” came to life again, only to be finally discontinued in 1951 after 14 issues. In the illustrated editions, some of which have photos, the publisher presented new books and series projects, gave authors the opportunity to speak and provided general information on the publisher's development and policy. Often the editions were accompanied by stock lists or facsimiles of illustrations of planned volumes. After the newspaper format was used in addition to the paperback format up to 1940, the post-war editions were only published in paperback size with one exception (number 6, July 1948). In addition to the trade, about 50,000 readers were supplied with this publisher's publication free of charge, so the publisher always stayed in contact with its readers. "Penguins Progress" was supplemented by anniversary editions ("Ten Years of Penguins. 1935-1945" and "Penguins Progress 1935-1960").
Initially parallel to the aforementioned editions, from 1946 onwards, paperback brochures appeared under the title “A Complete List” (entire publisher's production, including out-of-print editions) or “Classified List” (publisher's production sorted by book series), with which the publisher's production was listed, including previews on new tracks were included. From the 1970s, the publisher's directories were also delivered under the title “Stock List”. Due to the country-specific sales policy of the publisher, there were sometimes special issues such as B. for the USA or Canada. Finally, the publisher also published various brochures and catalogs on individual subject series, such as "The Penguin Classics", "Penguin Humanities Catalog" or "Happy Birthday Puffin - 1991 Catalog".

Publishing archive

Documents on the publisher from its founding in 1935 through the 1990s are in the “Penguin Archive”, which is kept in the special collections of the University of Bristol . Allan Lane was awarded the title of " Master of Arts " (MA) honorary from this university in 1948 .

Web links

Commons : Penguin Books  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Full accounts made up to 31 December 2017 , accessed on 23 June 2019
  2. ↑ Anne Trubek: How the Paperback Novel Changed Popular Literature . Smithsonian Institution . March 30, 2010.
  3. ^ Henning Hoff: By Design . The time . November 16, 2005.
  4. ^ Geoffrey Robertson: The trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover . The Guardian . October 22, 2010.
  5. ↑ Kenan Malik: Changing landscape of free speech . The Hindu . 12th of February 2014.
  6. ^ A b Jeremy Lewis: The Life and Times of Allen Lane . Viking, 2006, ISBN 978-0-14-101596-5 (Goodbye to The Bodley Head).
  7. ^ Stuart Kells: The Penguin Books story laid bare (even the naked board meetings) . The Guardian . October 27, 2015 .. Retrieved December 19, 2019
  8. ^ Henning Hoff: By Design. In: Zeit Online. November 16, 2005, accessed March 21, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Olaf Blaschke : Publishers make history . Book trade and historians since 1945 in a German-British comparison. Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0757-5 , p. 107 .
  10. ↑ Jessica Fäcks: The publishing house as a brand . The establishment of Penguin Books through the advertising psychological aesthetics of its book series design. Grin Verlag, Ravensburg and Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-656-45014-6 .
  11. ↑ Gina Thomas: The end of a brand. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. October 29, 2012, accessed March 21, 2014 .
  12. ↑ The Original 10. Where Are They Now? Penguin Books, accessed March 21, 2014 .
  13. ↑ Simon Eliot, Jonathan Rose: A Companion to the History of the Book . John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4051-9278-1 .
  14. ↑ Fifty Penguin Years . Published on the Occasion of Penguin Books' Fiftieth Anniversary. Penguin Books, 1985, pp. 83 .
  15. ^ The Penguin Group history. (No longer available online.) Pearson, archived from the original on August 25, 2013 ; Retrieved March 21, 2014 : "Sir Allen Lane died in 1970 and that same year, Pearson bought Penguin."
  16. ↑ Oliver Junge: Fish stew with cabbage and beets. Program of the Penguin publishing house. In: FAZ.net. August 31, 2018, accessed December 19, 2019 .
  17. ^ Penguin: Publishers / Imprints . Retrieved May 29, 2012.
  18. ↑ Compare the Penguin First Editions website . The “First War Number” from 1940 is not yet listed there, but the author has it.
  19. ↑ Compare with the directories on the Penguin First Editions website, although the list is not complete.