The story is that Sir Allen Lane of The Bodley Head Publishing House was returning from a visit to Agatha Christie when, at Exeter Station, he could find nothing worthwhile to read, the paperbacks on offer being low quality pulp fiction. Lane believed that there was a market for quality novels by established writers and so set up Penguin Books to publish these works.

Whether this story is true or not doesn't really matter, what is important is that Penguin Books made affordable, quality novels for the public.

Started on the 30th July 1935, by 1936, Penguin had printed their 1 millionth book, so successful that they shortly followed up with Pelican Books ( non-fiction ) and Puffin Books ( children's books ).

Penguin are still published as part of the Penguin Random House Group,
Some Penguin Classics;

I've just mentioned over ont' Holy Thread that yesterday evening I went to hear Terry Waite speak. One of the stories he recounted of his horrific time as a hostage in Beirut was about Penguin books -  and how that little bird logo had proved to be of great help to him.

One of his guards was a kindly man, more humane than the others and, at no little risk to himself, tried to get some books for his English prisoner. This man had realized that lack of reading material for several years had been a particularly cruel deprivation for someone like Waite. Unfortunately, the guard's understanding of written English was limited, and his choice of books - which was quite random - proved to be bizarre. Waite said the absurdity of some of the volumes brought to him - which included Great Escapes and A Manual of Breast Feeding (unillustrated) - actually helped him stay sane. Keeping a sense of humour proved as beneficial in the dreadful circumstances as did his memory of old prayers.

In the end, however, Mr Waite somehow managed to get across to the guard that any book which had a penguin on its cover would be OK. This worked and subsequent offerings were more suitable.

How's that for the power of the symbol, especially that of the famous little bird on an orange background!

A consul prison visiting once asked me to get a heap of books to give to a  British man doing time in jail  abroad. Of the book stall heaps available most seem to be crime related or chick lit. And I had no idea of the person I was choosing for. It was from the Penguin  piles that I made the first selection. The letter of thanks mentioned immense gratitude for bringing to mind many things almost forgotten. I never knew quite what that was about.............anyway, I then gathered a year's supply for the consul to use rather than trust anyone else to do it after hearing some suggestions from the ladies circle selling them off.

I bet they never gave Mr Waite this one;



Regina vs Penguin Books Ltd in late 1960 is often viewed as the beginning of the permissive 60s, when Penguin were found not guilty under the 1959 Obscenity Act.
Prosecutor Mervyn Griffith Jones " is this the sort of book you would want you wife or servants to read? ". Completely out of touch with 1960s Britain.

Couldn't resist;

Does anyone know why the name 'Penguin' was chosen?

I have always assumed it was Allen Lane's UK version of the Hamburg-based Albatross publishing house style and logo (Albatross pioneered cheap paperback production and had made significant inroads into the UK market before Lane and his brother started up Penguin).



As to why the Lanes chose a penguin specifically I have no idea. But they also had some success with a more high-brow brand called Pelican for a while, so it may have been just to keep using logos that approximated in style and appearance to the Albatross books appearing on the same bookshop shelves at the time.