It's one of the best stories in publishing: how Penguin Books began 75
years ago and became what is arguably the most recognized imprint and
colophon in the world.
In 1935, Allen Lane was 32 and worked for
The Bodley Head, which had been founded by his uncle. Returning from a
weekend visiting Agatha Christie and her husband in the country, he had
nothing to read and perused a railway bookstall. While looking at the
dime novels, pulp fiction and expensive hardcovers, his little grey
cells went to work, as Christie's Hercule Poirot might put it, and he
thought: Why not offer literature inexpensively?
Back at The Bodley
Head, he proposed publishing high-quality books for six pence each, the
equivalent of a pack of cigarettes. Many publishers thought such an
approach would ruin the business, but The Bodley Head approved the plan.
The
first major hurdle was finding a name. Because the Albatross imprint
had done well in Germany also selling paperbacks, the team wanted to
come up with the name of a bird or animal. They considered and rejected
Phoenix Books and Dolphin Books. While the group was deliberating, a
secretary on the other side of a partition chimed in, "What about
penguins?"
As Howard Wall, director of national field marketing
for Penguin Group and unofficial in-house Penguin Books historian put
it: "This comment stopped everyone. Allen Lane loved it because he felt
penguins have a certain dignified flippancy that seemed entirely
appropriate. Besides, who doesn't love penguins?" 
Immediately someone
was dispatched to the London Zoo to draw penguins.
The first
Penguin list consisted of 10 titles, all reprints, which included A
Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, The Mysterious Affair at Styles by
Agatha Christie and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy
L. Sayers. Penguin Books calculated it needed orders of 17,500 copies of
each to break even. After reps presented the list, orders totalled only
about 7,000 copies each. At that point, Allen Lane himself went to
Woolworths, a very important book account in the U.K. at the time, and presented the
list to the book buyer, who also bought hats and gloves. The 
buyer
thought the price and format were good but didn't want to buy the titles
because he doubted Woolworths customers would care to buy them. At
that point, the buyer's wife, who was meeting him for lunch, walked in
and saw what Lane was selling and liked them. Woolworths then ordered
6,000 copies of each title, and other booksellers followed suit.
The rest is Penguin history: in the first four days on sale, that
initial list of 10 sold some 150,000 copies. In the first year, three
million copies sold. At the end of three years, 17 million Penguin Books
titles had been sold. By 1937, there were 100 Penguin Books titles in
print, and every new title had a first printing of at least 50,000
copies.
With those first 10 titles, Penguin hit upon its
successful style: the Penguin logo that quickly became iconic, simple
design, distinctive typography and color-coded covers (blue for
biography, green for detective fiction and orange for novels). And
while the author remains key, the brand is like no other in publishing
and suggests to readers that a Penguin book is worth checking out.
Just
one example of the power of the Penguin: when Terry Waite was held as a
hostage in Lebanon between 1987 and 1991, his captors, with whom he did
not share a common language, gave him a few trashy English-language
books. To show he wanted something substantial to read, he drew the
image of a penguin. Eventually they brought a box of Penguin Books
titles.
And the legacy continues.
In the U.S., many millions of Penguin Books are sold every year, and four Penguin
paperbacks--The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Memory
Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson--have sold more than 21 million
copies.
Again and again Penguin staff and Penguin fans note that
the company is a master at making backlist vibrant. As Howard Wall put
it: "Penguin is able to take books that are important, and make sure they are
continually featured, displayed and reordered. It would be easy
to move onto the next season's list, but especially with the 
paperback
division on every sales call we continue to talk and make sure they're
out front and seen."
Howard Wall is such a fan that he collects
Penguin memorabilia, including boxed sets of classic crime titles and
banned books, and introduces them to groups at bookstores, libraries,
schools and shows--and during the 75th anniversary celebrations (see
articles below). "It's almost like a religious experience for some
people," he commented. "I think we all have some connection with
Penguin. Maybe we read Penguins in school. Maybe a Penguin helped you
figure out what to do in life. Maybe your parents read Puffins to you."
In our case, all three!