Thousandth Penguin Book Published Last Month

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27444, 2 September 1954, Page 13

Thousandth Penguin Book Published Last Month

r- • (From the London Correspondent of "The Frew”)

r .—. LONDON, August 18. u* e s I ®®® s wl *en book publishers “* ®5 ltai n were going bankrupt every ?”00*5,8 young publisher was touring bookstalls and agents drying to secure onlers for a new series of paperbacked books that he hoped to market. was bad in the trade, and DoofcseUers had lost money on paperbacked editions before, and his reception was not enthusiastic. ov, As a L as l r , es °r* the young salesman approached the buyer for Woolworth’s s *°re. The price of the proposed eaition--6a—was reasonable, and the nooks had attractive orange-and-white covers, but the buyer doubted whether ms customers were very interested in a book on Shelley written by a Frenchman. 1? a legend in the pubushing trade, the buyer could not make e p n ls n ?, m ?_. to tt e boot and finally called in his wife to decide She was enthusiastic, and the young publisher , now Sir Allen Lane, walked out Wl {h a substantial order. hoprs> after the first batch of iu reprints in the Penguin series went on sale in Wool worth’s chain of shops ? r i Ou^. d Britain, the buyer was on the telephone to Sir Allen Lane ordering fresh supplies, and the biggest success story in publishing in Britain this century was on its way. y ear s since then more than 200,000,000 paper-backed books bearing •r e v sm .a u black and white Penguin or its brother, the Pelican, have been sold throughout the world. ««a the , first Pioneers, Maurois’s Ariel and reprints of novels by Hemingway, Dorothy Sayers, Compton Mackenzie, and Eric Linklater, the list or books has, grown to include the classics, music, art, philosophy, science, and children’s tales. This week the thousandth orange

and white Penguin was on Sale on > bookstalls in Britain. There was ' little publicity attending the issue ! of this historic book, but it was fitting that the honour of having small golden • laurel wreaths and the figure of 1000 . on his book went to the author who 1 had actually made the first sketches ■ of the little black and white penguins • to distinguish the series. Nineteen years ago Edward Young i was Sir Allen Lane’s office boy, but he > later achieved rank as Commander Edl ward Young, D. 5.0., D.S.C., the first s B.N.V.R. officer to command a sub- : marine in the Boyal Navy. His classic ■ book on his war experiences, "One of i Our Submarines,” is the 1000th book ■ to be isued in the Penguin series. The success -of the Penguin series - has been one of the adventures of pub- ! Ushing. Although Sir Allen Lane has I never changed his original plan to rei print already popular books at a cheap • price in the Penguin series, he has t commissioned hundred of non-fiction works for the associated Pelican ’ series, and some 2300 books have apt peared in the small familiar paperi backs. ’ Sales for the Penguins are calcu- : lated to make rival publishers’ mouths > water. Although the retail price is - now 2s, no Penguin sold has ever sold less than 10,000 copies, and an "aver- > age” sale is 50,000. Best-sellers start at i 150,000 copies. r The most remarkable fact about the i success story of the Penguins is the title of its all-time best seller. Apart s from a war-time book on aircraft re- ' cognition which became a spotters’. ’ handbook, the leading reprint has alt ways been Dr. E. V. Bieu’s translation 5 of the Odyssey. In Britain alone it has ; sold more than 750,000 copies since it was first issued and its sales are still s rising.