The Birds

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32358, 25 July 1970, Page 6

The Birds

The symbols are of penguins, pelicans and puffins. The first penguin was a relatively staid bird with its feet firmly planted on the ground. Later it danced —gaily it was hoped, though some saw it in the throes of appendicitis. After a flight the pelican came to rest The puffin stayed on the ground. The early penguins were drawn by amateurs; in 1947 a worldfamous typographer and designer, Jan Tschichold, joined Penguin Books, and by 1949 the original symbol had been refined to the main present one.

Behind all this was Allen Lane (his brothers never played a substantial part in the firm). Asked his motivation, Lane said in the interview in “The Times": “I would say that leaving school at 16J, brought up in a modest way, and frightened of going into bookshops as a boy, I wanted to put into the hands of people like myself the books they might have read if they had gone on to university." What sort of a man was he? A born publisher without a doubt, but of a certain kind. Publishers are generally

people with a nose for a book, not necessarily intellectual, but with some sort of flair of recognising good writing and knowing whether the book will find an audience. The second facet is important Any publisher worth his salt (which does not mean every publisher) will occasionally publish a book because he believes in it, but does not expect to make a profit on it, but he will not base his business on publishing unprofitable books or he will not have a business.

Within this writing-public judgment there are a myriad of variations. Some publishers are sound on one type of book and public and lost on others. There are publishers whose aim is to get a quick profit, who wrap the product as seductively as they can, and who then move to another. Many of the Penguin titles have appeared again and again, as anyone Who studies the Penguin lists will soon find out So Lane's judgment was sound. Lane was not particularly successful as a publisher in the Bodley Head. When Penguin Books began, the titles he chose had already been successful as hardback books. It was a “safe” list. The judgment that Lane showed was in choosing the best among the most successful books of the time and applying bis own vision to them in what he wanted to do Later he was to show the same discernment in choosing the editors of his various departments—E. V. Rieu for the classics, William Emrys Williams, Eleanor Graham, Nikolaus Pevsner, A. J. Ayer, and others. They were scholarly but also skilled writers. His was a publisher’s judgment, but not particularly that which can translate an original manuscript into a book. Penguin began the paperback revolution, the characteristic of which was that a whole new source of reader was tapped for serious books. But producing, or reproducing, the best of the kind, as Penguin did, attracted the

academically trained as well as the wide public, and many Penguin books are texts at universities. The sixpence has multiplied many times, but good books are still within the reach of those who want them.

Good as the people who have been the chief editors of Penguin Books are, Allen Lane was constantly involved in the decision-making. His driving energy and restless intelligence brought him friendship and loyalty. (Rather one suspects, in the way one’s own Penguin Books generate affection.) Mr Gordon Tait, of Christchurch, remembers him best for his energy and ability to cut directly to the heart of a problem, Mr John' Summers remembers him for his ability to take a joke, Mrs M. Dorman recalls that he was extremely pleased because he was going to meet again the former nanny to his children, then living in Christchurch. Penguin Books relied on word of mouth and book reviews rather than on advertising in newspapers, on radio or television. During the 1960 s there was a war among paperback publishers and Mr Tony Goodwin, then chief editor of Penguin Books, put the firm in the race. A plane was hired and journalists flown to Berlin to help launch Len Deighton’s “Funeral in Berlin." The cost for the journalists wiped out of the hire and the alcohol

the profit from the 300,000 copies sold. Lane, who had been away from the firm, came back; Godwin went; Penguin books did not again race on others’ terms; and Penguin won. “Have you always known, in making decisions that affect you closely, that you damn well are right?” Lane was asked during “The Times” interview. “Yes,” Lane replied. Publishing is a very personal business. Lane himself has said: “Very few publishing firms survive the death of their founder.” What are the changes likely to occur in Penguin Books now? No-one knows, not even the Penguin editors. There are two main clues. The managing-director of Penguin Books is now Mr Christopher Dolley, who describes himself as a manager rather than a publisher. He was Lane’s choice. The second clue is even more difficult to assess. Not 24 hours after Sir Allen Lane’s death Penguin Books merged with Longman’s, which vies with the Oxford University Press as the biggest educational publisher. Will hardback publishers still be prepared to let Penguin reprint their best books when Penguin Books is part of the same firm that may be a major rival? Only one thing seems certain. Whatever the course set, Allen Lane will not be there to alter it. The possibilities seem to make his life curiously relevant