{"id":54488,"date":"2025-08-09T03:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T03:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/54488\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T03:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T03:35:08","slug":"zealous-book-bans-and-brilliant-writers-forged-strong-irish-penguin-links-from-the-start-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/54488\/","title":{"rendered":"Zealous book bans and brilliant writers forged strong Irish Penguin links from the start \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen my first novel appeared in Penguin,\u201d said the writer Malcolm Bradbury, \u201cI regarded it as a step towards canonisation\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was surely not alone. For most of us, Penguin books<\/a> have always been there, from the classroom<\/a> to the bedside table. But as the publisher celebrates its 90th anniversary this month, it\u2019s easy to forget that before its arrival, it was almost impossible to read a good paperback.<\/p>\n

Paperback novels existed, of course, but they were mostly pulp fiction, penny dreadfuls, as disposable as they were garish. \u201cReal books\u201d \u2013 literature \u2013 were largely preserved in hardback, the durability of the format matching the contents.<\/p>\n

Then in 1934, the publisher Allen Lane was returning from a visit to see his author Agatha Christie. At Exeter<\/a> train station, he wanted something to read on the journey home but couldn\u2019t find anything that was both affordable and worthwhile.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Books better than screens for students, study findsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The idea hit him in a coup de foudre. Quality literature in paperback \u2013 a good book for the price of a packet of cigarettes. Lane\u2019s secretary came up with the name Penguin: a \u201cdignified but flippant\u201d symbol. <\/p>\n

A conservative publishing industry was sceptical that the idea would work. But \u2013 allowing for the benefit of hindsight \u2013 of course it was going to work. This was a culture before TV, before hand-held devices, when the people\u2019s choice for portable entertainment was a book. Many people had one on the go at all times, borrowed from lending libraries in Woolworths: so paperback books were a way for publishers to get \u2013 literally \u2013 into every pocket.<\/p>\n

The first set of 12 Penguin books appeared in July 1935, including novels by Ernest Hemingway<\/a>, Dorothy L Sayers and (the indirect inspiration for the series, so it was only fair) Agatha Christie. The series was indeed a huge hit, shifting three million copies in the first year.<\/p>\n

From the start, Penguin drew on Irish writers for its list. The 17th Penguin title, published in October 1935, was Liam O\u2019Flaherty\u2019s Civil War drama The Informer, though not all its Irish titles were so durable. (Does anyone now read St John Ervine\u2019s The Wayward Man, published by Penguin in 1936?)<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What do Irish writers read? Donal Ryan, Mark Tighe, Nuala O\u2019Connor, Claire Hennessy and more give recommendationsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Soon, Penguin was not just republishing older books but taking on original titles. The publisher showed that books could be mass-market material without aiming for the lowest common denominator. It created a democratisation of reading. <\/p>\n

\"LiamLiam O\u2019Flaherty: Penguin published his novel The Informer in 1935 <\/p>\n

They showed too that books could be timely as well as timeless, with the rapid turnaround of the Penguin Specials series. In 1937, the title Germany Puts the Clock Back sold 50,000 copies in four days, to a public hungry for detailed information on the Nazi threat.<\/p>\n

But it also showed that they could not just follow trends, but lead them and initiate the public conversation. Rachel Carson\u2019s Silent Spring (1962), about the dangers of pesticides and the industry\u2019s cover-up, was a clarion call for the environmental movement.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From the archive: Fifty years on, Silent Spring still matters, by Eamon RyanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Most famously, Penguin became part of a campaign itself with the publication of DH Lawrence\u2019s novel Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover. Penguin published the book in 1960 to test the new Obscene Publications Act<\/a>, which allowed so-called obscene work to be published if it had \u201cliterary merit\u201d. <\/p>\n

The publisher invited prosecution and the authorities were happy to oblige. At the trial numerous authors and academics spoke up for the book (though Enid Blyton turned down the opportunity to do so), and the prosecution bombed.<\/p>\n

Penguin\u2019s marketing genius \u2013 an important part of its success \u2013 came into play: it had 200,000 copies of Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover ready to distribute (using a different printer, as the usual one refused to handle the book) and managed to get some copies on sale the same day as the acquittal. One month later, the novel had sold two million copies.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s own zealous book bans could also create a market that Penguin was keen to satisfy. In 1950 it published a translation of Apuleius\u2019s second-century raunchy Latin satire The Golden Ass, which had been banned in this country. <\/p>\n

And Ireland\u2019s once unloved son, James Joyce, has a strong history with Penguin. Allen Lane, who had been the first publisher to produce a UK edition of Ulysses in 1936 (when Penguin was still a sideline for him), reissued the novel as Penguin title number 3,000 in 1969. <\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Joyce: Penguin reissued Ulysses in 1969. Photograph: Lipnitzki\/Roger Viollet\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

He had paid \u00a375,000 for the paperback rights, a record at the time. Within 18 months, it had sold almost half a million copies \u2013 an extraordinary figure for a novel as dense, allusive, ambitious and delightful as Joyce\u2019s masterpiece.<\/p>\n

More widely, Penguin has a good track record of recognising Ireland as a country that punches well above its weight in literary brilliance. In 1946, to celebrate George Bernard Shaw\u2019s 90th birthday, it published one million books in one day: 100,000 copies each of 10 of his titles. They sold out in six weeks.<\/p>\n

Shaw had been a Penguin stalwart since the early days. Its imprint of non-fiction work, Pelican Books, was launched with Shaw\u2019s two-volume The Intelligent Woman\u2019s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism; the author modestly claimed that these new cheap editions \u201cwould be the saviour of mankind\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now Penguin continues to publish many of Ireland\u2019s most successful writers, from Marian Keyes and Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn to Donal Ryan and Ross O\u2019Carroll-Kelly, and has its own imprint for Irish writing, Sandycove.<\/p>\n

\"MarianMarian Keyes. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

But what first comes to mind when many of us think of Penguin books are the classics series: the slightly forbidding black classics, or the edgier, cooler modern classics. <\/p>\n

The Penguin Classics series was launched in 1946: its launch title, a new translation of The Odyssey, set out its stall clearly. This was a range to be both high-minded and accessible, to bring the greatest writers in history within reach of the ordinary book buyer. <\/p>\n

The Modern Classics followed in 1961, for books that weren\u2019t quite old enough to be classics, but demanded some recognition \u2013 or at least some marketing. They were given stylish covers, in line with its aim to be \u2013 as former series editor Simon Winder put it \u2013 \u201ca series to be enjoyed, rather than something that is good for you\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the Classics and Modern Classics ranges have a tricky line to tread: these books not only reflect the literary canon, but they also help to shape it. It took a long time for Penguin to break out of the traditional modern classics mode of white men: Orwell, Waugh, Greene, Fitzgerald. The current publishing director of Penguin Classics, Jessica Harrison, acknowledges this. When reviewing the list for the 90th anniversary celebrations, she told me, she could see that \u201cin the 80s they brought in a lot more women writers\u201d and later \u201cthere must have been an editor who was really interested in Japan and Chinese [literature].\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the list looks wider, though even now there are only a handful of Penguin Modern Classics writers from China, and one from North Africa. <\/p>\n

But Penguin\u2019s success is not just down to the quality of the books. From the start \u2013 see the Penguincubator, a Penguin books vending machine launched in 1937 \u2013 the publisher has been a ruthless exploiter of its own intellectual property, with special editions and rejacketed reissues a regular feature of its catalogue. (It currently keeps no fewer than seven editions of Orwell\u2019s Animal Farm in print.)<\/p>\n

This approach itself leads to unexpected successes. In 2018, it launched a dirt-cheap (80p in the UK) series of Little Black Classics, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels\u2019 most famous work \u2013 which meant you could buy The Communist Manifesto at the till point in Tesco. As a result, it made the Sunday Times bestseller list.<\/p>\n

More recently, Fyodor Dosotevsky has been having a moment, thanks to handsome reissues of his novella White Nights, which became Penguin\u2019s bestselling classic title of 2024, outstripping hardy perennials like Jane Austen. <\/p>\n

This ruthless reuse of its titles has its latest manifestation in the Penguin Archive series, a set of 90 short books published this year to celebrate the anniversary, with handsome covers reflecting the various styles of Penguin books over the decades.<\/p>\n

\"DraculaDracula author Bram Stoker <\/p>\n

The bestselling title of the series when it was launched? Not Austen or Orwell or Fitzgerald, but an Irishman: Bram Stoker, whose short story collection The Burial of the Rats outsold the other 89 titles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible, of course, to cover the full range of Penguin\u2019s history even in a generous spread of 90 titles. But nonetheless, there do seem to be one or two curious omissions. Are there, I asked Jessica Harrison, any authors she regrets not including in the Archive?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did feel odd,\u201d she said after a long pause, \u201cto be without [James] Joyce.\u201d Not half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen my first novel appeared in Penguin,\u201d said the writer Malcolm Bradbury, \u201cI regarded it as a step…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,45277,45279,134,45274,45273,45276,45278,45275],"class_list":["post-54488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-books","tag-bram-stoker","tag-colm-toibin","tag-entertainment","tag-george-bernard-shaw","tag-james-joyce","tag-marian-keyes","tag-ross-o-carroll-kelly","tag-ulysses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}