One Hundred Penguin Books
I found these first hundred Penguin books in my attic over the weekend, as I was unpacking a box that has been sealed since I moved in. With their faded orange, indigo, green, violet and pink spines they make a fine display and I am fond of this collection that took me so many years to amass.
When I left college, I wrote to companies all over the country seeking work and asking if they would give me an interview if I came to see them. Then I travelled around on the cheap, through a combination of buses, trains and hitchhiking, to visit all these places – the industrial towns of the North and the Cathedral cities of the South – staying in bus stations, youth hostels and seedy B&Bs, and going along filled with hope to interviews that were almost all fruitless. It was the first time I encountered the distinctive regional qualities of Britain and in each city, to ameliorate the day of my interview, I took the opportunity to visit the museums, civic art galleries, cathedrals and castles that distinguish these places. Arriving at each destination, I would consult the directory and make a list of the second-hand booksellers, then mark them on a tourist map and, after the job interview, I would visit every one. There were hundreds of these scruffy dusty old shops with proprietors who were commonly more interested in the book they were reading behind the counter than in any customer. Many were simply junk shops with a few books piled in disorder on some shelves in the back or stacked in cardboard boxes on the pavement outside.
In these shabby old shops, I sometimes came upon Penguin books with a podgy penguin on the cover, quite in contrast to the streamlined bird familiar from modern editions. These early titles, dating from 1935 had a clean bold typography using Eric Gill’s classic sans typeface and could be bought for just twenty or thirty pence. So, in the manner of those cards you get in bubblegum packets, I began to collect any with numbers up to one hundred. In doing so, I discovered a whole library of novelists from the nineteen thirties and reading these copies passed the time pleasantly on my endless journeys. In particular, I liked the work of Eric Linklater whose playful novel “Poet’s Pub” was number three, Compton Mackenzie whose novel of the Edwardian vaudeville “Carnival” was ten, Vita Sackville-West whose novel “The Edwardians” was sixteen, T.F.Powys whose “Mr Weston’s Good Wine” was seventy-three and Sylvia Townsend Warner whose novel “Lolly Willowes” was eighty-four. After these, I read all the other works of these skillful and unjustly neglected novelists.
Eventually I found a job in Perthshire and then subsequently in Inverness, and from here I made frequent trips to Glasgow, which has the best second-hand bookshops in Scotland, to continue my collection. And whenever I made the long rail journey down South, I commonly stopped off to spend a day wandering round Liverpool or Durham or any of the places I had never been, all for the purpose of seeking old Penguins.
The collection was finally completed when I moved back to London and discovered that my next door neighbour Christine was the daughter of Allen Lane who founded Penguin books. She was astonished to see my collection and I was amazed to see the same editions scattered around her house. From Christine, I learnt how her father Allen was bored one day on Exeter St David’s Station (a place familiar to me), changing trains on the way to visit his godmother Agatha Christie. When he searched the bookstall, he could not find anything to read and decided to start his own company publishing cheap editions of good quality books. I presume he did not know that, if he had been there half a century earlier, he could have bought a copy of Thomas Hardy’s first published novel “Desperate Remedies”, because Exeter St David’s was where Hardy experienced that moment no writer can ever forget, of first seeing their book on sale.
I do not think my collection of Penguins is of any great value because they are of highly variable condition and not all are first editions, though every one predates World War II and they are of the uniform early design before the bird slimmed down. While I was collecting these, I thought that I was on a quest to build my career – a fancy that I walked away from, years later. Now these hundred Penguin books are the only evidence of my innocent tenacity to create a life for myself at that time.
Allen Lane’s idealistic conception, to use the mass market to promulgate good writing to the widest readership in cheap editions that anyone could afford, is one that I admire. And these first hundred are a fascinating range of titles, a snapshot of the British public’s reading tastes in the late thirties. Looking back, the search for all these books led me on a wonderful journey through Britain. If you bear in mind that I only found a couple in each city, then you will realise that my complete collection represents a ridiculously large number of failed job interviews in every corner of these islands. It was a job search than became a cultural tour and resulted in a stack of lovely old paperbacks. Now they sit on my shelf here in Spitalfields as souvenirs of all the curious places I never would have visited if it were not my wayward notion to scour the entire country to collect all the first hundred Penguins.
I’ve never heard of most of these. Is it because I’m American or because of the few authors who achieve the spotlight, fewer still retain it decades later. But I so love the title “Lolly Willowes,” I’ll have to see if I can track down a dusty copy in one of our libraries.
Wonderful post as always!
I will curl up and die if all books in the future are passed around in electronic files. No more travelling to bookshops all over the UK then!
It’s striking that they’re all roughly the same size. Was that a criterion for their selection by the publisher?
Dear Susan, I know you would love Lolly Willowes.
My friend Barbara sent me the link to this – what a wonderful post! And how lovely to see Lolly Willowes and Mr. Weston’s Good Wine mentioned together, not to mention the wonderful Vita Sackville-West (have you read her book The Heir? It’s brilliant).
Great post. There is a bookshop in Colchester where I live, which has boxes of these and I have spent many a happy hour in there having a rummage and a read. This love of Penguins is obviously widespread as the recent box of Postcards using the old penguin covers sold out so quickly before Christmas they were well nigh impossible to get hold of. I managed to get a set and spent a nostalgic trip looking through them all and remembering the books.
Thank you for a lovely post
Really enjoyed reading this. We have about 20 of the first 100 and enjoy collecting them in a very slow and haphazard way. We could probably buy them all from the internet in a day – but that would be no fun at all.
tremendous, as usual.
BTW, thanks ever so much for the recommendation of Gav. never remembered to post afterward, but what a great bloke. (my hair thanks you, too.)
what an interesting post and how interestingly you use language.my friend Barbara sent me the link to you so now I have ‘bookmarked you’ and shall visit often.
I, too, have some old penguins but not collected in as orderly fashion as you. I have a penchant for the blue history series.
A lovely read, also there was my other ‘lovely read’ on the shelf too. Anna of the five Towns by Arnold Bennett is one of my very favourite books . I have to leave it a few years between reads so it’s fresh again.
Must be about time now, thanks for reminding me.
These are so beautiful I want to take them to dinner and keep pouring them wine until they leave you for ME.
This is beautiful — the books and your story both!!!
What a lovely post! And such beautiful pictures! I love old Penguins too but there are so many of them that I’ve only been looking for favourite books or books I do want to read. I only have a handful so far as I just started last year. The idea of doing it by the numbers is a great one. I wonder if there’s a list of titles by numbers somewhere on the internet?
Lovely post and lovely books. I pick up old Penguins in a desultory way but had not realised about the numberings — I shall be on the look out more seriously now.
this is no yet another blog post, this is literature. spitalfieldslife.com is on my bookmarks list now. thank you !
My favourite Penguin Classic was also the first I ever bought. I loved the cover and the fact it was in mint condition, so I didn’t really mind about the content. Titled, The Social Life of Insects, I always thought it would be fairly dire to read. So I when I did actually pick it up I was amazed to find it a totally addictive read. It’s now definitely one of my re-reads that I m looking forward too!
Lovely pics and post by the way!
Reminded by this lovely post to look more closely at my own library, I noticed, seemingly for the first time, that Penguins have spines in different colours denoting the genre. Mine are mostly green, for crime (being a great fan of Margery Allingham) . What a simple and clever idea.
There is an interesting article about Penguin on the website of the Design Museum here http://designmuseum.org/design/penguin-books
I was directed to this blog from Persephone Books. Each day I visit Persephone Books blog where I always find a little treat to cheer me. Today I found the wonderful photo of your Penguin books with a link to your blog.
Your article was so interesting and informative. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed reading it. I too, like others who have commented, will be visiting again!
I found you via Persephone as well – what a beautiful collection and a wonderful story to go with it. Books are the best souvenirs of life’s experiences!
You have a terrific blog!
Using the Persephone Books blog as my home page, I discover quite a lot about Britain of which I am otherwise unaware having been born and raised in the States, now living in Chicago – in this case that the early editions of Penguin were numbered. Are they still? The copy of Hazlitt recently sent to me by John Sandoe Books doesn’t seem to be. My two collections of British books are the Persephone series (now up to #86 – and which, should you choose to start reading them in order, might be best beginning with #3, then 2, then 1 before returning to 4, 5, 6, etc.) and the Agatha Christie first edition facsimiles. With the Penguin, I now have a new series to try and find and read. Thank you for the introduction.
As a dedicated reader, I am very glad to have this site via Persephone Books.
I look forward to visiting hereabouts again soon.
What an excellent collection, rather reminds me of the second hand department of Waterstone’s on Gower Street…have spent many a happy hour lost over there!
What a lovely collection! I have lots of paperbacks but am very fond of Penguins. I often buy second-hand ones and have all of Margery Allingham’s novels in Penguin.
I inherited a “Penguin bookcase” sold in Heals, from my uncle, which was designed to hold Penguin paperbacks.
I am also acquiring the lovely Penguin mugs which are so bright and cheerful.
They are a cultural icon of 20th century.
Enjoyed reading your story. Small point but Poet’s Pub is number 3 in the series. Number 2 was ‘a farewell to arms’.
regards GT
Hi ther, lovely collection. I myself am a big colelctor,I have about 500 of the first 1000 publications, all first editions. There is so much charm in these old penguin books, and they look great all lined up. If you ever decide to sell any of these please get in contact with me. Chrisjhouse@aol.com I’d love to add some to my collection.
Lolly Willows was the first Book of the Month selection -
http://www.positivelygoodreads.com/my_reviews/Lolly_Willowes.html
Googling “antique penguin books” I stumbled on this most beautiful site. I once had an old Penguin book that was the Letters of Vincent van Gogh, with a foreward by Johanna van Gogh, the book was yellowed, quiet, and, unopened, when I read it. I lent it. What was I thinking?! Unlike you, I barely ever see an old Penguin book anywhere here in Australia, so it is like a balm to stumble onto this site.
What a wonderful collection. Reminds me of my parents collections year ago. I don’t know what happened to them all.
Books to read