Penguin Special: The Story of Allen Lane, the Founder of Penguin Books and the Man Who Changed Publishing Forever

Penguin Special: The Story of Allen Lane, the Founder of Penguin Books and the Man Who Changed Publishing Forever by Lewis, Jeremy. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780141024615.

“A masterly account of publishing in the twentieth century . . . A brilliant soap opera.” —New Statesman (London) The founding of Penguin Books in 1935 revolutionized the publishing industry with the idea that great writing ought to be made available for the price of a pack of cigarettes. In telling the story of Penguin and its founder, Allen Lane, Jeremy Lewis traces the changes the company wrought in cultural and political life in England and in the publishing industry worldwide, from the publication of Ulysses, with its attendant obscenity trial, to the Penguin Specials that alerted prewar Britain to the Nazi threat. Rich with anecdote and suffused with LaneÂs larger-than-life personality, Penguin Special touches on the entire twentieth century in its portrait of a man and a company that have changed the way the English- speaking world reads. “Invaluable and fascinating.” —Nick Hornby, Time Out (London) “Hugely enjoyable . . . Jeremy LewisÂs biography is an extraordinarily vivid portrait of an extraordinary man.” —The Sunday Telegraph (London) “The book is a triumph. His knowledge of the publishing world is unrivaled and this must be the best survey of the nuts-and-bolts of the industry ever devised.” —The Sunday Mail (U.K.)