The first ten Penguin books were published on the Tuesday before the August Bank Holiday of 1935. No. 1 was Ariel – A Shelley Romance by André Maurois. It is displayed here alongside the other nine titles. They all sold rapidly, and soon had to be reissued. The affordable price, and the paper covers, started a revolution in publishing, but they were not designed as throw-away items. Great care was taken in their production, and the uniform, colour-coded jackets encouraged readers to collect them.
The early Penguin books were published from within another imprint, The Bodley Head, which had been named after a bust of Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library.
While so many of the Bodleian’s treasures are unique and irreplaceable, the first Penguin book is notably the opposite. Mass produced, priced to sell, made in a convenient pocket size and available to all, it represents what books and libraries are surely meant to promote: the exchange of ideas. The Penguin book challenges the view that an object’s significance in the Bodleian is its rarity or obscurity. Instantly recognisable, an icon of 20th century design, the first Penguin encapsulates the spirit of the pre- and post-war decades: the continued democratisation of learning and the freedom to enjoy leisure that increasing wealth and security gave millions of ordinary people.
The first Penguin also represents the Bodleian’s legal deposit collection, a treasure in its own right. The continuing collection and preservation in one place of all the printed material of the British Isles allows scholars to examine trends in social and intellectual history as seen through the history of publishing. The first Penguin represents this priceless aspect of legal deposit; the significance of one item may only become apparent decades later, and sometimes not for the reasons you might think. In this case the first Penguin illustrates the influence of design and marketing in modern publishing in a way which could not have been anticipated at the time of its acquisition.
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What makes this a treasure?
While so many of the Bodleian’s treasures are unique and irreplaceable, the first Penguin book is notably the opposite. Mass produced, priced to sell, made in a convenient pocket size and available to all, it represents what books and libraries are surely meant to promote: the exchange of ideas. The Penguin book challenges the view that an object’s significance in the Bodleian is its rarity or obscurity. Instantly recognisable, an icon of 20th century design, the first Penguin encapsulates the spirit of the pre- and post-war decades: the continued democratisation of learning and the freedom to enjoy leisure that increasing wealth and security gave millions of ordinary people.
The first Penguin also represents the Bodleian’s legal deposit collection, a treasure in its own right. The continuing collection and preservation in one place of all the printed material of the British Isles allows scholars to examine trends in social and intellectual history as seen through the history of publishing. The first Penguin represents this priceless aspect of legal deposit; the significance of one item may only become apparent decades later, and sometimes not for the reasons you might think. In this case the first Penguin illustrates the influence of design and marketing in modern publishing in a way which could not have been anticipated at the time of its acquisition.
Posted by Alasdair Macdonald
On 22/09/2011