Penguin

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Medbh McGuckian
MMG has been invited to contribute poems to many anthologies. Early in her career, her work was included in the influential Contemporary British Poetry, edited by Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion and published by...
Anthologization Malorie Blackman
MB contributed a novella, The Ripple Effect, to Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories, a Penguin Books anthology intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the science fiction television programme Doctor Who with...
Literary responses Germaine Greer
A female gynaecologist mentioned in the book as uncaring and insensitive successfully sued Greer for damages.
Wallace, Christine. Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew. Richard Cohen Books, 1999.
265-6
The Penguin paperback which followed the year after publication came garlanded with praise from British feminist writers: Wendy Cope
Literary responses Germaine Greer
Greer professed herself deeply anxious about the reviews.
Wallace, Christine. Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew. Richard Cohen Books, 1999.
193
The Penguin paperback edition, however, quoted on its cover Anita Brookner in the Observer calling this a brave book,Anthony Storr in the Independent describing it...
Literary responses Anna Kavan
Jonathan Lethem revisited Ice in the New York Times fifty years after it appeared, in advance of its anniversary re-issue as a Penguin classic. His notice opened arrestingly: Anna Kavan's Ice is book like the...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Despite positive reviews by Lorna Sage in The Observer Review and Geoffrey Elborn in Guardian Weekly, Brooks Peters in Out says that the novel was not well received in England. However, the year...
Literary responses Rose Macaulay
The book did well in Britain (the Times Literary Supplement called it in many respects a brilliant piece of work),
qtd. in
Lefanu, Sarah. Rose Macaulay. Virago, 2003.
197
but it sank with scarcely a ripple in the USA.
Macaulay, Rose. Letters to a Friend from Rose Macaulay 1950-1952. Editor Babington Smith, Constance, Fontana, 1968.
64
RM
Material Conditions of Writing Una Marson
In the 1950s, UM struggled with a long, semi-autobiographical work entitled Everyday Life in Jamaica to be published by Knopf , but this was never completed. In 1964, the year before she died, she received...
Material Conditions of Writing Naomi Alderman
NA titled her second novel The Lessons. It was published by Penguin after a long old slog, which involved cutting 50,000 words,
Alderman, Naomi. Naomi Alderman. Novels and Games. 2016, http://www.naomialderman.com/about/.
the entire original opening.
Shackle, Samira. “The Lessons (review)”. The New Statesman, Vol.
139
, No. 4997, 19 Apr. 2010, p. 55.
139.4997 (19 April 2010): 55
Occupation Kamila Shamsie
In 2017 both KS and Penelope Lively were approached by Penguin to select under-appreciated works for inclusion in a series of forgotten classics by female British authors in recognition of the centenary passing of Representation...
Occupation Noel Streatfeild
In her professional career, NS gradually came to accept the role of writer for children as a more prominent part of her identity than that of writer for adults. She answered letters from children who...
Occupation Carol Ann Duffy
As a schoolgirl CAD had a Saturday job sweeping the floor at a local hairdresser's. Her pay each week bought her ten cigarettes, a bottle of wine, and a Penguin collection of some modern poet.
Wroe, Nicholas. “A life in writing”. The Guardian, 26 May 2007, p. Review 11.
11
Author summary Patricia Highsmith
PH , writing from the mid-twentieth century, first in the USA and then in Europe and England, produced short stories and novels, the majority of them variously classifiable as thrillers or suspense fiction, a...
Publishing Sybille Bedford
It was dedicated to Allanah Harper , and reprinted in a Penguin edition the following year. Just as she had aimed to make her travel-book a novel, SB said she had set out here to...
Publishing Nadine Gordimer
The collection was reprinted by Penguin in 1982. In the same year one of its stories, Happy Event, was included in Modern Short Stories 2, 1940-1980.

Timeline

30 July 1935: Penguin Books issued its first ten titles:...

Writing climate item

30 July 1935

Penguin Books issued its first ten titles: sixpenny paperbacks with a characteristic penguin logo.
Penguin UK: About Us: Company History. http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/history.html.
British Book News. British Council.
(1956): 395
Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. Constable, 1992.
113
Mezei, Kathy, and Chiara Briganti. “’She must be a very good novelist’: Rereading E. H. Young (1880-1949)”. English Studies in Canada, Vol.
27
, No. 3, Sept. 2001, pp. 303-31.
308 and n12
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
380

1937: The two-year-old Penguin Books launched its...

Writing climate item

1937

The two-year-old Penguin Books launched its Pelican imprint: a non-fiction series (mostly history, sociology, economics, or politics) which, unlike Penguin fiction, were new works not reprints.
Penguin UK: About Us: Company History. http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/history.html.
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
30 July 2009

1941: Puffin, a subsidiary of Penguin designed...

Writing climate item

1941

Puffin , a subsidiary of Penguin designed to publish (initially) picture books for children in paperback, issued its first four titles.
Persephone Books. http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/.

1949: Hans Schmoller succeeded Jan Tschichold as...

Writing climate item

1949

Hans Schmoller succeeded Jan Tschichold as designer at Penguin , preserving unchanged the policy of uniform cover design.
Campbell, Peter. “At the V & A”. London Review of Books, 2 June 2005, p. 33.
33

1951: Nikolaus Pevsner published the first three...

Building item

1951

Nikolaus Pevsner published the first three titles in his Buildings of England series, an immensely knowledgeable gazetteer, county by county, of historic and other noteworthy structures.
Darley, Gillian. “Down with Cosmopolitanism”. London Review of Books, 18 May 2000, pp. 21-2.
21
Hill, Rosemary. “Positively Spaced Out”. London Review of Books, 6 Sept. 2001, pp. 30-1.
30-1

29 July 1959: The Obscene Publications Act (England), 1959,...

Writing climate item

29 July 1959

The Obscene Publications Act (England), 1959, replacing a predecessor of 1857, substantially modified its elements; it newly provided the defence of public good (which was held to include literary merit), and the use...

1963: E. P. Thompson published his influential...

Writing climate item

1963

E. P. Thompson published his influential history The Making of the English Working Class.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Windschuttle, Keith. The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering our Past. Encounter Books, 2000.
276

1972: Designer Richard Hollis produced a revolutionary...

Writing climate item

1972

Designer Richard Hollis produced a revolutionary look for John Berger 's Ways of Seeing in Penguin paperback: the work's text begins on the cover, incorporating (as pages do throughout the book) a cover-like visual.
Campbell, Peter. “At the V & A”. London Review of Books, 2 June 2005, p. 33.
33

1974: Erin Pizzey published with Penguin her book...

Women writers item

1974

Erin Pizzey published with Penguin her book on marital violence, Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear.
Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. Dial, 1999.
262

May 1978: Virago Press issued its first Virago Modern...

Women writers item

May 1978

Virago Press issued its first Virago Modern Classics, a historically important series most though not all of which were novels.
Callil, Carmen. “The stories of our lives”. Guardian Unlimited, 26 Apr. 2008.

1979: The cover of M. M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions...

Writing climate item

1979

The cover of M. M. Kaye 's The Far Pavilions in Penguin paperback (the year after its original publication) shocked Penguin's established constituency with its picture of a couple (the man with bare torso) kissing.
Campbell, Peter. “At the V & A”. London Review of Books, 2 June 2005, p. 33.
33

By 20 June 2000: Jane Nissen, a former editor at Penguin,...

Writing climate item

By 20 June 2000

Jane Nissen , a former editor at Penguin , published the first four titles by Jane Nissen Books , reprints of much-loved children's books of the twentieth century.
Carey, Joanna. “Classic Revival”. Guardian Unlimited Books, 20 June 2000.

8 June 2005: An exhibition at the Victoria and Albert...

Writing climate item

8 June 2005

An exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London entitled Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 provided useful insight into its immediate topic, but also into twentieth-century book design in general.
Campbell, Peter. “At the V & A”. London Review of Books, 2 June 2005, p. 33.
33

By the end of July 2010: Sales of the three novels in the Millennium...

Writing climate item

By the end of July 2010

Sales of the three novels in the Millennium series by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson (of which the first was published in England on 10 January 2008) broke records with worldwide sales estimated at between...

Early November 2012: A merger was proposed between the publishers...

Writing climate item

Early November 2012

A merger was proposed between the publishers Penguin and Random House , that would create a mega-company with worldwide revenues of 4.1 billion dollars US.
Sabbagh, Dan. “Amazon fears underlie books merger”. Guardian Weekly, 2 Nov. 2012, p. 17.

Texts

Abelard, Peter, and Héloïse. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Translator Radice, Betty, Penguin, 1974.
Bainbridge, Beryl. Collected Stories. Penguin, 1994.
Barker, Pat. Another World. Penguin, 1999.
Beauvoir, Simone de. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. Translator Kirkup, James, Penguin, 2001.
Bedford, Sybille. Jigsaw. Penguin, 1990.
Bedford, Sybille. Jigsaw. Penguin, 1999.
Evans, Richard J. The Penguin Dictionary of Nineteenth Century History. Editors Belchem, John and Richard Price, Penguin, 1996.
Berry, Emily et al. If I’m Scared We Can’t Win. Penguin, 2016.
Blackman, Malorie. “The Ripple Effect”. Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories, Penguin, 2013.
Blackstone, Tessa. “The Education of Girls”. The Rights and Wrongs of Women, edited by Ann Oakley and Juliet Mitchell, Penguin, 1976, pp. 199-16.
Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer et al. Our New Order—or Hitler’s?. Editor Bottome, Phyllis, Penguin, 1943.
Bradstock, Margaret, and Louise Wakeling. Rattling the Orthodoxies: A Life of Ada Cambridge. Penguin, 1991.
Brett, Judith, and Mary Fortune. “Preface”. The Fortunes of Mary Fortune, edited by Lucy Sussex and Lucy Sussex, Penguin, 1989, p. ix - xi.
Brontë, Anne, and Winifred Gérin. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Editor Hargreaves, Geoffrey Duncan, Penguin, 1979.
Brookner, Anita. Strangers. Penguin, 2009.
Burney, Frances. Journals and Letters. Editors Sabor, Peter and Lars E. Troide, Penguin, 2001.
Burnside, John et al. John Burnside, Robert Crawford, Kathleen Jamie. Penguin.
Butler, Marilyn, and Maria Edgeworth. “Introduction”. Castle Rackrent; and, Ennui, Penguin, 1992, pp. 1-54.
Cambridge, Ada, and Nancy Cato. Sisters. Penguin, 1989.
Cannan, Joanna, and Anne Bullen. Hamish: The Story of a Shetland Pony. Penguin, 1944.
Cannan, Joanna. Murder Included. Penguin, 1958.
Carrington, Leonora, and Ali Smith. The Hearing Trumpet. Penguin, 2005.
Castle, Barbara. Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst. Penguin, 1987.
Churchill, Caryl, and Irving Wardle. “The Ants”. New English Dramatists 12, Penguin, pp. 89-103.
Clark, Charles Manning Hope. A Short History of Australia. Revised Illustrated, Penguin, 1986.