The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection
Encyclopedia
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
published by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, a subsidiary of Pearson PLC
Pearson PLC
Pearson plc is a global media and education company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is both the largest education company and the largest book publisher in the world, with consumer imprints including Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and Ladybird...
. They are published in varying editions throughout the world including in the United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, South Africa, and South Korea. Books in this series are seen by literary critics as important members of the Western canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...
, though many titles are translated or of non-Western origin; indeed, the series for decades from its creation included only translations, until it eventually incorporated Penguin English Library. The first Penguin Classic was E. V. Rieu
E. V. Rieu
Emile Victor Rieu CBE was a classicist, publisher and poet, best known for his lucid translations of Homer, as editor of Penguin Classics, and for a modern translation of the four Gospels which evolved from his role as editor of a projected Penguin translation of the Bible...
's translation of The Odyssey, published in 1946, and Rieu went on to become general editor of the series. Rieu sought out literary novelists such as Dorothy Sayers and Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
as translators, believing they would avoid "the archaic flavour and the foreign idiom that renders many existing translations repellent to modern taste".
Design
Penguin BooksPenguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
has paid particular attention to the design of its books since recruiting German typographer Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold was a typographer, book designer, teacher and writer.-Life:Tschichold was the son of a provincial signwriter, and he was trained in calligraphy...
in 1947. The early minimalist
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
designs were modernised by Italian art director Germano Facetti
Germano Facetti
Germano Facetti was an Italian graphic designer who headed design at Penguin Books from 1962 to 1971.Born in Milan he was arrested in 1943 for putting up anti-Fascist posters...
, who joined Penguin in 1961. The new classics were known as "Black Classics" for their black covers, which also featured artwork appropriate to the topic and period of the work. This design was later revised to have pale yellow covers with a black spine, colour-coded with a small mark to indicate language and period (red for English, purple for ancient Latin and Greek, yellow for medieval and continental European, and green for other languages).
In 2002, Penguin announced it was redesigning its entire catalogue. The redesign restored the black cover, adding a white stripe and orange lettering. The text page design was also overhauled to follow a more closely prescribed template, allowing for faster copyediting and typesetting, but reducing the options for individual design variations suggested by a text's structure or historical context (for example, in the choice of text typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
). Prior to 2002, the text page typography of each book in the Classics series had been overseen by a team of in-house designers; this department was closed in 2003 as part of the production costs rationalisation of the Classics list, and any design work is now done by editors and outside suppliers.
Within the broader category of Classics, Penguin has issued specialised series with their own designs. These include:
- Penguin Nature Classics, with authors such as Rachel CarsonRachel CarsonRachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
, John MuirJohn MuirJohn Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
, and John James AudubonJohn James AudubonJohn James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats... - Penguin Modern Classics, with authors such as Antoine de Saint Exupéry, James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, and Truman CapoteTruman CapoteTruman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At... - Penguin 20th Century Classics
- Penguin English Library
- Penguin Enriched Classics, such as Pride and PrejudicePride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
, Adventures of Huckleberry FinnAdventures of Huckleberry FinnAdventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...
, The Scarlet LetterThe Scarlet LetterThe Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an...
, and A Tale of Two CitiesA Tale of Two CitiesA Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
Complete Collection
In 2005, a semi-complete collection of books in the series was sold on Amazon.comAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
as "The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection". In 2005, the collection consisted of 1,082 different books (in multiple editions) and cost US$7,989.50. The collection weighed about 750 pounds (340 kg) and took about 77 linear feet (23.5 m) of shelf space; laid end-to-end the books would reach about 630 feet (192 m).
In 2008, Penguin Books published a complete annotated listing of all Penguin Classics titles in a single paperback
Paperback
Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
volume in the style of its Penguin Classics books. The list organises the collection multiple times: alphabetically by author, subject categories, authors by region, and a complete alphabetic title index. This compiled listing indicates there are over 1,300 titles, and more to be published.
A feature of the World's Biggest Bookstore
World's Biggest Bookstore
The World's Biggest Bookstore is a bookstore located in Toronto, Ontario, at 20 Edward St, just north of the Toronto Eaton Centre. It is currently owned by Indigo Books and Music.-History:...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada, from its inception in the 1970s, and for years thereafter, was that it stocked all of the Penguin Classics titles, for notoriety's sake. The upper section of the second floor of the store was dedicated to Penguin exclusively.
60th Anniversary
In 2007, Penguin Classics released a set of five books limited to 1,000 copies each, known as the Designer Classics. Each book was specially designed to celebrate Penguin Classic's Diamond Anniversary. The cover for Tender Is the NightTender is the Night
Tender Is the Night is a novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was his fourth and final completed novel, and was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues...
was designed by Sam Taylor-Wood. Taylor-Wood used an ethereal black-and-white photograph printed onto tracing paper. An elegant young man stands before with his hands in his pocket and bare feet. He perfectly sums up the elegance and fragility of Nicole and Dick Diver's world. The book is wrapped in a cloth hardcover and has a Perspex slipcase. The Idiot
The Idiot (novel)
The Idiot is a novel written by 19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published serially in The Russian Messenger between 1868 and 1869. The Idiot is ranked beside some of Dostoyevsky's other works as one of the most brilliant literary achievements of the "Golden Age" of...
was designed by Ron Arad. Arad's book has no cover so the reader will pick it up and read the author's first words. It is stripped back to show the glue and thread in the spine which is visible through an acrylic slipcase (with a lid) with a fresnel lens so the text appears to move as the lid is removed. Arad explains: "By not wanting to have a cover, it ended with the book becoming an amazing object that is alive, but which maintains its transparency. It became a glorious box with a book inside—almost like a monument." The cover for Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
was designed by Manolo Blahnik. The jacket features Blahnik's original painting of Emma with her lover, and the book is protected by a Perspex slipcase. He said: "I wanted to come up with something light, sensual... something frivolous, because this is a novel about the dangers of frivolity. And I wanted something sexy too, cheeky. I usually focus on one part of the foot—the shoe. For this project, I had to consider a whole scene, there had to be a context, which is new for me. But I managed to sneak in a pair of shoes anyway. She wore good shoes." Fuel designed the cover for Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
. Graphic designers Stephen Sorrell and Damon Murray have used Cyrillic and English type. Stephen explains: "This visual device echoes the mind games in the head of Raskolnikov as he battles with his voice of conscience. We want the design to form the shape and feel of the book as a whole not just its cover." They have screen printed the cover on the same brown craft paper used for the text. The book has a Perspex slipcase. Finally, the cover for Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1928. The first edition was printed privately in Florence, Italy with assistance from Pino Orioli; it could not be published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960...
was created by Paul Smith.
Bill Amberg
Penguin Classics collaborated with Bill Amberg in the design of six books (A Room with a ViewA Room with a View
A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the repressed culture of Edwardian England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century...
, Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. The main character, Holly Golightly, is one of Capote's best-known creations and an American cultural icon.-Plot:...
, The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978...
, The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
, Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
, and The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
). These books are bound in leather which was "worked in a way that as the book is handled, the more protected and beautiful it becomes". The books also include their own leather bookmark which is bound with the book title and author. It has been reported widely that the purpose for this approach by Penguin Classics is to target readers/collectors who would like a "high-end" book, but not willing to pay over the odds for it.