Penguin Special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane - Softcover

Lewis, Jeremy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141015969 ISBN 13: 9780141015965

Publisher: Penguin, 2006

Synopsis

By founding Penguin books and popularizing the paperback, Allen Lane not only changed publishing in Britain, he was also at the forefront of a social and cultural revolution that saw the masses given access to what had previously been the preserve of a wealthy few.

In Penguin Special Jeremy Lewis brings this extraordinary era brilliantly to life, recounting how Lane came to launch his Penguins for the price of a packet of cigarettes; how they became enormously influential in alerting the public to the threat of Nazi Germany; and how Penguin itself gradually became a national institution, like the BBC and the NHS, whilst at the same time challenging the status quo through the famous Lady Chatterley case. Above all, it is the story of how one often fallible, complex man used his vision to change the world.


'Lewis's book is a triumph ... a rich and humorous history of 20th century reading habits, Penguin Special will not be surpassed' MAIL ON SUNDAY

'A word of warning: the enjoyable swiftness of Jeremy Lewis's prose can seduce the reader into going too fast, but savour this book slowly, don't gobble it up. It is so richly stuffed with facts, people, perceptions and atmosphere that you may get indigestion if you do not allow it the time it deserves' Diana Athill, LITERARY REVIEW

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Invaluable and fascinating."
—Nick Hornby, Time Out (London)

"Hugely enjoyable . . . Jeremy Lewis’s 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.)

About the Author

Jeremy Lewis worked in publishing for much of his life after leaving Trinity College Dublin in 1965. He was a director of Chatto & Windus for ten years, and the Deputy Editor of the London Magazine from 1990-'94. He has been the Commissioning Editor of the Oldie since 1997. He has written two highly praised volumes of autobiography, Playing for Time and Kindred Spirits, and edited The Chatto Book of Office Life. His authorised biography of Cyril Connolly was published by Jonathan Cape in 1997, and his life of Tobias Smollett in 2003. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he is married with two daughters, and lives near Richmond Park.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141015969
• ISBN 13: 9780141015965
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512