rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Penguin special
    sub title: the life and times of Allen Lane
  name:
    name part: Lewis, Jeremy.
    role:
      role term: creator
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: biography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: enk
    date issued: 2005
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: xii, 484 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
  abstract: "A stocky, dapper Bristolian who left school at the age of sixteen and went on to found Penguin Books, Allen Lane was the greatest publisher of the twentieth century and a major influence on the cultural and political life of post-war Britain. He revolutionized our reading habits by his insistence that the best writing in the world should be made available for the price of a packet of cigarettes. Decked out in their livery of orange and white, the first Penguins were published in the summer of 1935 and were followed in due course by Pelicans, Puffins and Penguin Classics." "Though never a bookish man himself, Lane was adept at sensing the spirit of the age and always ready to follow his hunches: he commissioned Nikolaus Pevsner to write the Buildings of England, persuaded Kenneth Clark to mastermind the Penguin Modern Painters, and gave his backing to John Lehmann's Penguin New Writing, arguably the finest literary magazine of its times. He risked prosecution by publishing James Joyce's Ulysses for the first time in this country, and a quarter of a century later he appeared at the Old Bailey to defend Penguin's publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover, thereby anticipating the liberal reforms of the 1960s." "But his influence stretched far beyond the world of publishing: his pre-war Penguin Specials alerted the British public to the threat of Nazism; the books he published during the war helped to ensure a Labour victory in 1945; and Penguin itself came to be seen as a benign monopoly, akin to the BBC or the National Health Service." "By the end of his career, publishing was changing too fast for his liking, and his last years were blighted by illness and his battle with the mercurial Tony Godwin, brought to its climax when Lane set fire to the stock of a book he detested. Lane combined ruthlessness with affability, courage with moral cowardice, loyalty with unpredictability. Few publishers are remembered after their lifetimes: Allen Lane is a rare exception to the ru…
  target audience: adult
  note: Jeremy Lewis.
  note: The Cushing Library Lit/Mitchell copy is a donation from J. Lawrence Mitchell.
  note: Includes bibliographical references (pages [442]-450) and index.
  subject:
    geographic code: e-uk---
  subject:
    name:
      name part: Sir
      name part: Lane, Allen
      name part: 1902-1970
  subject:
    name:
      name part: Penguin (Firm)
  subject:
    topic: Publishers and publishing
    geographic: Great Britain
    genre: Biography
  classification: Z325.L245 L49 2005
  classification: 070.5092
  identifier: 0670914851 (hbk.)
  record info:
    record content source: UKM
    record creation date: 041201
    record change date: 20240814165708.4
    record identifier: in00002069896