Allen Lane (imprint)
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| Parent company | Penguin Random House (as of 1 July 2013) |
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| Status | Active |
| Founded | 1935 |
| Founder | Allen Lane, Richard Lane and John Lane |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | City of Westminster, London |
| Distribution | United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, India, United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada |
| Key people |
Peter Field, CEO Madeline McIntosh, President USA |
| Publication types | Books |
| Imprints | Penguin Classics, Viking Press |
| Owner(s) | Bertelsmann, Pearson PLC |
| Official website | www |
Peter Field, CEO
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. Penguin's success demonstrated that large audiences existed for serious books. Penguin also had a significant impact on public debate in Britain, through its books on British culture, politics, the arts, and science.
Penguin Books is now an imprint of the worldwide Penguin Random House, an emerging conglomerate which was formed in 2013 by the merger of the two publishers. Formerly, Penguin Group was wholly owned by Pearson PLC, the global media company which also owned the Financial Times, but it now retains only a minority holding of 47% of the stock against Random House owner Bertelsmann which controls the majority stake. It is one of the largest English-language publishers, formerly known as the "Big Six", now the "Big Five".
The first Penguin paperbacks were published in 1935, but at first only as an imprint of The Bodley Head (of Vigo Street) with the books originally distributed from the crypt of Holy Trinity Church Marylebone. Only paperback editions were published until the "King Penguin" series debuted in 1939, and latterly the Pelican History of Art was undertaken: these were unsuitable as paperbacks because of the length and copious illustrations on art paper so cloth bindings were chosen instead. Penguin Books has its registered office in the City of Westminster, London, England.
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