Albatross Books was a German publishing house based in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

that produced the first modern

mass-market paperback A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...

books. Albatross was founded in 1932 by John Holroyd-Reece, Max Christian Wegner and

Kurt Enoch Kurt Enoch (22 November 1895 – 15 February 1982) was a German-born publisher who co-founded Albatross Books in Germany and Penguin Books Inc. and New American Library in the United States, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-ficti ...

. The name was chosen because ''albatross'' is the same word in many European languages. Based on the example of

Tauchnitz Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers. They published English language literature for distribution on the European continent outside Great Britain, including initial serial publications of novels by Charles Dickens. ...

, a

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

publishing firm that had been producing inexpensive and paper-bound English-language reprints for the continental market, Albatross set out to streamline and modernize the paperback format. The books in the series were produced with a layout designed by

Giovanni Mardersteig Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

, then art director at the

Mondadori Arnoldo Mondadori Editore () is the biggest publishing company in Italy. History The company was founded in 1907 in Ostiglia by 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori who began his publishing career with the publication of the magazine ''Luce!''. In 1 ...

Italian publishing house, including a new standard size, 181 x 111 mm, which approximated the aesthetically pleasing proportions known as the

Golden Ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0, where the Greek letter phi ( ...

. They used new

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...

fonts developed by

Stanley Morison Stanley Arthur Morison (6 May 1889 – 11 October 1967) was a British typographer, printing executive and historian of printing. Largely self-educated, he promoted higher standards in printing and an awareness of the best printing and typefaces o ...

among others, and were color-coded by genre, with green for travel, orange for fiction, and so on. The series was so successful that Albatross soon purchased Tauchnitz, giving itself an instant 100-year heritage. Albatross Books launched two book series, the Albatross Crime Club and the Albatross Mystery Club. The outbreak of World War II brought the Albatross experiment to a halt, but by then

Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fictio ...

had adopted many of Albatross' ideas, including the standard size, the idea of covers using typography and logo but no illustrations, and the use of color coding by type of content, for

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Querido Emanuel Querido (6 August 1871 – 23 July 1943) was a successful Dutch publisher as the founder and owner of N.V. Em. Querido Uitgeversmaatschappij, which published Dutch titles, and of , which published titles of German writers in exile from N ...

) in the Netherlands.

References

External links

publishinghistory.com.
Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich
– Michele K. Troy discusses the Albatross Press and Kurt Enoch at the Library of Congress.
Insights: The Rare Albatross Paperbacks
at collectingchristie.com {{Authority control Book publishing companies of Germany Publishing companies established in 1932 Mass media in Hamburg

References

Further reading

External links