Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British 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.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, ...

fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. In 1967 he started a hardback imprint under his own name, Allen Lane.

Early life and family

Allen Lane Williams was born in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, to Camilla (née Lane) and Samuel Williams, and studied at

Bristol Grammar School Bristol Grammar School (BGS) is a 4–18 mixed, independent day school in Bristol, England. It was founded in 1532 by Royal Charter for the teaching of 'good manners and literature', endowed by wealthy Bristol merchants Robert and Nicholas Thorn ...

. In 1919 he joined the publishing company

Bodley Head The Bodley Head is an English publishing house, founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s. The name was used as an imprint of Random House Children's Books from 1987 to 2008. In April 2008, it was revived as an adul ...

as an apprentice to his uncle and founder of the company John Lane. In the process, he and the rest of his family changed their surname to Lane to retain the childless John Lane's company as a family firm. Lane married Letitia Lucy Orr, daughter of Sir Charles Orr, on 28 June 1941 and had three daughters: Clare, Christine, and Anna. He was

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

ed in 1952.

Career as a publisher

He rose quickly at Bodley Head, becoming managing editor in 1925 following the death of his uncle. After conflict with the board of directors who were wary at first—for fear of being prosecuted—of publishing

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's controversial book '' Ulysses'', Lane, together with his brothers Richard and John, founded

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British 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.Agatha Christie in 1934, Lane found himself on an Exeter station platform with nothing available worth reading. He conceived of paperback editions of literature of proven quality which would be cheap enough to be sold from a

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The ...

; the first was set up outside

Henderson's Henderson's, better known as The Bomb Shop, was a bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road, London known for publishing and selling both radical left and anarchist writing and modernist literature. The shop was founded in 1909, and was a father and s ...

in Charing Cross Road and dubbed the "Penguincubator". Lane was also well aware of the

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

publisher Albatross Books and adopted many of its innovations. Most booksellers and authors were against the idea of paperbacks. They believed that paperbacks would result in individuals spending less money on books. Lane was very stubborn when it came to his company; he operated mainly on intuition and imagination. "He thrived in an atmosphere of crisis and came most fully alive under the challenge of great dilemmas." Reviews ''Allen Lane: King Penguin''. He was a creative genius that once he had an idea he would not stop until it came to fruition. Once he decided on creating paperbacks he set about in deciding what the books should look like and finding a name. He had decided that the books would be reprints so he also needed to approach other publishers to see if they and their authors would be willing to sublease the rights of the books. He was quoted as saying, "I have never been able to understand why cheap books should not also be well designed, for good design is no more expensive than bad." Edward Young designed the horizontal bands and used Gill Sans Bold for the title's letting. He was also sent to the Zoo in Regents Park to sketch penguins for the cover. Allen Lane wanted a cover design that was consistent and easily recognizable. In 1937 the font was changed to Times New Roman. His

Pelican Books Pelican Books is a non-fiction imprint of Penguin Books"About Penguin - Compa ...

were non-fiction books. Penguins were meant to entertain while Pelicans were meant to enlighten. In the 1950s his company had grown so much that it had major outposts in both Australia and the United States. Lane's management style put him and the individuals in charge in his United States office at odds. These individuals eventually left Penguin books and started their own publishing companies: Bantam Books and

New American Library The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publish ...

. The paperback venture was extremely successful, and he expanded into other areas such as

Pelican Books Pelican Books is a non-fiction imprint of Penguin Books"About Penguin - Compa ...

in 1937,

Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs t ...

in 1940 and the

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the West ...

series in 1945. Lane was responsible for the decision to publish an unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence's '' Lady Chatterley's Lover'' as a means of testing the

Obscene Publications Act 1959 The Obscene Publications Act 1959 (c. 66) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that significantly reformed the law related to obscenity in England and Wales. Prior to the passage of the Act, the law on publishing obscene mater ...

. In 1965, during an attempt by chief editor

Tony Godwin Anthony Richard James Wylie Godwin (17 December 1919 – 15 March 1976) was an influential British publisher of the 1960s/1970s. His contribution to the publishing industry is recognized in the form of the Tony Godwin Memorial Trust. Born in Ledb ...

and the board of directors to remove him, Lane stole and burnt the entire print run of the French cartoonist Siné's book ''Massacre'', which was reportedly deeply offensive. Lane dismissed Godwin, and retained control of Penguin, but was forced to retire shortly afterwards after being diagnosed with

bowel cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel m ...

. He died in 1970 at Northwood,

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

Legacy

In 2010, Penguin Random House Canada launched an imprint named for Allen Lane to publish prestige non-fiction by established authors.

References

External links

* * *
BBC Radio 4 programme about Allen Lane by author Michael Morpurgo, his son-in-law
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lane, Allen 1902 births 1970 deaths British book publishers (people) Deaths from cancer in England Deaths from colorectal cancer Knights Bachelor Penguin Books people People educated at Bristol Grammar School Businesspeople from Bristol 20th-century British businesspeople

Early life and family

Career as a publisher

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading

External links