• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Articles
  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Print Edition

Edward Gorey

Born to be posthumous: An interview with cultural critic Mark Dery

February 4, 2019 - Jared Neuharth

Critics never quite knew what to make of Edward Gorey (1925-2000), the author and illustrator whose darkly droll tales have influenced Tim Burton, Lemony Snicket, Alison Bechdel, and Guillermo Del Toro. [Read more…] about Born to be posthumous: An interview with cultural critic Mark Dery

Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, literature, Research + Teaching Tagged With: Edward Gorey, Mark Dery

Penguin and the Paperback Revolution

August 9, 2012 - Jean Cannon

Click on the four-way arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow to convert into full-screen mode.

According to popular mythology, the publisher Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, formulated his idea for a press dedicated exclusively to paperbacks while visiting a railway station. Having spent the weekend visiting his friend Agatha Christie, the famed author of Murder on the Orient Express, Lane arrived at the Exeter railway station and realized he had forgotten his book. Frustrated and facing the boredom of a long train trip, Lane tried to buy a novel at the station but found that there was nothing available that he felt worth reading. Bookless for the next few hours, he sat on the train and planned a new line of cheap, pocket-sized, and travel-worthy books, which could be sold at railway stations, grocers, and department stores. Penguin Books—and the paperback revolution—were born.

While this version of Allen Lane’s epiphany may be slightly romanticized, there is no doubt that Penguin Books, launched in 1935, sparked a new phase of publishing that would change the printing industry irrevocably. Mass marketing of paperbacks not only brought classics to a wider audience but also brought pulp fiction—previously published in magazines—to the forefront of the book trade.

The Ransom Center’s book collection is known for first editions, many of them lush volumes with elaborate bindings. Perhaps lesser known is the fact that the Ransom Center also houses multiple volumes that illuminate the development of the paperback book trade in both America and Britain. Alongside important editions of Lane’s Penguins, the Center also houses Tauchnitz editions of paperbacks that pre-date Penguin, as well as the “penny dreadfuls” and dime novels that slowly developed into modern pulp fiction. This slideshow exhibits numerous items from the library’s collections that represent landmarks in the history of the paperback book trade.

"What Maisie Knew" by Henry James. Book cover design by Edward Gorey. 1954.
"What Maisie Knew" by Henry James. Book cover design by Edward Gorey. 1954.

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts Tagged With: A Farewell to Arms, Agatha Christie, Albatross Verlag, Aldine Press, Aldus Manutius, Allen Ginsberg, Allen Lane, Anchor Books, Armed Services Editions Collection, Charles Dickens, City Lights Pocket Bookshop, D. H. Lawrence, Dante Alighieri, dime novels, E.O. Lorimer, Edith Sitwell, Edward Gorey, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, George Sala, Gold Medal Books, Golden Cockerell Press, Have Gat—Will Travel, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, Howl and Other Poems, J. Dicks, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Le terze rime di Dante, Malaeska the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, Mrs. Ann Stephens, Murder on the Orient Express, Oliver Twist, paperbacks, Penguin Books, Penguin Illustrated Classics, penny dreadfuls, Pocket Books, Publishing, pulp fiction, Richard S. Pranther, Robert Gibbings, Tauchnitz, Terrible Tales, The Case of the Velvet Claws, The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism Capitalism Sovietism & Fascism, The Pickwick Club, Walden, What Hitler Wants, What Maisie Knew

Primary Sidebar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-D9_lmKuM

Recent Posts

  • Wonder, depth, understanding: Scholarship in process
  • Highlights from an unprecedented year
  • Inspiration and insight in the papers of author Julian Barnes
  • EXCERPT: Julian Barnes From the Margins: Exploring the Writer’s Archives
  • The camera as a weapon against racial injustice: Eli Reed’s Black In America

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Douglas Duncan David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West From the Outside In Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate

Archives

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2021 The Harry Ransom Center Magazine


The University of Texas at Austin · Web Privacy Policy · Web Accessibility Policy

Copyright © 2020 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy