Albatross Books was a German publishing house based in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

that produced the first modern mass-market paperback 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 Group, Penguin Books Inc. and New American Library in the United States, bringing high-quality paperback fiction ...

. 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 States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

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, 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 19 ...

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 summation, sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities and with , is in a golden ratio to if \fr ...

. 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 ...

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 ...

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 Limited is a Germany, German-owned English 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 ...

. Lane later hired Kurt Enoch, co-founder of Albatross Books, to manage Penguin's American branch. The Albatross series inspired similar series in other countries as well, such as the Salamander series ( Querido) 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 Small press publishing companies Mass media in Hamburg

References

Further reading

External links