Penguin Classics is an imprint of

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

, Portuguese, and

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the

Western canon The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, ...

, though many titles are translated or of non-Western origin; indeed, the series for decades from its creation included only translations, until it eventually incorporated the Penguin English Library imprint in 1986. The first Penguin Classic was

E. V. Rieu Emile Victor Rieu CBE (10 February 1887 – 11 May 1972) was a British classicist, publisher, poet and translator. He initiated the Penguin Classics series of books in 1946 and edited it for twenty years. Biography Rieu was born in London, th ...

's translation of ''

The Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

'', published in 1946, and Rieu went on to become general editor of the series. Rieu sought out literary novelists such as Robert Graves and

Dorothy Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...

as translators, believing they would avoid "the archaic flavour and the foreign idiom that renders many existing translations repellent to modern taste". Penguin Little Black Classics

In 1964 Betty Radice and Robert Baldick succeeded Rieu as joint editors, with Radice becoming sole editor in 1974 and serving as an editor for 21 years. As editor, Radice argued for the place of scholarship in popular editions, and modified the earlier Penguin convention of the plain text, adding line references, bibliographies, maps, explanatory notes and indexes.Fowler, R (2016) 'Betty Radice and the survival of classics' in Wyles, R. and E. Hall (eds) Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly, Oxford. p.347-349,358 She broadened the canon of the 'Classics', and encouraged and diversified their readership while upholding academic standards.

Design

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

designs were modernised by Italian art director

Germano Facetti Germano Facetti (5 May 1926 – 8 April 2006) was an Italian graphic designer who headed design at Penguin Books from 1962 to 1971. Biography Born in Milan, Facetti was arrested in 1943, age 17, for putting up anti- Fascist posters. He was ...

, who joined Penguin in 1961. The new classics were known as "Black Classics" for their black covers, which also featured artwork appropriate to the topic and period of the work. This design was revised in 1985 to have pale yellow covers with a black spine, colour-coded with a small mark to indicate language and period (red for English, purple for ancient Latin and Greek, yellow for medieval and continental European languages, and green for other languages). In 2002, Penguin redesigned its entire catalogue. The redesign restored the black cover, adding a white stripe and orange lettering. The text page design was also overhauled to follow a more closely prescribed template, allowing for faster copyediting and typesetting, but reducing the options for individual design variations suggested by a text's structure or historical context (for example, in the choice of text

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands ...

). Prior to 2002, the text page typography of each book in the Classics series had been overseen by a team of in-house designers; this department was drastically reduced in 2003 as part of the production cost reductions. The in-house text design department still exists, albeit much smaller than formerly. Recent design work includes the Penguin Little Black Classic series. Penguin Classics collaborated with Bill Amberg in 2008 in the design of six books (''

A Room with a View ''A Room with a View'' is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society a ...

'', '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'', '' The Big Sleep'', ''

The Great Gatsby ''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsb ...

'', '' Brideshead Revisited'', and ''

The Picture of Dorian Gray ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical fiction, philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''Th ...

'').

Series

Within the broader category of Classics, Penguin has issued specialized series with their own designs. These include: * Penguin Nature Classics, issued from 1987 onwards, with authors such as

Peter Matthiessen Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and CIA Operative. A co-founder of the literary magazine ''The Paris Review'', he was the only writer to have won the Nation ...

Mary Austin Mary Austin may refer to: * Mary Hunter Austin (1868–1934), American writer of fiction and non-fiction * Mary V. Austin (1900–1986), Australian community worker and political activist * Mary Brown Austin (1768–1824), mother of Texan pioneer S ...

, Henry David Thoreau, and

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist ...

. * Penguin Modern Classics, issued from 1961 onwards, with authors such as

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

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

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalita ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

, and

Antoine de Saint Exupéry Antoine is a French given name (from the Latin ''Antonius'' meaning 'highly praise-worthy') that is a variant of Danton, Titouan, D'Anton and Antonin. The name is used in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, West Greenland, Haiti, French Guian ...

. Some titles come with critical apparatus. The series has gone through a number of redesigns, the most recent being in June 2017: se
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**The series was renamed Penguin 20th Century Classics in May 1989, but the series reverted to its old name in February 2000. 20th Century Classics feature full-page front cover art, with a light blue-green/eau de nil rear cover and spine. * Penguin Enriched Classics, issued, such as ''

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United St ...

'', ''

Pride and Prejudice ''Pride and Prejudice'' is an 1813 novel of manners by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreci ...

'', ''

The Scarlet Letter ''The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'' is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, w ...

'', and ''

A Tale of Two Cities ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the ...

'' * Penguin Popular Classics, issued in 1994, are paperback editions of texts under the Classics imprints. They were a response to

Wordsworth Classics Wordsworth Editions is a British publisher known for their low-cost editions of classic literature and non-fiction works. The firm was founded by Michael Trayler in 1987. The firm began to sell paperbacks at £1 in 1992. The firm has approximat ...

, a series of very cheap reprints which imitated Penguin in using black as its signature color. * Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, issued from 1997 onward, are paperback editions of texts with matte paper covers, French flaps, deckled page edges and cover art often illustrated by renowned comic artists. * Penguin Designer Classics, issued in 2007, is a set of five limited-edition books, with covers created by fashion designers to commemorate the series' 60th Anniversary * Penguin Mini Modern Classics, issued in 2011, is an assortment of fifty pocket-sized books from fifty different authors such as

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ty ...

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the '' Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the ''Cosmicomi ...

, E. M. Forster,

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born ...

and

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig (; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular write ...

. It has been released to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Penguin Modern Classics. It is currently out of print. * Penguin Little Black Classics, issued in 2015 a series of pocket-sized classics introduced to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Penguin Books. *

Pocket Penguins Pocket Penguins is a series of books released by Penguin Classics in 2016. The series echoes the style of the original Penguin Books, with smaller A-format size, and tri-band design. The first 20 books were released in May 2016, and described by ...

, issued in 2016. The series echoes the style of the original

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.A-format A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...

size, and tri-band design. ** The first 20 books were released in May 2016, and described by publishing director Simon Winder as "a mix of the famous and the unjustly overlooked".

Bibliography

No definitive bibliography of Penguin Classics has yet been published, although several partial bibliographies have been issued. The earliest come from the Penguin Catalogues, published annually covering in-print editions. The 1963 catalogue, for example, lists 97 titles, although by then the series overall had produced 118 volumes. In the 1980s Penguin (UK) began publishing discrete catalogues of its Classics and Twentieth Century Classics series, listing all the titles then available in the UK (with prices in sterling). The Penguin Collectors' Society have published two bibliographies of the early, pre-

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition an ...

(referred to as 'L') editions: firstly in 1994, with an update in 2008. Also in 2008, Penguin Books USA published a complete annotated listing of all Penguin Classics titles in a single

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, le ...

volume in the style of its Penguin Classics books. The list organises the collection multiple times: alphabetically by author, subject categories, authors by region, and a complete alphabetic title index. This compiled listing indicates there are over 1,300 titles, and more to be published. The final print version of this listing was issued in 2012, however a copy of the 2016 listing remains available on the Penguin website. In 2018 Penguin published ''The Penguin Classics Book'', a celebratory survey of the volumes currently in print, listing works by author location and chronologically from antiquity to

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. It includes an appendix with a selection of out-of-print titles. In 2005, an incomplete collection of books in the series was sold on Amazon.com as "The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection". In 2005, the collection consisted of 1,082 different books (in multiple editions) and cost US$7,989.50. The collection weighed about 750 pounds (340 kg) and took about 77 linear feet (23.5 m) of shelf space; laid end-to-end the books would reach about 630 feet (192 m). A feature of the World's Biggest Bookstore in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, from its inception in the 1970s, and for years thereafter, was that it stocked all of the Penguin Classics titles. The upper section of the second floor of the store was dedicated to Penguin exclusively.

60th Anniversary

In 2007, Penguin Classics released a set of five books limited to 1,000 copies each, known as the Designer Classics. Each book was specially designed to celebrate Penguin Classics' Diamond Anniversary: * The cover for ''

Crime and Punishment ''Crime and Punishment'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Преступление и наказание, Prestupléniye i nakazániye, prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲɪje ɪ nəkɐˈzanʲɪje) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. ...

'' was created by graphic designers Stephen Sorrell and Damon Murray of Fuel, who used Cyrillic and English type. Stephen explains: "This visual device echoes the mind games in the head of Raskolnikov as he battles with his voice of conscience. We want the design to form the shape and feel of the book as a whole not just its cover." They have screen printed the cover on the same brown craft paper used for the text. The book has a Perspex slipcase. * ''

The Idiot ''The Idiot'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Идиот, Idiót) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal ''The Russian Messenger'' in 1868–69. The title is an ...

'' was designed by industrial designer Ron Arad and has no cover, so the reader will pick it up and read the author's first words. It is stripped back to show the glue and thread in the spine, which is visible through an acrylic slipcase (with a lid) with a fresnel lens, so the text appears to move as the lid is removed. Arad explains: "By not wanting to have a cover, it ended with the book becoming an amazing object that is alive, but which maintains its transparency. It became a glorious box with a book inside—almost like a monument." * The cover for '' Lady Chatterley's Lover'' was created by fashion designer

Paul Smith Paul Smith or Paul Smith's may refer to: Music * Paul Smith (composer) (1906–1985), American film music composer * Paul Smith (pianist) (1922–2013), Los Angeles jazz pianist * Paul Smith (rock vocalist) (born 1979), vocalist and songwriter of ...

. * The cover for ''

Madame Bovary ''Madame Bovary'' (; ), originally published as ''Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners'' ( ), is a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and em ...

'' was designed by fashion designer Manolo Blahnik. The jacket features Blahnik's original painting of Emma with her lover, and the book is protected by a Perspex slipcase. He said: "I wanted to come up with something light, sensual... something frivolous, because this is a novel about the dangers of frivolity. And I wanted something sexy too, cheeky. I usually focus on one part of the foot—the shoe. For this project, I had to consider a whole scene, there had to be a context, which is new for me. But I managed to sneak in a pair of shoes anyway. She wore good shoes." * The cover for ''

Tender Is the Night ''Tender Is the Night'' is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young ps ...

'' was designed by English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood, who used an ethereal black-and-white photograph printed onto tracing paper. An elegant, barefoot young man stands with his hands in his pocket, perfectly summing up the elegance and fragility of Nicole and Dick Diver's world. The book is wrapped in a cloth hardcover and has a Perspex slipcase.

In the public eye

In 2013, Penguin Classics published Morrissey's ''

Autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English p ...

''. Concerns arose about the imprint's publishing a book too recently published to be an acknowledged classic, that such a book diluted the brand. Penguin argued that the autobiography was "a classic in the making". ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

''s Boyd Tonkin wrote: "The droning narcissism of the ookmay harm orrissey'sname a little. It ruins that of his publisher... Morrissey will survive his unearned elevation. I doubt that the reputation of Penguin Classics will." Penguin Classics sold well during the 2019-2021 Coronavirus pandemic when citizens in many countries, forced into lockdown as a preventive measure, found solace in books.

Notes and references

External links

Official Penguin Classics website

The Penguin Archive Project-University of Bristol
{{Authority control Series of books Penguin Books book series