Introduction

Penguin Publishing was born in 1935 with their now-famous covers of orange, blue, green, white, or black. Alan Lane first envisioned paperback editions of quality literature cheap enough to be sold from a vending machine. Within six months of introducing the first ten titles, one million penguins had been sold. The books were priced at six pence, the same as a pack of cigarettes and one-fifteenth the price of a hardcover at the time.