Penguins and the Bristol archive

Penguin Donkey Mark 2 (designed 1963)

It is always something of a surprise to find that I have one of the rarer Penguins on my bookshelf (such as No. 410 Artifex Intervenes). I tend to assume that if I own it it must be common, as my searching is usually on foot rather than via the internet, I live in an isolated city with very few book stores, and the amount I'm willing to pay for any individual book is quite limited. It has to be that way to feel worthwhile. The reading is always enjoyable, but the collecting must feel like a challenge: it is not only finding an unowned Penguin that brings joy, but finding it cheaply. If you can walk into a book store and buy yourself a vintage Penguin collection by simply handing over enough money, there hardly seems any point. The wall of books holds the memories of every hour spent searching.

6a, one of the harder to
find Penguins

Most of the vintage Penguins are reasonably common, but a few are much harder to come across. The rarer ones tend to be green and/or numbered around 400 - the more fragile ones from the war years when paper was relatively scarce. It is interesting to speculate on why the crime Penguins tend to be harder to find, and even when they aren't, why they are generally priced higher. It may be supply, or demand, or (as suggested to me by a member of the Penguin Collector's Society) a mixture of the two: perhaps because many of the authors are still known and widely read today, the books are still sought after, or perhaps crime novels were always more likely to be shared, and less likely to sit unread on shelves, and therefore fewer survived.

Either way, there are a number of vintage Penguins I have never seen at any price and it was this that brought me to Bristol during my recent trip to England. Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, was born and raised in Bristol, and its University now houses the Penguin archive in a few small rooms in the basement of its Arts and Social Sciences Library. Visits are possible for 'bona-fide readers', and it took only a few emails and some ID to secure the necessary agreement of Penguin, and an appointment to browse the collection.

Image source: The Penguin
Collector June 2011

And it is such an interesting collection, including a copy of every book Penguin have published, with the early pre-1969 numbered titles taken from Allen Lane's personal collection of paperbacks signed by their authors. Perhaps the best known of these is the Peregrine The Common Pursuit which F.R. Leavis refused to sign, returning it with the note 'I do not think Sir Allen Lane did a service to literature, civilization or Lawrence in the business of Lady Chatterley's Lover.' (see here, p.309)

It was a lovely way to spend a morning. We were free to browse through all the books, boxes and boxes of original correspondence with the authors, old lists of Penguin publications, and original advertising. We only had to ask and it was placed before us.

The archive is currently preparing an exhibition, and some of its highlights will be on display at Bristol's Royal West of England Academy from 10 March 2012 as part of Penguin Parade. (Photos of the exhibition on flickr)

And photos of my favourite items are here.