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Publicado: 5 de julio de 2011
The worst has happened, but evacuated children are going to need books more than ever. Let us get out half a dozen as soon as we can’
So wrote Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, to Noel Carrington, an editor and producer of books for Country Life, in 1939, shortly after war with Germany had been declared.
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The two men first met after apublishing dinner on February 28 1938. By then, Lane’s bold new venture, which produced paperback editions of high-calibre, ‘serious’ literature cheap enough to be sold in vending machines (the first ‘Penguincubator’ appeared in Charing Cross Road), had been going for three years.
Carrington, meanwhile, had been nurturing an idea for a series of well-illustrated books that would explain things tochildren: books about the natural and man-made environments, about history, geography and recreational pursuits, and some stories. Books that were immediate and inexpensive.
At the time, children’s books uniting all these features simply didn’t exist and Lane took little persuasion in agreeing to Carrington’s idea – his only stipulation was that the selling price must be sixpence.
Shortly after,however, Lane left London on business and by the time he returned war was raging. Carrington assumed the project would be shelved but Lane had other ideas. Puffin Books was about to be born.
With cost still paramount, Carrington set about establishing the most economical way of producing the titles.
Each book was to be the same height as, but twice the width of, a standard Penguin paperback(which made packing economical) and was to be printed on a large single sheet with 16 pages on each side. One side was to be printed in colour, the other black only. In order to maintain costs, print runs needed to be at least 20,000 per title.
As for the all-important artwork, Carrington took inspiration from posters commissioned by companies such as London Transport and the work of artistsusing a low-cost but evocative printing technique called autholithography, which involved the artist drawing or tracing with a brush and pen directly onto a zinc plate.
The technique had been employed in the brightly coloured educational books being mass-produced for Soviet children at the time, as well as by home-grown artists such as Kathleen Hale, the author and illustrator of Orlando theMarmalade Cat, which had been published by Country Life the year before.
Puffin would soon publish two more Orlando stories and the much-loved series would eventually extend to 18 titles, with the last in 1972. Hale herself would live to 101.
Dumbing down? Not at Puffin
Inevitably, the earliest Puffins were devoted to explaining aspects of the war and the first four titles appeared inDecember 1940 – War on Land and War at Sea by James Holland, and War in the Air and On the Farm by James Gardner – with a further nine published in 1941.
Lane’s intention had been to produce 12 titles a year, but, with shortages of paper and skilled labour, publishing 13 in the first two years was a remarkable achievement.
Lane’s instincts told him that with so many evacuated city children who hadnever encountered the countryside before, there would also be a huge demand for titles about the natural world. His hunch paid off handsomely.
In the meantime, Carrington’s efforts had raised the standard of children’s books – and expectations of them – immeasurably, giving a tremendous boost to the popularity and uses of illustration at the same time.
As the series developed, their use...
So wrote Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, to Noel Carrington, an editor and producer of books for Country Life, in 1939, shortly after war with Germany had been declared.
Related Articles
*
Pentagon braced for the release of 400,000Iraq files on Wikileaks
*
Al-Qaeda magazine teaches how to kill Americans
*
A guide to the 1970s
*
Travel books: A Walk Around the Lakes and The Lotus Quest
*
London 2012: Christine Ohuruogu excited about Olympic Games on her manor
*
Green energy is great, but we need investment to keep the lights on
The two men first met after apublishing dinner on February 28 1938. By then, Lane’s bold new venture, which produced paperback editions of high-calibre, ‘serious’ literature cheap enough to be sold in vending machines (the first ‘Penguincubator’ appeared in Charing Cross Road), had been going for three years.
Carrington, meanwhile, had been nurturing an idea for a series of well-illustrated books that would explain things tochildren: books about the natural and man-made environments, about history, geography and recreational pursuits, and some stories. Books that were immediate and inexpensive.
At the time, children’s books uniting all these features simply didn’t exist and Lane took little persuasion in agreeing to Carrington’s idea – his only stipulation was that the selling price must be sixpence.
Shortly after,however, Lane left London on business and by the time he returned war was raging. Carrington assumed the project would be shelved but Lane had other ideas. Puffin Books was about to be born.
With cost still paramount, Carrington set about establishing the most economical way of producing the titles.
Each book was to be the same height as, but twice the width of, a standard Penguin paperback(which made packing economical) and was to be printed on a large single sheet with 16 pages on each side. One side was to be printed in colour, the other black only. In order to maintain costs, print runs needed to be at least 20,000 per title.
As for the all-important artwork, Carrington took inspiration from posters commissioned by companies such as London Transport and the work of artistsusing a low-cost but evocative printing technique called autholithography, which involved the artist drawing or tracing with a brush and pen directly onto a zinc plate.
The technique had been employed in the brightly coloured educational books being mass-produced for Soviet children at the time, as well as by home-grown artists such as Kathleen Hale, the author and illustrator of Orlando theMarmalade Cat, which had been published by Country Life the year before.
Puffin would soon publish two more Orlando stories and the much-loved series would eventually extend to 18 titles, with the last in 1972. Hale herself would live to 101.
Dumbing down? Not at Puffin
Inevitably, the earliest Puffins were devoted to explaining aspects of the war and the first four titles appeared inDecember 1940 – War on Land and War at Sea by James Holland, and War in the Air and On the Farm by James Gardner – with a further nine published in 1941.
Lane’s intention had been to produce 12 titles a year, but, with shortages of paper and skilled labour, publishing 13 in the first two years was a remarkable achievement.
Lane’s instincts told him that with so many evacuated city children who hadnever encountered the countryside before, there would also be a huge demand for titles about the natural world. His hunch paid off handsomely.
In the meantime, Carrington’s efforts had raised the standard of children’s books – and expectations of them – immeasurably, giving a tremendous boost to the popularity and uses of illustration at the same time.
As the series developed, their use...
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