Talk:Penguin Books/Archives/2012

This is an archive of past discussions about Penguin Books. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The publishing structure is way off here, listing Penguin Classics as the only imprint. In fact, that's only one imprint of another imprint that then is one of 8 imprints. Complicated publishing structure to be found here: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/aboutpenguin_publishingstructure.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kallemattila (talk • contribs) 01:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Which is probably why we can do without it. A link to that page in the notes would suffice, after all it isn`t the company`s convoluted corporate structure that makes it significant. Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 12:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Done! Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 09:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Anyone know why the penguin name and logo was chosen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.138.203.156 (talk) 21:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The predecessor of "Penguin books" was "Albatross". See Albatross Books

Could someone add some words about the Penguin Readers books if those have anything to do with Penguin Books? --Shinjin 19:47, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The link for "Gone to Earth" by Mary Webb went to the wrong page. As there is no page for the novel at present, I've deleted the link - it can go back when a suitable destination page exists. Jon Rob 11:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have anything on this because I'd like to see more.

My copy of "Gravity's Rainbow" falls under this series and it lists a few others so I was just interested in seeing more. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SeizureToday (talk • contribs) 04:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

That's what google is for.Twospoonfuls 13:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a complete list of all the various series (over 100) plus the colour codings. I have added a couple of colour codings to the list. There are also yellow and white penguins: I have not mentioned those as I am not sure what their subject category is - I have seen some quizzes and other non-fiction.

I dont think theres any mention of the wartime paperbacks having advertising. Eg. I'm holding a copy of number 261 Marching On Tanga by Francis Brett Young, which has an advert for Pears Jif shaving soap on the back. At the bottom of the final page is "FOR THE FORCES Leave this book at a Post Office when you have read it, so that men ans women in the Services may enjoy it too", which says something about British society and which I seen in other wartime Penginms also.

It would be good to say just how revolutionary these paperbacks were at the time and how much of a mainstay of british life they were, being THE paperback publisher then and to a certain extent now. One of the middle-eastern hostages - it may have been Terry Waite - drew a sketch of a penguin to get his captors to buy non-rubbish paperbacks.

I think something more should be said about Pelicans. I guess hundreds, at least, of Pelicans were published. They enabled the public to read high quality readable non-fiction books at an affordable price, something no other publisher provided. They were usually rather highbrow and serious about science, archaeology, and so on.

It would also be nice to have a complete list of all the 3000+ Penguins - the lists in the external links have gaps in them, missing for example number 261 above. 80.0.98.25 12:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the Penguin Classics article. Some rationalisation may be needed, and I'd like to see articles on "Penguin Nature Classics" and "Penguin Modern Classics". Radagast3 (talk) 03:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

 DoneAwotter (talk) 20:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Added a parenthetical reference on the end of this series in the history section. An unsatisfactory addition, but I have been unable to locate useful sources on the Pelican series, except for the point when it ceased being a Penguin imprint. Philip Cross (talk) 23:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

There should be information in the Hans Schmoller edition of Monotype Recorder. Schmoller was the text designer for the entire Pelican series until his retirement. Ricadus (talk) 22:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

You know the imprints section? Should that include a list of the stuff here[1] or is this a completely different thing. Its just some books are published by these publishers, and they all just have to redirect back to this page, if you know what I mean. Spongefrog (talk) 20:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never edited this article before, but I noticed your addition on the Philomel article; I then came to this article and found nothing about Philomel. I'm going to add that imprint now, but to answer your question: yes, I think all those imprints should be listed here. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

WOW! I Can't believe that was answered so quickly. Anyway, if I get the time, I might add them all, perhaps with the dates they were founded. Spongefrog (talk) 15:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This is just sort of a continuation of the post above. The link I added above has a list of all imprints, but here[2] I found that it says there are only a few imprints, which were already in the article. Or are these publishers? If anyoine understands this please help me.

That's a link to Penguin U.K., which has a very different list of imprints than Penguin U.S. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Thankyou so much, I spent hours being confused. Should all the imprints be listed, but under separate UK and US headings then? Spongefrog (talk) 14:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say yes, there should be separate lists for each country where it operates as a separate firm. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll start that now, but it might not be that good. I'll try. Spongefrog (talk) 20:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I did my best, but at Penguin Group (thats group) I found this link [3] which was used as a cite, and slightly contradicts some of the article, so I've no idea what I'm doing anymore. Aaarrggh. Spongefrog (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Read the text carefully: "The following publishers/imprints are distributed by"; "distributed by" ≠ "is an imprint of"! --Orange Mike | Talk 00:45, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the UK Penguin imprints, many of these were, once upon a time, small independent publishers in their own right, but the continual costs-led consolidation in the publishing industry and the evolution in the post WW2 period of international publishing media empires has meant that many once-independent names now exist only as brand identities owned by someone else. Some will have entire teams of specific editorial and production staff assigned to them, e.g. in the UK, Dorling Kindersley is effectively a division as large, if not larger than, Penguin Press, whose technical needs (e.g. digital archiving) now influence how the older parts of Penguin Group organise their workflow. Other imprints are nowadays simply marketing led identities that certain types of book will be published under.

p.s. I think the 'Penguin Celebrations' section of the main article is far too large, exaggerating its importance compared with the concise 'Penguin Classics' one preceding it. As a group of titles, they are a relatively short-term exercise in re-branding, comparable to the earlier 'Great Ideas' series that cherry-picked and repackaged the titles from the Classics list. Penguin Celebrations won't be around in a few years time, whereas Penguin Classics will. Perhaps the over-the-top listing of all the Celebrations should be in a separate article? Ricadus (talk) 22:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

So does this mean the imprints is OK? (please be OK) Spongefrog (talk) 14:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

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This needs to be laid to rest. Menon was a Penguin employee. Whereas his company title was "General Editor" of Pelican he could reasonably be called the founding editor of the Pelican series, that is a world away from being either a company director, company officer or equity partner. Menon was none of those things. Indeed he was sacked by Lane in 1938. Lane`s biography "Penguin Special" by Jeremy Lewis is quite clear about this. I cannot check the sources given (except the NPG blurb which isn`t a credible source and is flat out wrong) but I`d be willing to bet cash money they do not say he he co-founded Penguin in the sense that he co-owned it. That`s what founding a company means, it has nothing to do with my beliefs it`s a matter of definition. Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 23:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I was intrigued by this - and couldn't find any other supporting evidence of Krishna Menon's 'founding' - thank you clarifying this. aprabhala

I am editing the page to remove unsupported assertions, specifically: 1) http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/lunchbs-chiki-sarkar/447421/ = Ref 14 in the version as it stands now, does not support: exodus of Penguin staff/ or/ nepotism/ or/ discrimination of Indian authors. 2) http://virsanghvi.com/vir-world-ArticleDetail.aspx?ID=689 = Ref 15 in the current version has nothing to add to the article: the fact that a part-owner of Penguin India once drank a bottle of wine that cost US$ 500 is not a Penguin controversy 3) http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/article2418021.ece = Ref 16 in the current version is not "sharp condemnation" as even a cursory reading will justify, and as such does not relate to or support the facts asserted in the words cited to it. 4) http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279258 = Ref 17 and http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/metroplus/article3024600.ece= Ref 18 support the assertions that two authors formerly with Penguin India moved their books to other publishing houses, but does not support the assertion of an "exodus" and as such is not worthy of controversy in an article on a global publishing company that publishes thousands of books every year. I believe that these edits have been made in bad faith, and possibly to settle scores and I am correcting them. Thanks aprabhala aprabhala 18:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for contributing. There`s is definitely an NPOV problem with this section. Also, I think, a WP:weight issue, in that the fleeting human resources problems of one division of the company seem rather trivial in the context of the history and achievements of Penguin. I don`t really want to harp on about my own opinion on this, but if that section must be kept it could probably be summarised in one or two sentences. Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 19:19, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - as such, I do not believe that the citations used support even a one or two line summary, so I've merely removed them for now. By the way, thanks for clearing up the Krishna Menon issue again - this kind of thing has the potential to cause fairly serious repercussions. aprabhala 10:48, 15 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aprabhala (talk • contribs)