- The first 80 Penguins carry "The Bodley Head" on the front cover; from No. 81, issued in March 1937, that space was used for the book's category instead.
- Early Penguins show their price, 6d, on the front cover.
Publisher · founded 1935 · London
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is the London paperback publisher founded by Allen Lane in 1935, known for sixpenny paperbacks, Pelican and Puffin, and now part of Penguin Random House.
- Editions tracked
- 1,094
- First editions
- 510
- Books
- 1,064
- Years
- 1928 to 2025
Penguin Books is a publisher based in London, founded in 1935. We track 1,094 editions it published between 1928 and 2025, 510 of them first editions across 1,064 books. How Penguin Books marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Penguin Books
Penguin Books is the British paperback publisher founded in London in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, which made good books available for sixpence and is now part of Penguin Random House.
Penguin started as a paperback line of The Bodley Head and became a separate company in 1936. Its first ten titles, led by André Maurois's Ariel as No. 1, appeared in July 1935; a large order from Woolworths helped fund the venture. The early covers used colour to signal content: orange for fiction, green for crime and blue for biography. The firm moved to Harmondsworth, Middlesex, in 1937, the year it launched the non-fiction Pelican imprint, and started Puffin for children in 1940.
Most early Penguins were reprints of books first issued in hardback by other houses, so a Penguin first impression is usually not the first edition of the text. In 1960 Penguin published the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover and won the resulting obscenity trial, a turning point for British censorship.
Pearson bought Penguin on 21 August 1970, shortly after Lane's death. In 2013 Penguin merged with Random House to form Penguin Random House, which has been wholly owned by Bertelsmann since April 2020.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Penguin Books's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Penguin Books first editions
Authors
Books
Published by Penguin Books
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify a Penguin Books first edition?
- The first 80 Penguins carry "The Bodley Head" on the front cover; from No. 81, issued in March 1937, that space was used for the book's category instead. - Early Penguins show their price, 6d, on the front cover.
How many Penguin Books books does MyVolumes track?
We track 1,094 editions published by Penguin Books, 510 of them first editions, across 1,064 books.
Where these facts come from
- Penguin Books, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- FAQ, Penguin First Editions (penguinfirsteditions.com)
- Identifying First Editions, Part 2, Independent Online Booksellers Association (ioba.org)
- Editions and dates, Goodreads Librarians Group (goodreads.com)
- Paperback reprint dates, Typography.Guru (typography.guru)
- Ariel by André Maurois, Book Ramblings, 2025 (bookramblings.blog)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 20 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.