Penguin Random House is the group formed in 2013 from Penguin and Random House, wholly owned by Bertelsmann since 2020. Its books appear under imprint names, so judge a first by the imprint's own practice.
Penguin Random House is the trade publishing group formed on 1 July 2013 when Bertelsmann's Random House and Pearson's Penguin merged, and it is now wholly owned by the German media company Bertelsmann.
At the merger Bertelsmann held 53% and Pearson 47%, with Markus Dohle as chief executive. Pearson sold a further 22% to Bertelsmann in July 2017, and Bertelsmann agreed in December 2019 to buy the remaining 25%, completing the purchase in April 2020. The group is headquartered in New York, with its UK base at Embassy Gardens, Nine Elms, London, and its divisions include Knopf Doubleday, the Penguin Publishing Group, the Random House Publishing Group, Penguin Young Readers, DK and Ebury.
Books from the group appear under its imprint names. Examples include John Green's Turtles All the Way Down (Dutton, 10 October 2017) and Michelle Obama's Becoming (Crown in North America, Viking in Commonwealth markets, 13 November 2018), which sold about 1.4 million copies in its first week.
In November 2020 the group agreed to buy Simon & Schuster for US$2.175 billion, but the US Justice Department sued to block the deal, a federal court ruled against it in October 2022, and the purchase was abandoned in November 2022.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Penguin Random House's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Penguin Random House first editions
What to look for
Before 2013
The group did not exist before July 2013, so an earlier book listed under this name really came from one of the houses that later joined it. Check the title page and copyright page for the actual imprint and apply that house's rules.
- Random House (New York) put the words "First Edition" on the copyright page of its first printings from the mid-1930s onwards.
- From the 1970s Random House also used a number line that starts at 2. A first printing shows "First Edition" above that line; the same line without the statement means a second printing.
- Random House UK adopted a number line laid out as 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 in 1994, dropping the 1 at the first reprint.
- On a number line the lowest number present gives the printing, so a first printing keeps the 1.
From 2013
UK imprints in the group still set the number line out with odd numbers rising and even numbers falling, so the 1 sits at the far left; a 2022 Jonathan Cape first printing shows 1 3 5 7 9 ... 8 6 4 2.
UNVERIFIED: UK imprints of the group state "First published by [imprint] in [year]" on the copyright page of a first edition.
UNVERIFIED: Random House in New York kept its "First Edition" plus a line starting at 2 after the merger (one guide says the practice ran only until 2003).
UNVERIFIED: Penguin's US imprints use a full number line running down to 1 without a separate first edition statement.
Book club copies usually have no price on the jacket and may carry a small blind stamp in the lower right corner of the back cover; they are sometimes smaller and on cheaper paper than the trade edition.
How do I identify a Penguin Random House first edition?
Before 2013 The group did not exist before July 2013, so an earlier book listed under this name really came from one of the houses that later joined it. Check the title page and copyright page for the actual imprint and apply that house's rules. - Random House (New York) put the words "First Edition" on the copyright page of its first printings from the mid-1930s onwards. - From the 1970s Random H
How many Penguin Random House books does MyVolumes track?
We track 190 editions published by Penguin Random House, 74 of them first editions, across 186 books.
