A stocky, dapper Bristolian who left school at the age of sixteen to work for his uncle at The Bodley Head and went on to found Penguin Books, Allen Lane was the greatest publisher of the twentieth century, and a major influence on the cultural and political life of post-war Britain. He did not invent the paperback, but he revolutionised our reading habits by his insistence that the best writing in the world should be made available for the price of a packet of cigarettes.
Though never a bookish man himself, Lane was adept at sensing the spirit of the age and always ready to follow his hunches: he commissioned Nikolaus Pevsner to write the Buildings of England, gave his backing to John Lehmann's Penguin New Writing, arguably the finest literary magazine of its times, risked prosecution by publishing James Joyce's Ullyses for the first time in this country, and a quarter of a century later appeared at the Old Bailey to defend Penguin's publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover, thereby anticipating the liberal reforms of the 1960s.
A mischievous, quixotic, oddly endearing figure who loathed meetings and paperwork - a German visitor was shocked to find an editorial meeting taking place in a rowing boat, and well lubricated with gin - Lane combined ruthlessness with affability, courage with moral cowardice, loyalty with unpredictability. Few publishers are remembered after their lifetimes: Allen Lane is a rare exception to the rule.
Allen Lane was the greatest publisher of the twentieth century, and a major influence on the cultural and political life of post-war Britain. He revolutionised our reading habits by his insistence that the best writing in the world should be made available for the price of a packet of cigarettes.
A stocky, dapper Bristolian, Allen Lane, left school at sixteen and went on to found Penguin. Decked out in their livery of orange and white, the first Penguins were published in 1935. Though never a bookish man himself, Lane was endowed with that inexplicable, almost psychic ability to sniff out a publishable book. He risked prosecution by publishing James Joyce's Ulysses for the first time in the UK, and a quarter of a century later he again had to defend Penguin's publication of Lady Chatterley's Love.
A mischievous, quixotic and oddly endearing figure, who loathed meetings and paperwork, Lane combined ruthlessness with affability, courage with moral cowardice, loyalty with unpredictability. He had extraordinary eyes that turned with alarming speed from sparkling blue to chips of ice when unamused. Few publishers are remembered after their lifetimes: Allen Lane is a rare exception to the rule.
2005 is the seventieth anniversary of the founding of Penguin books. The anniversary is to be celebrated with the Penguin 70s series, and Jeremy Lewis's gripping, illuminating biography.
Jeremy Lewis has had a long and distinguished career in publishing. He joined the publicity department of Collins in 1967, three years before Allen Lane's death: he was 25 and had a degree in history from Trinity College, Dublin.
His first job was as a junior editor for Andre Deutsch. He enjoyed working for Deutsch a very great deal. After a year or so he was offered a job as a literary agent with A.P. Watt. He knew (correctly) that he would be a hopeless agent, but since they offered him at least #500 p.a. more than he was getting, he felt he had to accept. Although he had some good clients - including Ian MacEwan, Paul Theroux and Jonathan Raban, then early on in their careers - he was as incompetent an agent as expected, and he was eventually sacked in 1976.
After a year's freelancing, he moved down to Oxford in 1977 to join the General Division of OUP. He found Oxford itself smug and claustrophobic, and spent much of his life on the London train. In 1979, he escaped back to London as an editorial director of Chatto & Windus, by 1989 Carmen Callil decided that his face didn't fit, so he was once again shown the door.
Since then he has been a freelance writer and editor. For four years he edited the London Magazine; he has been the Commissioning Editor of the Oldie since 1997, and is currently guest-editing the Literary Review as well. He has written and reviewed for almost every national newspaper and has written two volumes of autobiography, Playing for Time and Kindred Spirits (both published by HarperCollins), and biographies of Cyril Connolly and Tobias Smollett (both published by Cape); he also edited an anthology of Office Life for Chatto.
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO REQUEST AN INTERVIEW / PIECE BY THE AUTHOR PLEASE CONTACT FIONA ALLEN AT PENGUIN PUBLICITY ON 0207 010 3254 / fiona.allen@penguin.co.uk
