July 30: The first Penguins were published on this day in 1935, the event generally regarded as the birth of the modern paperback industry. When Allen Lane, managing director of the Bodley Head press, couldn’t find anything worthwhile to read for his train ride back to London, he decided to remedy matters “by producing a line of paperbacks that cost no more each than a packet of cigarettes, looked bright and elegant rather than garish, and included worthwhile works of literature.”
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