Welcome...
The Penguin Collectors Society was founded in 1974 by a small group of enthusiasts meeting in Richmond, Surrey; today there are over 500 members worldwide.We study twentieth-century book design, particularly Penguin Books, and help to preserve and conserve Penguin Books and material relating to Penguin, and ensure the ready availability of that material for present and future research.
Actually collecting Penguin Books is not, of course, a prerequisite for membership. Any enthusiast for the good book design, typography, illustration and writing with which Penguin Books have been associated since 1935 will find something of interest here.
Latest News
New Publication
In 2005, as a contribution to Penguin Books’ 70th anniversary, the Society organised a study day at the V&A to which some of the great names in Penguin design were invited to speak. The day’s events were published in book form, Penguin by Designers, in 2007, and copies arrived on the very day that we held our second study day at the V&A, this time featuring Penguin illustrators.
Penguin by Illustrators is a celebration of that event, featuring in Part One the five presentations of Dennis Bailey, Romek Marber, Jan Pieńkowski, Tony Lyons and Jon Gray, and supplemented by Phil Baines’s introduction, and two further chapters by Quentin Blake and David Gentleman. In Part Two a further 27 artists were invited to write short essays about particular books or short series that they had illustrated for Penguin.
For a longer description of this major new work by the Society, click here.
Annual General Meeting 2009
The 2009 AGM will take place at the Museum of Design and Domestic Architecture, Cat Hill, Barnet [ map ], on Saturday 10 October. From 10am there will be a display and books for sale, followed by a lecture entitled “The development of the pictoral cover in Penguin in the ’40s and ’50s”. The AGM itself will take place at 2pm. In the evening there will be a dinner at a venue to be determined in Central London.
Recent News
Spring Meeting 2009
The regular Spring Meeting was held at the Christ the Saviour Church Hall in Ealing. Martin Yates provided an excellent display called ‘Meet the Little Penguin’, a collection of various Penguin Books in small formats.
Bristol University Receives Grant
Bristol University has recently received a substantial grant from the Arts and Humanities Reseach Council to upgade, catalogue and make available online the Allen Lane special collection of Penguin editorial files and books. A full-time archivist, Rachael Hassall, has been appointed and a team of seven academics assembled. A range of events is planned over the next three years ranging from conferences to exhibitions, poetry readings and Penguin days. A major three-day conference is planned for 2010 to celebrate Penguin’s 75th birthday. The PCS will be actively involved with the University’s team and further details will appear here and in future issues of the Penguin Collector. This is good news for all Penguinists. For further details visit the university’s website.