Pelicans at Eighty: A Visual History
| Author: | Paul Lickiss |
| Date: | May 2017 |
| ISBN: | 9780993110665 |
| Type: | PCS Publication |
| Pages: | 80 |
| Medium: | Paperback |
| Series: | Pelican |
| Focus: | Books, Design, History of Penguin |
In May 1937 the Pelican series of books was launched as the second imprint of Penguin. Penguins had ignited two years earlier a revolution in the supply of inexpensive high-quality fiction and Pelicans were to do the same for non-fiction in the decades to come. Nearly 2,500 Pelican titles were published between 1937 and 1989, and in the post-war years they became a significant influence in adult education in the UK.
This eightieth anniversary celebration is a brief history of Pelican books, a summary of the evolution of their design, and a description of some of the main subsidiary series that were produced as themes under the Pelican banner. The text is liberally illustrated with Pelican book covers, making it a visual history, and it includes notes on some of the most influential and prolific graphic designers responsible for them.
Pelicans at Eighty: a visual history is eighty pages long. Its front cover draws words from the Pelican book number A80. It was published on the eightieth anniversary, 28 May 2017, of the publication of the first ten Pelicans.
Paul Lickiss has given Pelicans the handsome treatment that they deserve, shedding new light on the series and its multitude of off-shoots and, especially, revealing the subtleties of the design process. The late chapter entitled Pelicans Fly Again will surely cheer the hearts of the many who have been missing old friends for so long.
Perfect bound, B format, 12.9 x 19.8 cms; extensively colour illustrated
Cover artwork by Robert Good
Printed by Short Run Press
Print run 600 copies
https://research.reading.ac.uk/research-blog/in-pictures-pelican-books-by-design/