Penguin Books
imprint of Penguine Random House
Penguin Books Limited is a British publishing house that was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John. Originally an imprint of publishers The Bodley Head, Penguin became a separate company the following year. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s with its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other shops for sixpence, bringing high-quality fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. When the first Penguin paperbacks were launched in 1935, they were priced at just sixpence, the same as a packet of cigarettes, making quality literature affordable to a mass audience. Its success showed that large audiences existed for serious books. It also affected modern British society through its books concerning politics, the arts and science.
Penguin Books is now an imprint of the multinational Penguin Random House, a conglomerate formed in 2013 by its merger with American publisher Random House, a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Penguin Group had been wholly-owned by Pearson plc, the British global media company which also owned the Financial Times. When Penguin Random House was formed, Pearson had a 47 per cent stake in the new company, which was reduced to 25 per cent in July 2017. Since April 2020, Penguin Random House has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann.
The public source identifies “Penguin Books” as imprint of Penguine Random House. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Penguin, Books and imprint.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Penguin Books”, the useful work is to connect “imprint of Penguine Random House” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1336200. VIAF identifies the subject as 134443168. The Library of Congress control number is no2018041613. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2013, 2017 and 2020.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Penguin Books”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Penguin Books primary sources, Penguin Books archive and Penguin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Penguin Books” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.