Green is the colour...

In the beginning
If it hadn’t been for a crime writer Penguin Books would never have been born!

OK, maybe that’s stretching the facts a little, but it is true to say that it was on his journey back from a weekend stay with Agatha Christie that publisher Allen Lane had the idea for Penguin paperbacks. Stuck at Exeter station, Lane was unable to find anything worthwhile to read and had the idea to reprint popular hardbacks in a small, light and affordable format. (The cover price was 6d – the price of a packet of 10 cigarettes in the mid-thirties.)

The first ten Penguin paperbacks were published in July 1935, including the first two Penguin Crime titles: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers and The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. In those days, all Penguin titles were given a stylish but uniform cover look which was colour coded: orange for fiction, blue for biography, and of course the famous green livery for ‘Mystery and Crime’.

After twelve months of trading Penguin had sold 3 million copies and Lane was proud to claim that a Penguin Book was sold every 10 seconds in Great Britain.

In order to make costs work, Penguin would need to print 50,000 copies of each book and each title needed to sell over 700 a week (about 6 times the rate of sale of the normal hardback). If the sales fell below that figure the book was withdrawn. Ironically of those first two Penguin crime novels it was actually Christie’s which was discontinued first. Sayers’ novel went on to become the year’s bestselling Penguin title. 

In the early years of Penguin, other crime titles published included the Sherlock Holmes classic The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley (real name of one of the genre’s greatest innovators Francis Iles), The Invisible Man by H. G Wells and Dashiell Hammett’s last – and controversial - novel The Thin Man.

With death so central to every mystery, it was ironic that Penguin Crime books were, for the first couple of years at least, stored surrounded by dead bodies. . .  For Penguin’s first warehouse was in the crypt of Holy Trinity Church on Marylebone Road in London. And it was said that if a book was kept for too long in this location it would soon get that ‘crypt smell’...

Joining Penguin in 1930s: Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, H.G. Wells, Dashiel Hammett, Anthony Berkeley, Arthur Conan Doyle

The War Years
During the war, paper rationing made business hard for all publishers – with some authors even asked to make their new novels shorter ‘in the interests of the economy’! However Penguin weathered the war years better than most because the small format, light weight and easy disposability of the paperbacks made them a popular form of distraction for troops and accessible entertainment for citizens trapped in their homes during the blackout.

With most companies based in London, publishers also had to contend with the Blitz: it has been estimated that wartime bombing raids destroyed around 20 million pre-published books. Again, Penguin avoided heavy losses because by 1939 stock had been moved out of the crypt to a warehouse at Harmondsworth just outside the capital.

Major authors added in 1940s: Graham Greene, Raymond Chandler, Eric Ambler, J.B. Priestley, James M Cain

The Golden Age
But it was in the 1950s that Penguin Crime came into its own. The big names of detective fiction dominated Penguin’s output during this decade: Allingham, Carter Dickson, Simenon, John Dickson Carr, Rex Stout, Ngaio Marsh, Ellery Queen and, of course, Christie were all bestsellers for Penguin during the fifties.

Of the books published between 1950 to 1960, 35% was crime fiction and by 1961 a third of all Penguin books in print came from that genre. In many ways, Penguin Crime played a significant part in helping the company survive  - in fact thrive – during the post-war austerity of late 40s and 1950s.

While the fifties had seen the Penguin Crime list flourish, it was a decade which also witnessed the growth of many other paperback publishing houses (e.g. Pan Books and Corgi) all competing for space in shops. Up until then, Penguin titles were often stacked together in their own section, but with more publishers on the scene there was a move in bookshops to shelve by subject or author rather than by imprint.

So it is a testament both to the strength of the list and the green cover livery - which was now synonymous with quality crime fiction - that when other Penguin covers were reinvented in the 1950s to stay ahead of the game (the colour codes remained but the horizontal stripes of the original design were abandoned) the green livery was left alone.

Major authors in 1950s: Carter Dickson, Simenon, John Dickson Carr, John Buchan; Rex Stout, Ngaio Marsh, Ellery Queen, Julian Symons

Sixties Spytime
However by 1962 even the famous green livery had to bend with the times and reinvent itself. As the cover designer Romek Marber stated: ‘The current constant typographic covers in present-day paperback publishing have no means to excite or attract attention. With the addition each year of new titles to the Penguin Crime list it becomes difficult just by looking at the current typographic cover to discern between books already bought and those newly published.’ Marber also felt that of all the Penguin genres, the crime series would benefit most from cinematic style cover treatment. However he was astute enough not to lose the branding completely – green remained for all covers while the typography and image differentiated between authors.

While Penguin Crime in the 1950s had been predominantly ‘mystery’ led, in the 1960s a new form of spy literature dominated the list, with novels from authors such as Len Deighton, Graham Greene and John Le Carre appearing in Penguin paperback.

Major authors added in the 1960s: John Le Carre; Len Deighton; Ed McBain; Lionel Davidson, Dick Francis

Seventies and Eighties
The 1970s and 1980s were a time of adjustment for publishing as a whole in Great Britain. As more and more hardback and paperback houses merged and publishing became more vertical (i.e. the same company published both hardback and paperback editions) many of Penguin’s biggest names (bought on licence from their hardback publisher) were suddenly unavailable. Like all publishers, Penguin had to concentrate on growing its front list authors and hardback publishing. For example, by the 1980s Penguin owned Hamish Hamilton (original publishers of Raymond Chandler) and Michael Joseph (hardback publishers of Dick Francis) and the US company Viking Press (publishers of Graham Greene), Thankfully, one of the few authors who continued to be published by different companies in hardback and paperback was PD James whose paperbacks came to Penguin in the mid 1980s.

During this time, Penguin Crime also became less of an imprint in its own right. All covers were now designed on an individual basis rather than as part of a category  – although some still retained a trace of the colour-coding with a green Penguin logo in the top corner.

Major authors added in 1970s and 1980s: Patricia Highsmith, Peter Lovesey; Robert B Parker; Ted Lewis; Clive Cussler, P D James, Scott Turow; Sara Paretsky; Elmore Leonard, Barbara Vine; Philip Kerr

To the present day
In the late 1990s Penguin dominated the women’s fiction market and the quality fiction market. But it still had time to launch two important new voices on to the crime scene: Nicci French (in 1995) and Janet Evanovich (in 1994). However it is since the start of the new millennium that Penguin is turning its might once again to a genre that dominates today’s fiction purchases. In the last two years, it has launched two new brand names in P J Tracy and Jilliane Hoffman, has added Jonathan Kellerman and Andrew Taylor to the Penguin Crime stable, as well as continuing to publish top-ten bestsellers by Nicci French, PD James, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler.

The green livery has gone, but the great heritage lives on in the Penguin backlist, in bestselling brand names, and an exciting new crop of talent. All bring suspense, compelling plots and captivating characters to ensure that once again you need look no further than the Penguin logo for the scene of the perfect crime.

Big names added in recent years: Janet Evanovich; Nicci French; Tom Clancy; Jonathan Kellerman; P J Tracy; Jilliane Hoffman; Andrew Taylor

Ah, how times have changed . . .

The cover shoutline from Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady (1960)

‘Albert Campion and that liveliest of policemen, Inspector Luke, unweave a tangle of foul play and sharp practice’

The cover shoutline from P J Tracy’s Want to Play? (2004)

‘HIDE AND SEEK. AND KILL’