Books have always been an important tool for exploring taboo topics, from war, to sex, to religion, to the way we live. Since 1935, Penguin has led the way in bringing new perspectives and provocative subject matter to readers, sparking debates, pushing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable, and, ultimately, shaping the world around us.
To celebrate this legacy, we asked Simon Prosser, Publishing Director of Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton and editor of authors including Zadie Smith, Bernardine Evaristo and Arundhati Roy, for his take on how books have shocked us across the decades. Plus, we take a look at eight more Penguin books that have had the biggest impact (you can jump to the full list by clicking here).
Simon Prosser on the books that have shocked readers
Sexual intercourse began, as Philip Larkin famously wrote, in 1963 – “Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.”
I was born in 1963 and was happy to discover the Penguin paperback of Lady Chatterley’s Lover on my parents’ bookshelves in my teens. I wasn’t shocked by D. H. Lawrence’s supposedly incendiary novel and I don’t think they were either – but we were the product of the societal changes of the 1960s. For their parents’ generation it was a different matter: shock at explicit descriptions of sex across the class divide and supposedly unprintable words led to an obscenity trial against Penguin Books – which, happily, we won.
Shock here is really a register of changing social norms: what can and can’t be said – and the shock of the new. Surprise and discomfort are effects which great writing often aims for: to wake people up, to make them see things clearly. And this is true of all the Penguin books on the following list. John Berger’s is even called Ways of Seeing.
We see the human effect of nuclear devastation in Hersey’s Hiroshima; of totalitarianism in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, of patriarchy – and totalitarianism again – in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. And that seeing can feel a shock.
Sometimes the shock can take unwanted forms – a trial, a ban, a violent backlash – but great books can withstand them. Indeed, nearly all the books on this list are still in print today.
My top pick: Ways of Seeing by John Berger
An astonishing 1972 TV series which became an equally astonishing book, everything about Ways of Seeing refreshes and makes things new. Even the look of the book – actually a collaboration between five people, with seven essays which can be read in any order – is fresh. Mixing text and image in a strikingly blocky, modernist design, with the opening paragraphs memorably printed on the front cover, it makes us see art criticism in an entirely new way – literally.
As writer and cultural critic Olivia Laing puts it, Ways of Seeing was "a vessel for carrying electrifying new ideas" – from feminism in particular, such as the concept of the male gaze – "into the mainstream", from which they were then dispersed globally. A revolutionary book, which I still turn to regularly.
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8 more Penguin books that shocked society
Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)
While the Allied countries were celebrating the end of the Second World War, the devastating impact of the United States’ attack on Hiroshima was still playing out on an incomprehensible scale. John Hersey’s account of the atomic bomb’s detonation and aftermath filled an entire issue of the New Yorker magazine in August 1946. Penguin founder Allen Lane went on to secure the UK rights to publish it in November that year, as part of Penguin’s World Affairs series. Hersey’s style of writing, which merged compelling narrative storytelling with matter-of-fact reporting, stunned readers and is widely seen as the precursor to the New Journalism movement that took off in American literature in the 1960s and '70s.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)
One of the best-known books of the 20th Century, Nineteen Eighty-Four offered a chilling dystopian vision of an authoritarian surveillance state that captured the imaginations of readers across the political spectrum. Its critical and commercial success continued when it became a Penguin paperback in 1954. While it may have seemed shocking to readers at the time, presenting a horrific vision of the near-future, Nineteen Eighty-Four has continued to resonate with new generations of readers who see prescient parallels with the world around them.
Refugees 1960 by Kaye Webb and Ronald Searle (1960)
In 1960, 15 years after World War II ended, there were still 110,000 refugees displaced, searching for safety and stability. Puffin Books editor Kaye Webb and her husband, cartoonist and St Trinian’s creator Ronald Searle, were invited by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to visit refugee camps across Europe in a bid to “stir pity, open pocket-books, and even relax restrictions” with firsthand accounts of what they saw. The result was a moving report that opened readers’ eyes to the plight of refugees and made the horrific circumstances they were living in impossible to ignore. All proceeds from the book’s sale went to the UK Committee of the World Refugee Year, which collectively raised millions of pounds.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence (1960)
While on holiday in Spain in August 1960, Penguin founder Allen Lane received an urgent telegram from his colleagues: “LEGAL ACTION IMMINENT STOP ADVISE YOUR IMMEDIATE RETURN”. The legal action was over Penguin’s publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover which, due to its explicit language and depictions of sex, was being challenged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, resulting in one of the most famous literary trials of all time. To avoid conviction, Penguin had to demonstrate that the work had literary merit, and brought in witnesses from author E.M. Forster to the Bishop of Woolwich to make its case. When the court ruled in favour of Penguin, a second edition was published which sold more than 3 million copies within a year.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
Dystopian fiction has long been a vehicle for exploring shocking ideas. Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed novel, in which fertile women are forced to bear children, is one such example, and has sparked fierce debate around patriarchy, the subjugation of women and how the interplay between religion and politics can further women’s oppression. The book’s recognisable imagery, including the now iconic red-and-white Handmaids’ uniform, has become a shorthand for resistance in the face of political authoritarianism and oppression, particularly when it comes to reproductive rights. It was also among the dystopian novels that returned to bestseller lists in the wake of the 2024 US Presidential Election.
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988)
Salman Rushdie’s 1988 magical realist novel, about two Indian actors who survive a terrorist attack and try to understand their survival, won the prestigious Whitbread Award and was shortlisted for The Booker Prize. But its critical success was soon overshadowed by violent controversy. The novel’s depiction of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad was considered blasphemous by some in the Islamic community, prompting book burnings, violent demonstrations, the bombing of several bookstores, nation-wide bans in several countries (including in India, which was only repealed in 2024), and Iran’s then-Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa that called for the killing of Rushdie. This culminated in a violent attempt on Rushdie’s life during a reading event in August 2022, the trauma and aftermath of which inspired his 2024 memoir Knife.
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (1993)
Dystopian tales and magical realism may have shaped a great deal of 20th-Century controversy and conversation, but so too did the books that explored the real world around us through a gritty, irreverent lens. Published in 1993, Irvine Welsh’s iconic and generation-defining novel Trainspotting left readers divided. Many praised its use of bad language, sex, violence and unflinching drug abuse written largely in the Scots dialect, while others saw it as morally repugnant on account of its portrayal of heroin use. The book proved so controversial that, after being longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 1993, it was reportedly culled from the shortlist after two judges threatened to walk out over the matter.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (1964 / 2014 Modern Classics edition)
Sometimes it’s a book’s cover, not its contents, that prompts a backlash. Such was the case in 2014, when a Penguin Modern Classics edition of Roald Dahl’s beloved novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hit the shelves. Designed to appeal to adults, Quentin Blake’s recognisable illustrations were replaced by a photograph of a heavily made-up young girl looking like a doll, sitting on her mother’s knee and wearing a feather boa. The edition sparked a fervent debate about how a book’s cover imagery can (or should) represent an author’s work. In a statement, Penguin said the unsettling image was used to reflect the way Dahl’s writing “manages to embrace both the light and the dark aspects of life”.