On Thursday February 19 The Daily Telegraph featured a story about a publishing archive that has played a central role in the political and cultural development of this country, one that, thanks to an AHRC award, is set to uncover further treasures by becoming openly available in the near future.
The Penguin Archive was bequeathed to the University of Bristol by publisher Allen Lane in 1960, some 25 years after he had revolutionised the publishing industry and changed British reading habits with the introduction of cheap but good quality paperbacks. The collection, now known as the Penguin Archive, formed the nucleus of what now includes every book ever published by Penguin along with 2,300 boxes of letters, notes, reviews and design briefs related to the development of the publisher.
Among the treasures in the archive, reports the Telegraph, are letters from JB Priestley, Graham Greene, Vita Sackville-West, George Orwell, TS Eliot - and even Enid Blyton, who was drawn into the controversy surrounding the publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, first published by Penguin in 1960.
Further funding will, says the Telegraph, represent the ‘democratisation of the archive’. It goes on to say that ‘there are plenty more boxes to be opened – some of them fruit boxes – and each one will yield its treasures and its disappointments. The researchers at Bristol University are planning to put the whole thing online, so that the general public can browse through it, and they are organising several events to celebrate the fact that in 2010 Penguin will be 75 years-old, including Penguin Days, which aim to recruit as many different Penguin stories from the general public.’
To read the whole article, please go to: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4691018/History-of-Penguin-archive.html
For further information on the Archive, please go to: www.bristol.ac.uk/penguinarchiveproject
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Notes to the editor
Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,000 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute nearly a quarter of all research-active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.
Image: Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books. Courtesy of Bristol University Special Collections - Penguin Archive.