Sir Allen Lane (21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) (born Allen Lane Williams), was a British publisher who founded Penguin Books, bringing high quality, paperback fiction and non-fiction to a mass market.
Allen Lane Williams was born in Bristol to Camilla (née Lane) and Samuel Williams, and studied at Bristol Grammar School. In 1919 he joined the publishing company Bodley Head as an apprentice to his uncle and founder of the company John Lane. In t...
more
Sir Allen Lane (21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) (born Allen Lane Williams), was a British publisher who founded Penguin Books, bringing high quality, paperback fiction and non-fiction to a mass market.
Allen Lane Williams was born in Bristol to Camilla (née Lane) and Samuel Williams, and studied at Bristol Grammar School. In 1919 he joined the publishing company Bodley Head as an apprentice to his uncle and founder of the company John Lane. In the process, he and the rest of his family changed their surname to Lane to retain the childless John Lane's company as a family firm. Lane married Lettice Lucy Orr on 28 June 1941 and had three daughters. He was knighted in 1962.
He rose quickly in the business becoming managing editor in 1925 following the death of his uncle. After conflict with the board of directors who were wary at first — for fear of being prosecuted — of publishing James Joyce's controversial book Ulysses, Lane left in 1936 to set up Penguin Books. The legend goes that...
less
