Penguin Books

In 1935, if you wanted to read a nice book, you needed either a wealth of money or a library card. Cheap paperbacks were available, but their poor production generally tended to mirror the quality between the covers. Penguin paperbacks were the brainchild of Allen Lane, then a manager of The Bodley Head. After a weekend visiting Agatha Christie in Devon, he found himself on a platform at Exeter station searching its bookstall for something to read on his journey back to London, but discovered only popular magazines and reprints of Victorian novels.