Penguin Archive Project

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Penguin books were the defining experience for two or three generations of readers. This paperback publishing house transformed the range and greatly extended the availability of books to a general readership in the Twentieth Century. The Penguin Archive, a vast collection of the company's papers including letters from many authors, held at Bristol University, has much to reveal about how Penguin responded to and influenced many areas of our cultural and political lives. This research aims to establish an on-line catalogue of the Archive, enhancing both knowledge of its contents and its accessibility, for specialist researchers and general readers, both nationally and internationally. It further aims to demonstrate the rich research potential of the Archive by pioneeering research in three areas of Penguin activity: Modern Poetry; British politics and current affairs (from 1930s to 1970s); and the Greek and Latin Classics in English translations. Examples of questions which such researches will answer include: What can the evidence of Penguin Books tell us about how we have come to understand contemporary poetry? How was our taste formed and how have we come to read the particular poets that we do? How influential were the series of 'Penguin Specials' in focusing political issues - in shaping public opinion, the agenda of social and political analysis and action, and the policies of successive governments in the second half of the Twentieth Century? What role did Penguin Classics play in our modern understanding of the writings of Ancient Greece and Rome? Such investigations will serve as the initial examples of the Penguin Archive's great potential to tell us about the transformation of many aspects of twentieth-century life and will provide models for further research in a wide range of areas and academic disciplines. Penguin was in many ways the first people's publisher and this project intends to make the Penguin Archive much more accessible to the general public by way of Penguin Readers' Days, exhibitions, and a high profile on the world-wide web.