Puffin Books is the children's imprint of British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s and '70s it has been the largest publisher of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world.^[1]

History

Four years after Penguin Books had been founded by Allen Lane, the idea for Puffin Books was born in 1939 when Noel Carrington, at the time an editor for Country Life books, met with him and proposed a series of children's non-fiction picture books, inspired by the brightly coloured lithographed books mass-produced at the time for Soviet children.^[2][3] Allen saw the potential, and the first of the picture book series were published the following year. Many continued to be reprinted right into the 1970s. A fiction list soon followed, when Puffin secured the paperback rights to Barbara Euphan Todd's Worzel Gummidge, published in hardback in 1936, and brought it out as the first Puffin story book in 1941.

The first Puffin Editor, Eleanor Graham, saw the brand through the 1940s and the struggles with paper rationing, and in the 1950s Puffin made its mark in fantasy with tales such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis and Charlotte's Web by E. B. White. Some other notable titles that Puffin acquired the paperback rights to included The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett, the first children?s fiction title to depict a working-class home, which Puffin published in 1942, the Professor Branestawm books by Norman Hunter (1946), Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (1949), and The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier (1960).

In 1961 Kaye Webb became Puffin's second Editor, as a boom began in children's publishing, and in a decade the Puffin list grew from 151 titles when she took over to 1,213 in print by 1969. Puffin obtained the paperback rights to many of the best writers of the time, including Philippa Pearce, Rosemary Sutcliff, William Mayne and Alan Garner, all-time classics including Mary Poppins, Dr Dolittle and The Hobbit, and originals such as Stig of the Dump by Clive King. The books were promoted with flair through the Puffin Club, started by Kaye Webb in 1967 with the promise to Allen Lane that "It will make children into book readers". At its height the club had 200,000 subscribers and held regular Puffin Exhibitions, and its magazine Puffin Post appeared regularly each quarter until the early 1980s. Webb continued as Editor until 1979, and the 1970s saw Puffin further augment its position with hits such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and Watership Down by Richard Adams.

The range of Picture Puffins, introduced in the late 1960s for younger children, also developed from strength to strength. Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Janet and Allan Ahlberg's Each Peach Pear Plum became and have remained firm children's favourites,^[2] as have Eric Hill's Spot the Dog and Jan Pienkowski's Meg and Mog books from the 1980s.

The 1980s saw Puffin taking full advantage of popular culture with film tie-in publishing, forming close links with the likes of Disney. It was at this time that Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone introduced the concept of adventure gamebooks to Puffin which grew into the Fighting Fantasy phenomenon.^[2]

The 1990s continued to see new writers join Puffin and in the twenty-first century the brand still sports heroes and heroines familiar with children such as Artemis Fowl, Max Gordon, Mildred Hubble and Scarlett and stars such as Kylie Minogue and Madonna have written for Puffin.^[2]

References

External Links

• The History of Puffin
• History of Puffin in the USA

---

Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article