Penguin English Library

Planned in all respects to take its place alongside the Penguin Classics, the Penguin English Library will, as it grows include a comprehensive range of the literary masterpieces which have appeared in the English language since the fifteenth century.


The following first published English Library books are in my collection. I come across too many of them at very cheap prices to not pick them up to preserve. I really enjoy the covers too




EL  8:  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
EL  9:  Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

EL 14:  The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

EL 18:  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
EL 23:  Rural Rides by William Cobbett

EL 34:  The Egoist by George Meredith
EL 41:  The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

Penguin New Writing 1940-1950

Penguin's New Writing Magazine was established in 1940. The original magazine was in the original series run of Penguins but then became its own magazine.  There are a periodical with several stories in their pages and developed by John Lehmann. They are a lovely little magazine and famous authors of the time contributed to them including George Orwell.

I have the following list in my collection but am always looking for more of them to complete the series. The last issue was published in 1950.

NW  1
NW  2
NW  5
NW  6

NW  17
NW  19
NW  20
NW  21

NW  22
NW  23
NW24
NW  25

NW  26
NW  27
NW  28
NW  29

NW  30
NW  31
NW  32
NW  33

NW  34
NW  35
NW  36
NW  37

NW  38

Penguin Film Review

Vintage Film Review in my Collection

FR 1   August 1946

FR 2   January 1947

FR 3   August 1947

FR 4   October 1947

FR 5   January 1948

FR 6   April 1948

Penguin Plays

There are many vintage Penguin plays around in op shops and I have decided to collect just the first editions. I quite like the covers.  The ones I have are listed below. 

PL 17 Eugene O'Neill:  Anna Christie; The Emperor Jones; Desire Under the Elms
PL 19 Arnold Wesker:  Roots

PL 20 Lorca:  Three Tragedies (Blood Wedding; Yerma; The House of Bernarda Alba)
PL 21 Tennessee Williams:  The Rose Tattoo; Camino Real

PL 26  Bernard Kops: The Dream of Peter Mann
PL 29  Arthur Miller:  A View from the Bridge; All My Sons

PL 30  Ligi Pirandello: Right You Are! (If You Think So); All for the Best; Henry IV
PL 31  Ronald Gow: Gallows Glorious; S.I. Hsiung: Lady Precious Stream; Gordon Daviot: Richard
           of Bordeaux

PL 34  Luigi Pirandello: The Rules of the Game; The Life I Gave You; Lazarus
PL 41  J. P. Donleavy: Fairy Tales of New York

PL 47  New English Dramatists.7 (Chips with Everything by Arnold Wesker; Afore Night Come by               David Rudkin and Everything in the Garden by Giles Cooper)

PL 48  Arnold Wesker: The Wesker Trilogy (Chicken Soup with Barley; Roots; I'm Talking About
           Jerusalem
PL 53  Bernard Shaw: Heartbreak House

PL 54  Classic Irish Drama:  W.B. Yeats: The Countess Cathleen; J.M. Synge: The Playboy of the
           Western World; Sean O'Casey: Cock-a-doodle-Dandy
PL 58  Absurd Drama:  Eugene Ionesco: Amedee or How to Get Rid of It; Arthur Adamov: Professor
           Taranne; Fernando Arrabal: The Two Executioners; Edward Albee: The Zoo Story

PL 64  Hemingway: The Fifth Column
PL 70  New English Dramatists 10:  Arnold Wesker: Their Very Own and Golden City; David Pinner:
           Dickon;  Cecil Taylor:  Bread and Butter

PL 87  Rolf Hochhuth:  The Representative

Penguin's Peregrine Books

Penguin's Peregrine Books were thick dense soft cover books. I come across them quite often. They were academic books published by Penguin and the series began in January 1962.

I collect these when I come across them and only pick up first published books.

Y11  Aubrey's Brief Lives
Y12  Milton by E. M. W. Tillyard
Y18  A Critical History of English Poetry
Y25  The Rise of the Novel by Ian Watt

Y30  The Growth and Structure of Elizabethan Comedy by M. C. Bradbrook
Y35  The Englishness of English Art by Nikolaus Pevsner
Y37  The Elizabethan House of Commons by J. E. Neale
Y39  D.H. Lawrence / Novelist by F. R. Leavis
Y44  Poetry and Experience by Archibald MacLeish
Y64  Opinions and Perspectives by The New York Times Book Review
Y68  Milton's Epic Poetry (Essays on Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained) Edited by C.A. Patrides

Y70  Beyond Culture by Lionel Trilling

Penguin Illustrated Classics

Penguin Illustrated Classics 

There are limited number in this series. I hope to collect all of them. The ones I currently have in my collection are listed below.  They are defined by their woodcutting illustrations.

All books are first published Penguins unless marked otherwise.

1-     Robinson Crusoe


C-2  A Sentimental Journey by Stern 1938

C-4  Walden by Thoreau 1938

C-5  Selected Poems by Robert Browning 1938

C-6  Robinson Crusoe Vol I by Defoe 1938

C-7  Robinson Crusoe Vol II by Defoe 1938

C-8  Typee by Melville 1938

C-9  The Story of My Heart by Richard Jeffries 1938

C-10  Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift 1938

AMERICAN PENGUIN ILLUSTRATED CLASSIC

08 Walden by Thoreau 1st publ. 1942